Editorial | Hong Kong’s e-commerce festival can boost retailers

Every year on November 11, China runs the world’s biggest online shopping festival, an extravaganza in which some of the biggest e-commerce companies offer steep discounts on their platforms. The whole country goes wild online. Now, Hong Kong wants a piece of that big pie, too. It is about time.

The city’s first e-commerce shopping festival will be launched next month. While traditional retail has been hit hard since the pandemic, the local online shopping sector has been flourishing. There was a nearly 60 per cent growth to HK$32.5 billion between 2020 and 2023, yet the online sector still only accounted for 8 per cent of total retail sales.

The Hong Kong Shopping Festival will be run by the Trade Development Council (TDC) on mainland e-commerce platforms. It aims to expand city brands into the vast mainland consumer market.

Local small and medium-sized enterprises should find the TDC’s new service helpful in gaining exposure across the border. They need a helping hand. Local retail sales have been sluggish as they dropped by 11.5 per cent year on year to HK$30.5 billion in May, after a 14.7 per cent fall in April. The consecutive double-digit decrease has been blamed on a continued trend towards local consumers spending across the border.

If not enough mainland shoppers are coming to Hong Kong, Hong Kong will have to go to them. The TDC campaign will help more than 230 city brands – in clothing, cosmetics, household goods, food and drink, digital and health products – to promote their special deals on major mainland social media and e-commerce platforms as well as with internet influencers.