Singles Day transactions in China rose 17.6% YoY to 1.7 trillion yuan ($240 billion), according to Syntun, marking a slowdown from last year’s 26.6% gain despite extended campaigns and heavy promotions from Alibaba and JD.com. Platforms poured billions into vouchers and discounts, but longer sale periods diluted urgency and limited impact. The event’s waning momentum highlights China’s broader economic challenges—rising frugality, youth unemployment, and deflationary pressures. To reignite excitement, platforms may need to move away from drawn-out promotions toward shorter, high-impact campaigns that restore Singles Day’s original urgency and appeal.

Digital’s rapid adoption in recent years has made it the dominant medium with which people spend time in China, Japan, and South Korea, with consumption booming in India.

Turbulence in trade relations is changing how China’s ecommerce platforms do business in the US, with spillover effects on US retail and advertising.

PDD misses expectations as competitive pressures erode price advantage: The ecommerce company expects challenges to continue in the short-term as domestic and international rivals gain an edge.

China’s retail sales ticked up in October: But mixed results from JD.com and Alibaba show that retailers still face significant headwinds.

Alibaba and JD.com tout Singles Day successes, but the data is murky: While transactions rose 27% YoY, the sale was 10 days longer than last year, making it an uncertain gauge of consumer sentiment.

Like many other payment providers globally, Alibaba is opening up its walled garden to fight off antitrust scrutiny

No other market in the world comes close to China when it comes to ecommerce. Its highly competitive digital market has spurred retail innovations that are making their way around the world.

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.

US retail mcommerce sales grew 41.4% during the pandemic year of 2020 and are set to double from this elevated base by 2025. This report looks at what’s driving this growth and how sellers should respond.

China continues to lead the world in all things ecommerce, including innovation. Social commerce livestreaming is just one of many new stories for 2021 and beyond.

NTWRK pushes live shopping in the US: The livestream-centric mobile marketplace is competing with giants like Amazon and Facebook as US companies emulate China and struggle to succeed in the fledgeling livestreaming ecommerce space.

The digital divide has widened, particularly over the past year, and left seniors worldwide in the lurch. This issue takes on added urgency in China, where gender imbalance, delayed marriage, and a declining birthrate only exacerbate the rapid aging of its population. In November, the government urged tech companies to cater to the elderly, and China’s digital giants are now tapping into the so-called silver market.

Livestreaming has become a prominent feature across the social media and digital video landscapes. Here’s how marketers are taking advantage of opportunities within the space.

Global retail ecommerce sales will decelerate to a 16.5% growth rate in 2020. Even as consumers transitioned en masse to ecommerce during the pandemic, the drag caused by multiple recessions internationally has reduced the overall outlook.

The effects of the coronavirus pandemic are turbocharging digital transformation in China's retail sector—and the country is already leading the world in terms of retail ecommerce sales and penetration.

As shelter-at-home and quarantine measures keep consumers in China at home, brands ramped up their efforts to meet consumers' high expectations for digital services by offering free online tools and courses, streaming live events and adopting new ecommerce strategies.

China has proven to be a hotbed for digital innovations, especially in the past few years. During this time, marketers worldwide have observed the latest trends coming out of the country, applying what they learn to their own markets.

When a B2B company is starting to build or assess its current marketplace strategy, understanding the different marketplace options is a first step. For our “B2B Marketplaces 2019” report, we analyzed the top three B2B marketplaces in the US—Amazon Business, Alibaba and Thomas—along with an overview of what makes their platforms work for both buyers and sellers.

The global retail market will reach $25.038 trillion in 2019, an increase of 4.5% and a slight acceleration in growth vs. the prior year, per our estimates. At the same time, it represents a marked decline from the five years preceding that, when global retail sales grew at rates between 5.7% and 7.5% each year.