China 101
Shopping and festivals
The platforms and shopping holidays behind the world's biggest e-commerce market.
Singles' Day
双十一
The November 11 shopping festival that Alibaba turned from an unofficial student holiday into the largest retail event in the world.
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.
Taobao
淘宝
Alibaba's vast consumer marketplace, founded in 2003, where millions of merchants sell essentially everything and much of Chinese online shopping culture was invented.
Pinduoduo
拼多多
The price-first e-commerce platform that rose on group buying and farm-direct goods to challenge Alibaba and JD, and the parent of the international app Temu.
JD.com
京东
China's second-largest e-commerce company, built on self-operated inventory and its own logistics network, with a reputation for authentic goods and same-day delivery.
Livestream e-commerce
直播带货
Selling products through live video hosts who demonstrate items and push limited-time deals, a retail format China scaled into a hundreds-of-billions-of-yuan industry.