Complaints About Complex Discount Methods and Rates
Temporary Outage of Alibaba Cloud Server Access
Chinese e-commerce companies once again withheld sales performance data related to the largest shopping festival, Guanggunjie (Double 11). While the industry highlighted delivery volumes and individual brand sales, private estimates suggest that the event's performance worsened compared to last year. Some voices expressed dissatisfaction, saying that the discount methods are overly complicated and the actual discount rates are not high.
According to local media such as Caixin and The Economic Daily on the 13th, Chinese e-commerce companies like Alibaba and JD.com did not disclose their sales results for this year's Guanggunjie (November 11). However, private estimates analyze that sales actually decreased compared to last year, when the COVID-19 outbreak was spreading.
Alibaba, the industry leader and the founder of Guanggunjie, did not reveal sales figures for Taobao and Tmall. This is the second consecutive year it has withheld results, following last year's poor performance when it first failed to disclose figures. However, it announced that there were 402 brands with sales exceeding 1 billion yuan, and transactions for 38,000 brands increased by more than 100% compared to last year.
JD.com claimed that sales, orders, and user numbers all hit new records. However, it did not specify the exact sales amount. It explained that sales for over 60 brands surpassed 1 billion yuan, and sales for 20,000 brands tripled compared to last year. Additionally, the China National Post announced that on the 11th, nationwide express delivery volume reached a total of 639 million parcels, a 15.76% increase from the previous year. This volume is 1.87 times the usual amount.
Chinese market research firm Xintudata announced that the total sales of comprehensive e-commerce platforms such as Tmall, JD.com, and Pinduoduo from 8 PM on the 10th to midnight on the 11th amounted to 277.6 billion yuan (approximately 50.1567 trillion won), a 9.75% decrease compared to the previous year.
Major foreign media outlets such as Bloomberg and the Associated Press diagnosed that the enthusiasm for Guanggunjie is not the same as before. Bloomberg evaluated, "Guanggunjie, a barometer of Chinese consumer sentiment, fell short of expectations even after economic activities resumed following the transition to 'with COVID-19'."
Some local media reported that consumer dissatisfaction grew due to increasingly complicated methods to purchase goods cheaply during Guanggunjie and discount rates being lower than announced. The Economic Daily reported related cases, saying, "Discounts and red envelopes (a type of bonus coupon) are available when spending certain amounts like 300 yuan or 600 yuan, but in practice, these were sometimes not properly applied at the time of purchase."
One consumer vented on social media, "I canceled all my orders after seeing that items were sold cheaper on Zhibo (live streaming) than in the pre-purchase paid in advance," while another wrote, "After a month and a half of careful planning, I got angry and requested a refund after realizing I bought a TV for only 1 yuan cheaper." Some even declared, "This year will be my last Guanggunjie shopping."
It was also reported that Alibaba-affiliated sites experienced unprecedented server outages. On local social media like Weibo, search terms such as "Taobao is down" and "DingTalk is down" ranked high the previous evening. According to Alibaba, abnormal access issues occurred with Ali Cloud from around 5 PM that day and were restored around 7 PM.
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