China’s annual 618 shopping festival has smashed sales records, propelled by a surge in trade-in programs and the growing influence of artificial intelligence (AI) in retail.
The festival, which originally launched around June 18 but now spans several weeks, has evolved into a major mid-year shopping extravaganza. This year, it highlighted a significant shift towards high-quality, upgraded consumption among Chinese shoppers.
E-commerce giant JD.com reported over 2.2 billion orders across its online, delivery, and offline channels as of midnight Wednesday. The number of customers placing orders more than doubled compared to last year. Rival platform Tmall also experienced unprecedented engagement, with 453 brands each surpassing 100 million yuan (approximately $13.94 million) in sales—a 24 percent increase from 2022.
Trade-In Programs Boost Consumer Spending
A nationwide trade-in initiative has been a key driver of this year’s strong consumer spending. The program encourages households to exchange old goods for new ones, stimulating demand across sectors from home appliances to automobiles. Backed by 300 billion yuan in ultra-long special treasury bonds and additional local government support, the trade-in schemes have made big-ticket purchases more accessible.
Both JD.com and Tmall launched dedicated trade-in channels that combine government subsidies with platform discounts, allowing shoppers to save thousands of yuan. The impact was evident across major categories on JD.com, with mobile device sales rising 88 percent year on year and home appliance sales soaring by 161 percent.
Instant Retail: The New Growth Driver
A standout trend of this year’s festival was the boom in instant retail—a form of on-demand shopping with ultra-fast delivery that integrates online and offline channels. JD.com’s takeaway service expanded rapidly, with full-time couriers increasing to over 120,000 by June 17, up from 100,000 just two weeks earlier. Daily orders exceeded 25 million as of June 1, and more than 1.5 million branded restaurants have joined the platform.
Meanwhile, Meituan’s 618 flash sales saw transactions in over 50 high-value categories more than double year on year. Smart devices led the surge with an eightfold increase, while e-learning products saw a fivefold rise.
Lifestyle Consumption Gains Momentum
The shopping season also highlighted a new wave of lifestyle-focused consumption, as spending extended beyond daily essentials into areas like collectibles, pet care, and leisure activities. Tmall reported strong triple-digit growth in overseas orders for “guzi” merchandise—a term for spin-off goods tied to anime, music, and gaming—with most items linked to domestic intellectual properties. Pet products also experienced a spike, with 653 brands doubling their sales in the first hour of the festival.
Industry data showed that gross merchandise volume in ticketing jumped nearly 556 percent year on year, while leisure and entertainment grew by 55.4 percent, and streaming services increased by 54.84 percent.
AI-Powered Retail Enhances Efficiency
Artificial intelligence played a significant role in this year’s 618 festival, helping merchants reduce costs and innovate in consumer engagement. JD.com reported that its use of large language models increased by 130 percent compared to last year’s Singles’ Day event in November.
Over 14,000 AI agents and digital employees were deployed across the platform, and 17,000 merchants utilized virtual hosts for livestreaming. These AI presenters cost just a tenth of their human counterparts. “We used AI to instantly generate try-on videos by selecting outfits, models, and scenes,” said a manager from a fashion brand. “It helped us rapidly build a video library and enhance visual presentation during the sales rush.”
JD Cloud introduced five free AI-powered marketing tools for select merchants, with its digital avatars supporting over 13,000 brands. Taobao also launched an image-to-video tool that produced more than 1.5 million promotional clips for merchants in just over a month.
