𝟗 𝐐𝐮𝐞𝐬𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧𝐬 𝐓𝐨 𝐀𝐬𝐤 𝐁𝐞𝐟𝐨𝐫𝐞 𝐂𝐡𝐢𝐧𝐚'𝐬 𝐒𝐢𝐧𝐠𝐥𝐞𝐬 𝐃𝐚𝐲

At Chinas 618 shopping festival this year, the big e-commerce platforms grew 0.9%. Instant retail grew 112%.

Instant retail means delivery from a nearby store, often within 30 minutes, and it grew from a small base with heavy subsidies behind it. Both figures are estimates from Syntun, a Chinese retail data firm, but the pattern is hard to miss: the pie is barely growing, and the slices are moving between channels.

In a flat market - retail sales grew 1.1% from January to August - vague questions get expensive. Asking how big Double 11 will be cannot tell a team what to fund, what to cut or what to protect.

So I rewrote nine common planning questions into sharper ones, each answerable with a number, a name or a decision:

1. The money: where the budget goes, what each order really earns after returns and fees, and who pays for each discount.

2. The channels: whether shopping assistants like Qwen and Doubao recommend you, whether 30-minute delivery brings incremental sales, and where your best clients buy.

3. The control: how your price history looks to a machine, whether a regulator could call an offer a fake discount, and who keeps the customer data.

If you do not sell in China, read it as a preview rather than a template, because most of the nine apply to Black Friday too.

Which one would you take into your next planning meeting, and what would you add?

#Double11 #SinglesDay #ChinaRetail #RetailStrategy #AgenticCommerce

Contact

bruno.gentil@sherpaconsultingasia.com

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