Singles’ Day’s New Springboards for Growth 

China’s Singles’ Day which Alibaba helped develop into one of the world’s biggest shopping festivals is widely recognized as being the launch pad for new online initiatives and technologies. We asked veteran observer of retail across China, Deborah Weinswig, Founder and CEO of Coresight Research, to summarise the most exciting new developments deployed by China’s biggest retail players during the 2025 shopping festival and to highlight what they mean for retail globally.  

For the major e-commerce platforms, AI and instant commerce were two hallmarks of a successful Singles’ Day 2025—and we think that holds learnings for companies far beyond e-commerce in China.  

What are the insights for retailers?  

First, AI generates real value for shoppers and sellers. In Singles’ Day 2025, AI enabled sellers to list more quickly and create content more effectively. It also helped sellers to price more intelligently, presenting margin benefits in cases where sellers could pull back on discounts. Shoppers enjoyed greater information through shopping assistants and visual search, and a more informed purchase is likely to result in fewer returns than would otherwise have been the case—another win for sellers. We believe these benefits of pricing more intelligently and driving down returns are underrecognized as potential gains from AI in digital commerce and are ones with significance for retail platforms worldwide.  

Second, instant commerce (or quick commerce) is reshaping how consumers use e-commerce. It is eroding physical stores’ traditional competitive advantages of convenience and immediacy versus e-commerce’s traditional multi-day shipping. And instant commerce is expanding from its roots in restaurant and grocery orders to the kind of general merchandise bought during shopping festivals. Globally, we see this trend adding renewed momentum to digital retail, even if quick-commerce orders are often fulfilled from local stores. This means that retailers with stores should continue to review the role of their real estate—particularly, what purposes those stores should serve now that immediacy can be served through other routes.  

What we learned from the major platforms and Coresight Research data  

Alibaba reported that Tmall had the strongest growth in Singles’ Day gross merchandise volume (GMV) in four years (excluding refunds). AI tools helped Alibaba merchants raise operational efficiency by 150%, and AI customer service managed 300 million inquiries. Quick commerce daily order volumes via Taobao Instant Commerce grew by 198% compared to September. 

We heard a similar story from JD.com, which introduced AI tools for merchants, including GenAI-based customer service and intelligent assistants, which the company said shortened customer wait times and boosted seller performance. Instant-commerce platform JD NOW evolved into a core component of JD’s instant retail offering during Singles’ Day 2025. Instant commerce aside, JD said that AI in its logistics operations had enabled 95% of all orders to be fulfilled within 24 hours. The company reported that the total number of shoppers increased by 40% and that total orders grew by nearly 60% compared with last year. 

Meanwhile, Coresight Research data found a jump in shopper participation on Singles’ Day this year. Participation rose from 67.4% of China-based respondents in 2024 to 82.7% in 2025—a 15.3-percentage-point increase. This was even as more than four in 10 consumers in China told us that concerns regarding tariffs had constrained their shopping activity for this year’s festival.  

Amid the reported efficiency gains, we think the strength of Singles’ Day sales this year provides further proof of the potential for AI and instant commerce to be springboards for stronger and more profitable digital sales growth. At Coresight Research, we’re here to support our clients in seizing these opportunities and becoming stronger competitors.