China’s e-commerce discount race to the bottom puts incumbents under pressure

Discount e-commerce is set to dominate globally during the critical upcoming holiday shopping season in the West and Singles’ Day in China, analysts said. Platforms in China, the world’s largest e-commerce market, have recently described a “value-for-money battle” stoked by economic insecurity and a slower-than-expected retail recovery following the lifting of COVID-19 curbs late last year. In much of the rest of the world, meanwhile, from Southeast Asia to North America and Europe, consumers are in the thrall of fast-growing platforms, like PDD Holdings' Temu and Bytedance-owned TikTok Shop, which ship cheap goods from China at a time when cost-of-living is front of mind for many.