Rihanna making Shandong crepes.

Yeah!

Apple offering its biggest ever iPhone discount.

And an AI-powered avatar of JD.com founder, billionaire Richard Liu.

All in hopes of standing out and getting consumers to spend.

Similar to the Double Eleven shopping holiday invented by Alibaba, 618 is JD.com's version of a month-long discount spree ending on June 18th.

This battle for the consumer dollar has taken a hit in recent years as the slowing economy has turned Chinese consumers into more selective shoppers, making the price point for products even more of a focus.

Consumers are still buying.

They're buying cheaper things.

The average ticket size is coming down.

They are still going with some of the low-price strategy out there.

Smaller companies are now competing in the same space thanks to China's anti-monopoly investigation into Alibaba in 2020.

Douyin, Kuaishou and Little Red Book have joined in the e-commerce game, Douyin leading the charge with 70% growth in GMV year-on-year, Alibaba and JD.com trailing behind in single-digit growth.

The smaller upstarts have forced Alibaba to rethink strategy, founder Jack Ma calling on employees to think outside the box.

The result?

A partnership with ByteDance-owned Douyin, allowing merchants to advertise on the video platform and make transactions on Taobao.

But even with the intense competition, consumer spending still cooled in recent months, and the platforms are hoping to reverse that during these key shopping holidays.

Min Min Loh, Bloomberg News.