Home
News
Reconstructed Promotion Rules and Full-Link AI Penetration

Reconstructed Promotion Rules and Full-Link AI Penetration

News2026-10-26

Entering October 2026, China's e-commerce industry has officially ushered in the 18th Double 11 shopping festival cycle. Different from the past narrative of "the lowest price across the entire network", major platforms have almost simultaneously switched their growth logic this year, shifting from competing for low-price subsidies and extending activity cycles to simplifying rules, deeply implementing AI, expanding services and global business. The entire industry is completing a fundamental transition from traffic competition to operational certainty.

1. Collective Restructuring of Promotion Rules: The End of Low-Price Myths, Spot Goods and Direct Price Cuts Become Standard
Since October, leading e-commerce platforms have almost simultaneously announced plans to simplify their major promotional campaigns. The long-standing complex gameplay of "deposit and final payment, cross-store full reduction, and complicated order combination" has been completely phased out.

On October 12, JD launched full-category spot sales for the first time, completely canceling the pre-sale mechanism, focusing on direct spot delivery and official price cuts, and adding a "Super Service Day" to enhance service experience.
Tmall clarified the cancellation of the cross-store full-reduction rule at its press conference on October 15, replacing it with a unified "official instant discount" that automatically applies when placing a single order. The 88VIP consumption coupon now supports self-selected denominations for the first time.
Douyin's Double 11 Good Things Festival shortened its activity cycle from 34 days in previous years to around 28 days, using "instant discount and direct price cut for one item" to replace all complicated order-combining gameplay.
WeChat Shop, which officially participated in Double 11 for the first time, launched mixed coupons shared equally by the platform and merchants, as well as fully platform-subsidized coupons. Exclusive streamer coupons can be directly shared to WeChat groups and private chats, further lowering the participation threshold for users.
Data from the first wave shows that the effect of simplified rules has already emerged: on the first day of Douyin's Double 11, the number of merchants with transaction volume exceeding 1 million yuan increased by 74% year-on-year, and the number of store live-streaming rooms with transaction volume exceeding 10 million yuan increased by 98% year-on-year. Only 4 hours after Tmall officially opened for sale at 8 p.m. on October 20, 124 brands achieved transaction volume exceeding 100 million yuan, and 27,681 brands exceeded their full-day transaction volume of last year's Double 11. Industry surveys show that this year, leading brands have increased their budget share in shelf e-commerce to over 60%, about 9 percentage points higher than in previous years. Many brands directly include the proportion of returning customers as a core assessment indicator, requiring it to reach over 35%, with some categories raising the requirement to over 45%.

2. AI Stands at the Core of the Shopping Link for the First Time: Evolving from a Marketing Tool to a New Consumer Category
The most notable industry change in October is that AI no longer exists as a marginal marketing concept, but has fully penetrated the entire link of user shopping decisions and merchant operations.
Third-party survey data shows that 79.4% of consumers will consult AI tools before shopping, and AI's influence on consumer decisions has reached 43.7%, surpassing the 42.6% of traditional media advertising for the first time. Traffic entry is shifting from traditional search boxes and live-streaming rooms to AI dialog boxes. The AI applications of major platforms have completed large-scale implementation:

JD upgraded its AI shopping assistant "Dongdong", which supports text and voice dialogue to find products. It opened dozens of core AI tools for merchants through the Jingmai AI Operation Center, covering the full chain of product selection, listing, operation, design, fulfillment and after-sales. Currently, nearly 80 million users are using AI shopping guides, a year-on-year increase of over 200%, and related tools have helped 80% of new merchants improve operational efficiency.
Tmall launched "AI Universal Search" and "AI Help Me Pick" shopping guide applications, incorporating AI services into the major promotion system for the first time. It specially set up a "AI Space Station" Token recharge zone, where large model vendors including Zhipu, MiniMax and Qianwen have settled in. The transaction volume of Token categories increased by 450% compared with last month, and the transaction volume of AI PC categories increased by over 300% in the first hour.
Douyin upgraded Doubao to an independent e-commerce channel, placing the "Ask Doubao before Buying" entry in the first-level navigation on Doubao's homepage. Users can directly jump to Douyin to place orders after completing the dialogue. The platform also launched a Doubao operation zone, providing merchants with exclusive operation data and business opportunity prompts.
Alibaba released the e-commerce version of Qianwen Office, which is connected to mainstream merchant operation tools such as Business Advisor, Qianniu, and Alibaba Mom's Universal Phase. A "Double 11 Zone" is specially set up on the homepage to help merchants quickly view their own and peer operation data. Currently, paid e-commerce users account for over 20%, completing an average of 38 tasks per week.
The value of AI is no longer limited to improving operational efficiency, but has re-expanded the boundaries of consumption: large model Tokens and AI computing power have for the first time become shelf products that ordinary consumers can directly purchase, and AI consumption has officially moved from the geek circle to the mass market.

3. Services, Global Expansion and Supply Chain Upgrades Unleash New Growth in the Stock Market
Beyond traditional physical consumption, new growth in the e-commerce industry in October is being released from multiple dimensions:
Service consumption has become the core growth pole of the major promotion for the first time. In the first week of JD's Double 11, orders in the service category increased by over 130% year-on-year, with home services, moving, home appliance cleaning, car maintenance, physical examination and other categories leading the growth. Tmall implemented the "one-stop delivery, installation and old product removal" service, driving a 55% increase in transactions of transformable furniture and a 49% increase in light custom furniture. Data from the National Bureau of Statistics shows that in 2025, per capita service consumption expenditure accounted for 46.1% of residents' total consumption, and the growth rate of service retail sales continued to be higher than that of physical retail sales. Service consumption is becoming a new competitive track for e-commerce platforms.
Cross-border global expansion has evolved from a concept to large-scale implementation. This year's Double 11 was launched simultaneously in 20 global markets for the first time, with free shipping services covering 13 countries and regions. Among them, Chinese mainland, Hong Kong, Macao, Singapore and Malaysia achieved "zero-threshold free shipping". Exported products expanded from small items such as beauty and apparel to large and medium-sized categories such as furniture and home building materials. Over 90% of large and medium-sized products support direct overseas mail, and more than 1.2 million Taobao and Tmall merchants participate in global expansion. TikTok Shop announced that the local hosting model in Germany, France, Italy and Spain has lifted the invitation system, and is fully open to merchants from Chinese mainland, Hong Kong and the four EU countries for direct settlement. Merchants who stock goods in local European warehouses can get priority support from the platform to match local influencers, and samples stocked locally can be shot and broadcast on the same day, further lowering the operational threshold for Chinese brands to go global.
Support at the supply chain and infrastructure end is also upgrading simultaneously. In October 19, the Ministry of Commerce and 8 other departments issued the "Opinions on Accelerating the Promotion of Technology-Driven Commerce", clearly implementing a special action for the development of digital intelligent supply chains, promoting intelligent three-dimensional warehouses, intelligent logistics equipment, unmanned delivery and other facilities and equipment, and promoting the intelligent integration of warehousing, distribution and transportation. In September, China's e-commerce logistics index reached 111.9 points, with the total business volume index and rural business volume index both hitting new highs this year. The service capacity of express outlets in multiple regions across the country has steadily rebounded, providing sufficient guarantee for the fulfillment of the major promotion.
At the same time, the industry compliance boundary has been further clarified: Douyin released a compliance operation guide for the FMCG industry during Double 11, making it clear that AI-generated marketing content must have clear identification, and merchants must not use AI to display product effects that do not exist in reality. New regulations on online medical device sales are open for public comments, bringing short video platforms such as Douyin and Xiaohongshu into platform obligation supervision, clarifying mandatory requirements such as merchant qualification verification and transaction record retention. The industry is evolving from high-speed growth to high-quality standardized development.

From a series of dynamics in October, it can be clearly seen that China's e-commerce industry has completely bid farewell to the extensive growth stage that relied on low-price subsidies and new user expansion. The core competition point between platforms and brands has shifted to the comparison of AI capabilities, service experience and omni-channel fulfillment efficiency. A new industry competition centered on "operational certainty" has just begun.

Core Services

News

Reconstructed Promotion Rules and Full-Link AI Penetration