Emerging from the shadow of the COVID-19 pandemic, China's consumption rebounded with a total sales revenue of 498.2 billion yuan ($74.1 billion) and 271.5 billion yuan, respectively, on Tmall.com and JD.com during the Singles' Day shopping festival.  

The Chinese version of Black Friday, also known as Singles' Day in China, was first initiated on November 11, 2009 by Alibaba and soon became a major yearly shopping carnival with participation from almost all of China's e-commerce platforms, including Alibaba's Tmall.com and Taobao.com, as well as JD.com and Suning.com.  

To tackle the pressure of logistics and better support online sales, both Alibaba and JD.com extended the Double 11 sales carnival by offering pre-sale for 11 days from October 21 to November 1.  

The pandemic hit brick-and-mortar retailing but boosted the country's e-commerce, which rose by 15.3 percent year-on-year in the first nine months of 2020, accounting for 24.3 percent of total retail sales, according to official data.