(Yicai) Oct. 17 -- China’s major e-commerce players have launched their annual Double 11 shopping festival promotions around 10 days earlier than usual and have moved away from offering the absolute lowest pricing to attract buyers, according to insiders and consumers.

Compared with prior years, big platforms such as JD.Com, Alibaba’s Taobao, Pinduoduo, Douyin, TikTok's sister app in China, are no longer pointing out during event that the products sold on their sites are the “lowest priced across the internet.”

“This year's Double 11 marks the beginning of a new phase,” said Zhuang Shuai, a researcher at 100EC, an E-Commerce industry information and consulting site, and founder of Bailian Consulting. Careful observation of the promotional offers from major platforms reveals that there is a noticeable decrease in their practice of following each other in price-cutting, Zhuang noted.

Also known as Singles' Day, Double 11 has grown into the world's largest e-commerce event since it was launched by Alibaba Group Holdings in 2009. Held each year on Nov. 11, it offers huge discounts on a wide range of goods and draws millions of shoppers. E-commerce sites have in the past fiercely competed to offer the lowest prices over the course of the event, squeezing profit margins for merchants and the platforms alike.

“The prices of some products during this year's promotional season are not lower than those of the same period last year,” one shopper told Yicai. “But most products are still significantly cheaper than they are over the rest of the year, so I have ordered quite a few.”

Although cost-effectiveness remains an important factor for e-commerce sites, they are exercising more restraint when it comes to aggressive pricing, Chen Weiye, Alibaba vice president and president of Taobao, told Yicai and other media.

But after several years of low-price competition that drove out many merchants with low operational efficiency and high operating costs, major e-commerce sites have introduced various policies to support vendors along with differentiated business strategies for this year's Double 11.

These policies can attract more small and medium-sized businesses to join the particular platform, said Cao Lei, director of 100EC's E-commerce Research Center. The move can not only reduce merchants' operating costs, improve service efficiency, and increase exposure but also diversify the types of businesses operating on the platforms, enhances their service ecosystems, and give consumers more choice, Cao pointed out.

Having more distinct and innovative products will be key for e-commerce platforms to attract consumers, according to Zhuang. During major sales events such as Double 11, players must leverage their advantages in order to differentiate themselves, Zhuang noted.

Editor: Martin Kadiev