BEIJING: Alibaba Group Holding is gearing up to kick-start its iconic Singles Day shopping festival with wide-ranging discounts and widespread support for merchants, as the Hangzhou-based e-commerce giant eases pressure on consumer spending amid the escalating economic crisis in China. tries to reduce.

Alibaba is promoting a membership system for brands to increase sales during the annual shopping festival, which begins on November 11, along with various support measures to reduce costs and increase traffic.

According to the company, more than 40 merchants have 10 million or more members on Tmall, Alibaba's business-to-consumer platform, giving them a solid foundation to meet sales goals.

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Tmall is partnering with nearly 30 industrial groups to provide training before the big sales event, including women's apparel manufacturers in Guangzhou, the capital of southern Guangdong province, men's apparel manufacturers in Suzhou, shoemakers in southeastern Jiangsu province and Wenzhou, eastern Zhejiang. Manufacturers included. province. The Singles Day pre-sale will start from October 24.

Meanwhile, ahead of the shopping festival, merchants and live-streamers have already sent messages to the public in an effort to capture the attention of consumers.

Austin Li Jiaqi, the 'Lipstick King', who recently returned to Taobao Live after a three-month absence, has published details of some of the products he will sell through his Weibo account during the event, as well as the prices. also with.

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EasyHome New Retail Group Corporation, a Shenzhen-listed department store firm, said in an article published on its official WeChat account earlier this week that it would receive additional requests from Alibaba to meet its sales goals during this year's sales fest. Help was coming.

This year's edition of the world's largest online shopping festival will take place against the backdrop of slowing GDP growth, domestic asset crunch and the impact of the strict COVID-19 lockdown, all of which are weighing on consumer sentiment. Retail sales, on the other hand, outperformed expectations, growing 5.4 per cent year-on-year in August from 2.7 per cent in July.

Alibaba reported a 50% decline in net income in the June quarter to 22.74 billion yuan (US$3.4 billion) in August from 45.14 billion yuan in the same period last year. Revenue was essentially 205.56 billion yuan in the previous quarter, up from 205.74 billion yuan in the previous year.

In an August conference call, Alibaba's president and CEO, Daniel Zhang Yong, said gross merchandise volume (GMV) -- a measure of the value of goods sold -- on Taobao and Tmall was "mid-single-digit percentage year on year". " fell down. "During the June quarter.

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Last year, Alibaba said that the GMV would total 540.3 billion yuan during the 11-day Singles Day event in 2021.
Citic Securities said in a research note that the discounts Alibaba is preparing for this year's event are deeper than last year's and are almost at the same level seen during the June 18 shopping festival this year.

According to the report, despite the company's short-term challenges, analysts remain optimistic about sales.