As 618 shopping frenzy grows, Beijing warns e-commerce giants over price tactics

As China’s annual “618” shopping festival – one of the country’s biggest online retail events – gathers momentum, Beijing’s market regulator on Thursday summoned major e-commerce platforms over a series of marketing malpractices, marking the latest effort by authorities to curb so-called involution-style competition.

The Beijing Municipal Bureau of Market Supervision and Administration said it had called in representatives from Alibaba Group Holding’s Taobao and Tmall, JD.com, Pinduoduo, Douyin and RedNote. The agency outlined a series of violations in a notice published on its WeChat account.

Among the issues identified were misleading advertising practices, including “billion-yuan subsidy” campaigns in which actual spending fell short of advertised amounts. The regulator said it had ordered the companies to rectify the problems.

Other concerns included inadequate disclosure of promotional rules and failure to properly display merchant information.

The move follows a meeting last month in which the Beijing regulator summoned more than a dozen internet platforms and warned them against engaging in involution-style competition during the 618 shopping festival.

The term has increasingly been used by Chinese policymakers to describe excessive and often destructive rivalry that erodes profitability and market order.