China 101
618 Shopping Festival
618
China's second-largest shopping festival, held around June 18, originally the anniversary sale of the e-commerce company JD.com.
618 refers to June 18, the founding anniversary of JD.com, one of China's two biggest e-commerce companies. What started as JD's birthday sale has become a mid-year shopping season that every platform joins, making it the second major retail event of the year after Singles' Day.
Like Singles' Day, 618 has stretched from a single day into several weeks of presales and promotions. It is especially important for electronics and home appliances, JD.com's traditional strengths, but discounts now cover every category. In recent years the platforms have also used 618 to push their newest battlegrounds: livestream commerce, instant retail, and AI shopping assistants.
When Chinese media reports 618 sales data, analysts read it as a temperature check on consumer confidence, so the festival doubles as an economic indicator.