Asian Tech Press (Nov 12) -- Chinese e-commerce platforms started to keep a low profile this year on what should have been an extremely lively Singles Day amid antitrust pressure.
The Singles Day, which was carefully selected by Alibaba in 2009 to carry the double meaning of "Bachelors' Day"and "Shopping Carnival," should have been a night of revelry on November 11, 2021, when everyone looked like they got fired up.
Since November 11, 2009, when Alibaba-owned e-commerce platform Tmall formally launched the concept of the "Singles Day event," the frequent scrolling of sales reports on the electronic screen on November 11 every year has been one of the features of Singles Day.
However, the evening of this year's Singles Day was unusually quiet, without the precise and frequent updates of real-time sales data from e-commerce platforms, and without the various "battle reports" thrown up joyfully by brands and merchants.
Although Tmall announced some of its Singles Day sales data at 2:00 or 3:00 a.m. Thursday, it did not disclose the specific gross merchandise volume (GMV) as it did in previous years. While one of its strongest rivals JD.com also released sales data for some categories in the early hours of the day, but the specific sales figures did not come in until late that afternoon.
Such a low profile may be related to the antitrust crackdown in China this year. Earlier, Alibaba, the parent company of Tmall, was fined a record of 18.228 billion yuan ($2.8 billion) for abusing its dominant position over competitors and merchants on its e-commerce platforms.
And Meituan, a Chinese food delivery and e-commerce giant, was fined 3.442 billion (534 million) for conducting anticompetitive behaviors such as "two-choose-one."
Under the anti-monopoly pressure, Chinese leading companies such as Alibaba, JD.com and Pinduoduo are facing tight regulation on their e-commerce platforms. And the e-commerce platforms are beginning to learn to keep a low profile, no longer actively announcing their sales results as in previous years, and no longer holding high-profile parties for celebration.
