Is this the end of the 618 Shopping Festival?

The longest shopping festival in china ended on 18 june and sales reached a record high.

The platform that started the 618 shopping festival 18 years ago saw a record high number of users, thanks to the extended duration of the event.

The number of online and offline orders grew by over 100%.

The state-backed consumer subsidies for electrical appliances, consumer electronics.

Homeware was one of the main contributors to the 618 shopping festival.

The introduction of subsidies at the beginning of this year has led many consumers in the market to make their purchases already.

There have been anecdotal reports that some items enjoyed less discount than the international women's day sales in march.

Commentators in china have been calling for an end to top streamers.

Phasing out or simply changed the way they operate.

First of all, many big names participated in the 618 livestream sales, such as xinba (辛巴), austin li jiaqi (李佳琦) and dong yuhui (董宇辉) of walking with hui (与辉同行).

Many of them significantly on their channel, especially xinba and dong yuhui.

Xinba only appeared on 2 streams in may, and dong appeared on 9 livestreams over the course of the festival, while li jiaqi appeared on 6 in june.

However, xinba sold a whopping (556.44 million usd) on his first stream, while li jiaqi earned between 2.5 and 3.5 billion rmb (347.78 and 486.89 million usd) and dong, 176 million rmb (24.48 million usd).

Meanwhile, the top streamers are growing their team to make up for their reduced presence.

Xinba’s apprentice dandan (蛋蛋) earned an impressive 1 billion rmb (139.11 million usd) on her first stream this 618, proving that it is doable.

However, luo yonghao (罗永浩) of be friends (交个朋友) took a different path.

On 15 june, luo appeared on baidu’s he only knew minute details about the products and his facial expressions were off, but he did not personally appear on the stream.

Digital human doppelgänger.

The co-host was also a digital human.

A 97,000-word script and the 8,300 movements were all created by ai, uncanny to luo’s style and mannerisms.

He later posted on weibo, china’s twitter equivalent, that he was stunned by the stunt proved another way to replace top streamers.

The generation tool helped many apparel merchants create modelling videos from photoshoots.

This year saw more being deployed for sales, as well as a food delivery platform with its "instant retail" arm.

East buy is launching its own brand of sanitary pads, while rednote did not participate in the 618 sales.

The focus this year is on people, and how to reach the right audience, as many pundits commented.

It is possible that we will see a different 618 next year or a more diverse sales strategy that is not anchored to large-scale festivals.