China’s biggest mid-year shopping event is telling two stories at once. Consumer demand remains stubbornly soft, and artificial intelligence is quietly becoming the main character of the entire operation.
The “618” festival, named for its June 18 anchor date and traditionally one of China’s largest online retail events, has long served as a barometer for the health of Chinese consumer spending. This year, the signal is mixed: platforms are leaning harder than ever into AI-powered tools, but the underlying demand picture continues to disappoint.
The numbers behind the slowdown
Chinese e-commerce festivals used to be a reliable growth story. That narrative started cracking in 2024, when the 618 festival posted its first-ever decline in Gross Merchandise Value, dropping 7% year-over-year to 742.8 billion yuan (roughly $103B at the time).
The 2025 edition staged a nominal comeback, hitting a record 855.6 billion yuan in GMV. But that headline number was misleading. Platforms had stretched promotional windows wider than ever, meaning the daily spending rate actually showed little improvement.
