Why Is This Year's 618 Shopping Festival So Quiet?

Everyone asks what they bought during this year's 618. Apart from routine purchases, the author bought a newly released book on mathematical modeling, noting that media coverage of the event has been scarce.

No Money?

In previous years, the festival was flooded with friend‑circle posts, hot‑search trends, splash‑screen ads, and exaggerated GMV reports. This year, however, the atmosphere was unusually quiet.

National Bureau of Statistics data for Q1 2026 show a nominal 5.0% year‑on‑year increase in median per‑capita disposable income, a real 2.0% rise in urban per‑capita consumption, and a 1.2% rise in CPI in May. With income up and prices not falling, the literal claim of "no money" does not hold.

Another set of numbers tells a different story: the year‑on‑year growth rate of total retail sales of consumer goods fell from 2.8% in January‑February to –0.6% in May, a rare monthly negative growth in this economic cycle. Income continues to rise, but the speed of spending is systematically slowing – not because wallets are empty, but because the willingness to spend is actively contracting.

This "spending the money you should spend but holding back" behavior is called preventive savings: when households become uncertain about future income, they tend to save more and spend less even if current income has not declined, to hedge against possible future risks.

The International Monetary Fund’s assessment of China’s economy explicitly points out that high preventive savings and weak consumer confidence are structural reasons behind the current weakness in domestic demand. Domestic research institutions have observed a similar phenomenon: the apparent stabilization of consumption propensity is largely a passive response to slowing income growth rather than a genuine recovery of confidence. A central‑bank survey also shows that a significant proportion of residents prefer to save additional income rather than spend it.

These observations align with reports of booming flexible employment and record‑high commercial vacancy rates: consumers are deliberately lowering the priority of consumption, postponing discretionary and impulse purchases that big promotions usually trigger.

Why Raising Prices First No Longer Works

From the merchant’s perspective, the “raise‑then‑discount” tactic was previously common: merchants could either report the real discount or inflate the original price and create a false sense of a price cut. Deception yields a short‑term profit ("骗" profit), while honest pricing yields an "honest" profit. The overall profit is the sum of deceptive profit and honest profit, otherwise merchants would have no incentive to employ the tactic.

Deception, however, carries a cost. Let the probability that a consumer detects the deception be p. Once detected, the merchant’s reputation is discounted, reducing the repeat‑purchase probability and thus future earnings by a factor that approaches 0 when reputation loss is severe. Let r be the discount rate applied to future earnings (higher r means more emphasis on long‑term business). The net long‑term profit difference between deception and honesty is then determined by these parameters.

The future component represents the long‑term customer value of maintaining reputation and continuing business. The immediate deceptive gain is offset by the long‑term cost if the deception is uncovered. The point where the profit difference turns negative decides whether the "raise‑then‑discount" strategy is worthwhile.

In recent years, the detection probability has risen dramatically because price‑comparison tools can automatically track 180‑day price histories and flag false promotions. Reputation loss is amplified by social networks— a single price‑comparison screenshot can receive thousands of likes, turning an individual’s detection into collective distrust. In June of this year, Beijing market regulators jointly questioned major platforms such as Taobao (Tmall), JD, Pinduoduo, Douyin, and Xiaohongshu, pointing out issues like the misleading "hundred‑billion subsidies" and demanding rectifications. The newly revised Anti‑Unfair Competition Law, effective 15 October 2025, introduces the concept of "abuse of relative dominant position" and explicitly bans sales below cost, further squeezing the space for merchants to gamble on deceptive tactics.

Moreover, the future value is not a constant; it depends on whether consumers will continue to repurchase, which preventive savings erodes from the root. If consumers are already cutting non‑essential spending, even honest merchants receive a reduced future contribution. A successful deception therefore extracts far less long‑term value, and if detected, the already shrunken future value becomes even less worthwhile.

Technology, social media, and regulation raise the cost of deception, while cautious consumption simultaneously drains the future payoff that deception bets on. Both forces push the profit difference toward the negative side, leading merchants to collectively stop the tactic and the market to become quiet.

Reverse Causality

Cautious consumption not only lowers the future component from the outside but also raises consumers’ psychological tolerance threshold for being deceived. The tighter the pocket and the more careful the decision, the less patience there is for fake discounts, and the more seriously price comparison is taken. This, in turn, increases the detection probability from the consumer side.

One netizen summed it up: "Before, merchants spent a bit, platforms spent a bit, consumers spent less, and everyone was happy; now merchants spend, platforms contribute nothing, and consumers have no money left, so they save wherever possible." This captures the cycle perfectly: the "carnival" of big promotions rests on the expectation that "the future will be better and spending a little won’t hurt". Once that expectation wavers, consumers become both stingier and more vigilant, and merchants face a declining chance of profit from deceptive tricks. The quiet 618 is therefore not the result of a single party’s decision but the outcome of a mutually reinforcing loop: "Might as well just give up".