BEIJING: China’s Singles’ Day, the worlds largest online shopping festival which falls on Nov 11 every year, is losing its shine, with less marketing hype and a crackdown on the technology industry.

Singles’ Day has been viewed as the largest online marketing event of the year. It is heavily advertised for weeks ahead of time with brands and merchants offering deep discounts to attract consumers looking for bargains.

But shoppers say deep discounts of what is also called “Double Eleven” are now a thing of the past and experts are predicting lower sales as the economy slows.

This year, Alibaba, the e-commerce platform that pioneered the online shopping festival more than a decade ago, decided not to showcase a running tally of its real-time gross merchandise volume (GMV) defined as the amount of transactions racked up across its platform on its site for Nov 11.

Chinese regulators have cracked down on technology companies, investigating giants like Alibaba and food delivery firm Meituan over alleged anti-competitive practices.

Earlier this year, Alibaba was fined a record $2.8 billion for violating antitrust rules. Ahead of Singles Day, Alibaba, rival JD.com and Meituan were among companies asked to curb excessive marketing text messages sent to consumers during the festival.

Last week, 16 e-commerce platform operators some of which are linked to Alibaba and Meituan were also summoned by regulators in the southern province of Guangdong and warned over unfair competition.

Published in Dawn, November 12th, 2021