618 Shopping Festival

618 is China's mid-year online shopping festival, named after 18 June, the anniversary of JD.com, which started it, and now run by the main marketplaces for about five weeks from mid-May. JD calls it "the largest nationwide mid-year shopping festival", and it is generally described as China's second-largest e-commerce festival after Singles' Day on 11 November, which makes it one of the two festivals around which brands selling online in China plan their year.

How 618 began#

JD.com was founded in 1998, when Richard Liu opened a retail booth in Beijing's Zhongguancun, and 618 takes its name from JD's anniversary on 18 June. JD dates its first 618 promotion to 18 June 2004, the year it moved online, and says it first promoted "618" as a marketing concept on a large scale in 2009, the year Alibaba held its first Singles' Day, before extending the promotion from one day to a month in 2011.

By JD's account other retailers followed from 2012, when Tmall, Suning and Dangdang among others joined the promotion, and in 2017 JD opened the 618 name to any partner that wanted to use it, so that by 2019, when Pinduoduo joined, 618 had become an industry-wide festival with one company's anniversary as its name.

How the festival window has shifted#

Each platform sets its own calendar for 618 every year, with its own names for the phases. The table gives the opening of each phase as the platforms announced it or as dated press reports stated it, and where a time was reported it was 8 pm.

Read across the four years, the window has lengthened at both ends. The first phase moved from late May in 2023 to mid-May in 2025, and the close moved past 18 June itself, to 20 June on Tmall in 2023 and to 21 June on both platforms in 2026, so the festival now runs for about five weeks against the single day it is named after. The presale has come and gone as well, since Tmall dropped in 2024 the official presale it had run for almost a decade, in the same year that JD dropped presales too, and then brought it back in its rules for 2026, published on 29 April, to run alongside two waves of spot sales.

For anyone reading category data, a comparison of the same calendar weeks in two years can therefore catch a different part of each year's festival, so the fairer comparison is between equivalent phases of the cycle, with the windows stated and the weeks either side read as part of the same measurement.

The end of headline sales totals#

Alibaba last published a Tmall 618 GMV total in 2020, Tmall has published none since 2021, and in 2022 it held no press conference for the festival either. JD announced its 618 order total on its official WeChat account each year up to and including 2022, while in 2023 it said only that the festival had "set a new record", without giving transaction volume or growth, and it said the same in 2024.

Since then the platforms have reported structural measures instead, such as the number of brands or merchants whose sales passed a threshold, and market-wide totals come from third parties. The most cited of these, Syntun (星图数据), estimated online sales across platforms over 618 2026 at RMB 934 billion in a report released on 22 June 2026. It is Syntun's estimate, on its own definition of the window and the channels, so we believe it is best compared only with Syntun's figures for other years. See GMV for what a promotional sales total measures.

The trade-in subsidies in 2025 and 2026#

Since 2025 the government's trade-in programme has shaped 618 in appliances and electronics. The 2025 programme, issued on 5 January 2025, subsidised appliances at 15% of the price, or 20% for products with first-grade energy efficiency, up to RMB 2,000 an item, and for the first time it subsidised new phones, tablets and smartwatches priced at RMB 6,000 or less, at 15% up to RMB 500. The platforms built 618 2025 around it, with Tmall adding its own national-subsidy coupons on top of the 20% subsidy and JD describing its offer as subsidy stacked on subsidy (补上加补), and in April 2025 a Ministry of Commerce official said the programme had reached more than 120 million consumers.

The 2026 programme, issued on 29 December 2025, narrowed the appliance subsidy to six categories at first-grade efficiency (refrigerators, washing machines, televisions, air conditioners, computers and water heaters), at 15% up to RMB 1,500 an item. It added smart glasses to the phones, tablets and smartwatches it covers, at 15% up to RMB 500 for items of RMB 6,000 or less, and told local governments to treat online and offline sellers equally. Both platforms again folded the subsidy into 618 2026, with Tmall advertising national subsidies on 32 appliance and electronics categories and JD running a combined channel for national subsidies and its 百亿补贴 programme.

Because the subsidy is part of the price the shopper paid and its terms changed between the two years, we believe a change in an appliance or electronics category over 618 can reflect the subsidy rules as much as demand.

What 618 means for foreign and cross-border brands#

Foreign brands take part in 618 through the cross-border channels they sell through during the rest of the year, and the platforms use the festival to bring new ones in. Xinhua reported in May 2026 that more than 600 overseas brands new to China, from 29 countries and regions, would open their first stores on Tmall Global before 618, and during 618 2025 JD's import channel, 京东全球购, ran a promotion on international brands that it called 国际大牌真五折. Cross-border goods are sold under China's own rules on tax, purchase limits and labelling, which the Tmall Global entry sets out.

618 and Singles' Day#

618 began as JD's mid-year answer to Alibaba's November event, and the two have since moved earlier in the same way: since 2024 the main marketplaces have opened Singles' Day in mid-October, JD at 8 pm on 9 October 2025 and Tmall with its presale at 8 pm on 15 October 2025, while 618 now opens in mid-May, so both festivals begin some weeks ahead of the date they are named after.

The measurement problems carry over too. Each festival is a cycle of phases that each platform sets and can change from one year to the next, and the weeks before and after it belong to the same measurement, so the methods the Singles' Day (Double 11) entry describes for comparing one festival with another apply to 618 in the same way.

Where to look next#

For the November festival and how to compare one year's cycle with another's, see Singles' Day (Double 11). For the cross-border rules a foreign brand sells under, see Tmall Global. For how the main marketplaces differ in structure, see Tmall vs JD vs Douyin, and for selling inside short-video content, see Douyin E-Commerce. For what a promotional sales total measures, see GMV.

Common questions#

When is 618?#

618 is named after 18 June, but the festival now runs for about five weeks around it, from mid-May to late June. In 2026 Tmall opened its presale and its first wave of spot sales on 21 May and JD opened at 8 pm on 30 May, and both ran to 21 June. Each platform sets its own dates every year, and the opening has moved from late May in 2023 to mid-May in 2025, so the date to plan against is the one in the platform's own calendar for that year.

Why is it called 618?#

It is named after 18 June, the anniversary of JD.com, which was founded in 1998 when Richard Liu opened a retail booth in Beijing's Zhongguancun. JD dates its first 618 promotion to 18 June 2004, the year it moved online, and it first promoted 618 at scale in 2009. By JD's account other retailers joined from 2012, and JD opened the name to any partner in 2017, so 618 is now an industry-wide festival that still carries one company's anniversary as its name.

Do the platforms still publish 618 sales figures?#

Not as headline totals. Alibaba last published a Tmall 618 GMV total in 2020 and Tmall has published none since 2021, while JD, which announced its order total each year up to 2022, said in 2023 and 2024 that the festival had set a new record without giving volume or growth. The platforms now report measures such as the number of brands or merchants that passed a sales threshold, and market-wide totals come from third parties, the most cited being Syntun, which estimated online sales across platforms over 618 2026 at RMB 934 billion.

Can foreign brands take part in 618?#

Yes. Foreign brands sell during 618 through cross-border channels such as Tmall Global and JD's import channel, 京东全球购, under China's cross-border retail rules, and the platforms use the festival to bring new brands in. Xinhua reported in May 2026 that more than 600 overseas brands new to China, from 29 countries and regions, would open their first stores on Tmall Global before 618.