This year’s Singles’ Day sales period will be the longest yet as Chinese companies look to maximize revenues. JD.com, Xiaohongshu, and ByteDance's Douyin are among those hoping to get a head start over sale originator, Alibaba. Whether this year’s Singles’ Day turns into a price war depends on how strictly Beijing chooses to stem “disorderly” competition in the retail sector. While the government is unlikely to apply new competition guidelines too strictly this Singles Day, given the event’s importance to businesses and its role as a barometer of consumer confidence, the rules will inform how Alibaba, JD.com, and their peers approach pricing in the future.

Recent data on ecommerce in Indonesia highlights evolving patterns in online purchasing behavior, including social commerce.

Under Armour’s turnaround gained momentum: But the company’s sales still fell 10% on a currency-neutral basis—a marked contrast with Puma, which reported a 5% jump in revenues.

China’s Singles’ Day continues to top the charts, but the vitality of the world’s biggest shopping event is being called into question amid lukewarm recovery of retail sales. As a result, participating brands are focusing on building sustainable customer loyalty with innovative shopping experiences.

The metaverse is expected to be a major disruptor across industries, but it's still early days for the emerging realm. In this report, we look at how different markets are embarking on their own metaverse business models.

Singles' Day—China’s annual shopping extravaganza in November—is the world’s biggest shopping event, with an estimated RMB 965.1 billion ($139.83 billion) in sales this year, according to the China e-Business Research Center.

For years, luxury brands around the world have been slow to adopt digital. But the pandemic has sped up the process, forcing many to pivot and innovate during a time when a large number of transactions are happening digitally.

Singles' Day, which took place last month, registered another record-breaking year. Annual sales growth on leading ecommerce platforms Alibaba and JD.com rose 85.6% and 32.8%, to RMB 498.2 billion ($72.1 billion) and RMB 271.5 billion ($ 39.3 billion) respectively.

China’s Singles’ Day is no longer just a discount shopping event, as participating digital giants are now leveraging livestreams, new product launches, and novel technologies to enhance customer engagement and the buying experience.

eMarketer senior analyst Bill Fisher hosts senior forecasting analyst Cindy Liu, research analyst Man-Chung Cheung, researcher Xiaodi Xu, and research analyst at Insider Intelligence Matteo Ceurvels to discuss holiday shopping around the world. They talk about the origins of Thanksgiving weekend shopping, why China's Singles' Day is the largest shopping holiday in the world, and how the Buen Fin in Mexico is adapting in 2020.

In April, Wayfair celebrated its second annual Way Day, a “holiday” dedicated to better-than-Black-Friday deals. The retailer saw double-digit sales growth over the first Way Day, as well as an increased number of orders and unique customers, according to an April 2019 report from Edison Trends. Better timing, an extended sales period and greater consumer offerings helped the retailer achieve these metrics.

Singles' Day racked up another year of double-digit growth, and consumers around the world spent more than $1 billion in the first 90 seconds of the day. But as the annual shopping event enters its second decade, growth is slowing and expectations are being revised. eMarketer's Man-Chung Cheung was on the ground in Shanghai on Nov. 11. He and analyst Andrew Lipsman join Marcus Johnson to discuss the shopping event and what comes next.

Singles’ Day is the world’s biggest shopping event, and Black Friday is just around the corner. Holiday shopping is a major driver of retail and ecommerce around the world, but spending and which holidays drive the most activity vary by region.

Alibaba's Singles' Day is expected to be the biggest selling day for smart speakers in China, and a key driver to adoption in the market.

This eMarketer StatPack lays out statistics around the major shopping holidays in Asia-Pacific that drive shopping in similar ways as Western holidays such as Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year’s Day. In China, Japan and Indonesia, Singles’ Day drives ecommerce activity in November. Indonesia also has a holiday in Q4 known as Harbolnas. India celebrates the gift-giving holiday of Diwali in the fall. South Korea’s Q4 holiday shopping centers around the recently launched “Korea Sale Festa,” while Australia has a November “Click Frenzy” sales day that fuels ecommerce holiday shopping.