BEIJING, May 25 (Xinhua) -- Alibaba's online marketplace Tmall kicked off its annual "618" (June 18) online shopping festival on Monday, with pre-sales during the first hour surging 515 percent year-on-year, reported the Xinhua-run China Securities Journal.
In particular, within seven minutes after pre-sales started, the turnover of consumer electronics and home decoration articles topped 100 million yuan, and that of cosmetics exceeded 500 million yuan.
The festival, an annual sales-promotion campaign of Chinese e-commerce giants since 2010, has become a much-participated mid-year shopping event in China.
Tmall's "618" online shopping event this year will formally start sales on June 1 and last until June 20.
According to the report, during this year's festival, Tmall would cooperate with local governments and suppliers of famous brand products to offer consumers with consumption vouchers and subsidies exceeding 10 billion yuan so as to spur consumption.
Suppliers of more than 100,000 brands have applied to join Tmall's 618 shopping event this year, doubling the number for last year. Also to take part in the event will be more than 600 business executives who will hold live promotion activities on Tmall.
In its past fiscal year, Tmall saw 2,200 brands each realize sales of more than 100 million yuan, and the figure is expected to rise further during this year's online shopping festival, said Jia Luo, a Tmall official in charge of the 618 online shopping event. (Edited by Su Dan with Xinhua Silk Road, silviasu07@163.com)
A single purchase
