On the afternoon of October 15th, at almost the same time, Alibaba and JD.com held their respective 2026 Double 11 press conferences in Shanghai and Beijing. These two traditional e-commerce giants faced off against each other, and their new competitor, Douyin, also did not miss this battle; it launched its own Double 11 Good Goods Festival on the same day.

Despite the normalization of major promotional events after each Double 11 shopping festival, the competition among platforms for dominance and the rivalry in service mechanisms remains fierce during this most important promotional period in the e-commerce industry. Taobao has leveraged its platform brand resources, represented by AI and Tmall Flagship Stores, in an attempt to continuously uncover new value from them; JD.com has continued last year's extended promotional schedule, launching its Double 11 campaign on October 12th, three days before its official press conference; meanwhile, Douyin has distributed consumption vouchers to users through its DouBao and HongGuo short dramas.

"E-commerce promotions have shifted from incremental expansion to refined operations and competitive battles over existing customer bases," analyzed Zhuang Shuai, founder of Bailian Consulting and an expert in the retail e-commerce industry, to reporters. Observing this year's Double 11, competition among e-commerce platforms has intensified under the context of competing over existing customer bases. The choice of promotional timing and changes to promotional mechanisms are both reflections of strategic intentions.

Taobao and JD.com in a direct confrontation

Alibaba and JD.com have different approaches to this year's Double 11 shopping festival. Tmall started its pre-sales for Double 11 tonight, with official sales beginning on October 20th. At the press conference, Alibaba announced that this year's Double 11 attracted 1 million global brands and 72 million products, both setting new historical records. JD.com, on the other hand, reported a double-digit increase in the number of users placing orders on the first day of Double 11, which began on October 12th.

The launch times are different, but the press conferences have coincided on the same day. Guo Tao, a special researcher at the E-commerce Research Center of NetEase Research Institute and an angel investor, analyzed to reporters that this is not an active declaration of war; rather, it is an inevitable result of competing for public opinion in a market with existing players. During promotional periods, users' attention becomes even more scarce. Speaking on the same day, and some platforms even taking the lead, is both a way for these platforms to seize attention and prevent their own promotional strategies from being overshadowed by the other parties' information. It is also a means for each platform to convey its policy signals to brands and suppliers as soon as possible, in order to stabilize merchants' expectations regarding their resource allocation. In other words, what the platforms are competing for is the same group of merchants and consumers' budgets.

But this year during Double 11, Tmall and JD.com adopted distinctly different strategies.

“AI” and flagship stores are the two key terms for Tmall’s Double 11 this year. At the press conference, in addition to representatives from traditional e-commerce companies, several heads from Alibaba’s search, algorithm, and AI application departments took turns to speak about how Taobao is promoting the evolution of AI, helping merchants understand their users, and facilitating transactions.

Tmall President Jia Luo stated at the press conference that no matter how times change, business comes from users and from their needs. The greatest value provided by AI lies in its deeper and more long-term understanding of consumer demands, and the ability to transform meeting needs into creating new ones is an irreplaceable core competitive strength for a brand. He emphasized that Tmall's AI capabilities are continuously being upgraded, and Tmall flagship stores will also be the main front for brands to embrace AI and seize future opportunities.

Brand resources are an important bargaining chip for Tmall in competing for consumers, and top brands have become one of the focuses of platform operations. Reporters have learned that this year during Double 11, iPhone and Duo foldable screen phones will be launched for the first time during Tmall's Double 11 period, and the iPhone 18 Pro series has also confirmed their participation in Tmall's promotional activities. Last month, Apple expanded its cooperation with Tmall, adding more than 20 authorized stores. This year during Double 11, brands on Tmall will launch 50,000 new super products, as well as 2,000 "surprise gift box" items available only at Tmall's flagship stores. In addition, 60,000 new merchants will participate in Double 11 for the first time.

JD.com highlighted lifestyle services, content ecosystems, and AI applications at its press conference. During the Double 11 period, JD.com announced an upgrade to its service offerings, showcasing over a hundred specialized service products for scenarios such as home living, travel, and health. In terms of its service business, JD.com revealed that it has currently trained over one million blue-collar workers and plans to train another million in the next three years.

Content ecology is also a focus for JD.com during this year's Double 11 campaign. According to JD.com, the plans for content production this year far exceed those of previous years, including live streaming challenges, flash sales live streams, celebrity live streams, president live streams, on-site live streams, and review live streams. JD.com uses these initiatives to address the issue of users' divided attention and the increasing cost of acquiring new customers. In addition, in terms of AI, JD.com has revealed that its shopping assistant "Dongdong," AI, intelligent digital humans JoyAvatar, and "Super Brain + Wolf Tribe" robots have been applied in over 3,000 scenarios across retail and logistics.

From the information disclosed by JD.com, it seems that the platform is attempting to shift the focus of promotional competition from a mere price war to a comprehensive competition based on service capabilities, content management, and technical efficiency.

Behind the different focuses of the two platforms during Double 11 is the shift from price wars to a focus on efficiency, as e-commerce platforms begin to leverage their core competencies. "Tmall is betting on AI and flagship stores to transition from traffic distribution to meeting quality demands and improving operational efficiency, while JD.com is strengthening its advantages in self-operated procurement and logistics to enhance transaction certainty and its defense against competitors," Zhuang Shuai analyzed to reporters. These changes indicate that e-commerce promotions are moving from incremental expansion to more refined operations and competitive focus on existing customer bases.

New Challenges

"The overlap in the timing of Double 11 is a competition for the limited attention resources among platforms after the traffic dividends have subsided, but it doesn't mean that both sides will immediately engage in a price war at any cost," said Guo Tao.

There is a consensus in the industry that during Double 11, it is no longer possible to emphasize the simple low-price competition of the past. Whether it is JD.com expanding into more frequent and high-repurchase lifestyle service consumption, or Tmall offering upgraded installation services for categories such as home furnishings during Double 11, as well as optimizing the shopping experience for consumers and brands around AI, the industry is seeking new growth by improving user experience and expanding products and brands.

On the consumer side, reporters noticed that Tmall continues to promote instant discounts rather than requiring customers to accumulate purchases to qualify for discounts. Jialuo revealed that since last year, when conducting surveys and communications with merchants, the platform has been persuading them to offer consumers discounts in a simpler manner. This year, for the more than 70 million products participating in Double 11, the core requirement for merchants is to provide instant discounts. On top of the instant discounts on the products, the platform also offers additional coupons. "The key factor is still simplicity."

JD.com has launched a 'buy more, get more back' promotion, where consumers who purchase products marked with the promotional label can receive corresponding rebates. By accumulating rebates across different categories, the company aims to encourage consumers to increase the variety and frequency of their purchases.

It is worth mentioning that Douyin has extended the availability of platform coupons to outside of its own platform. During the Double 11 period, users can claim these coupons on multiple platforms including DouBao, Hongguo Short Films, Jutoutiao, Douyin Express Edition, Tomato Novel, Tomato Listening, and Tomato Music. The advantages of ByteDance's content ecosystem, including its interest-based e-commerce offerings, are also becoming key factors in Douyin's efforts to attract users during Double 11.

For merchants, this will be a more complex Double 11 event. Whether it's the weakened "explosive power" brought about by the continuously extended promotional periods of the platforms, or the diversity of users across various channels, tools like AI that introduce new competitions in merchant operational efficiency, all these factors are pushing merchants into an increasingly complex competitive environment.

Zhuang Shuai mentioned that this year, during Double 11, merchants are facing many challenges. The business models of these promotional campaigns are changing, and the involvement of AI is also having an impact on organizations and processes. More importantly, "promotional campaigns are no longer just about sales; they also need to focus on profits and repeat purchases."

Zhang Yi, from iiMedia Research Group CEO and also serving as the chief analyst, further analyzed for the reporters that with the annual Double 11 promotions becoming the norm, merchants no longer focus solely on increasing GMV. Instead, they place greater emphasis on profits as a key indicator. Whether there are profits and how much profit is generated have become important factors in determining the cost of participation in these promotional activities and the approach taken by merchants. Repeat purchases and brand reputation are also given significant attention. As the duration of Double 11 promotions extends, calculating how to balance the costs of manpower, resources, and time invested with the resulting output has become a challenging issue that many merchants, especially small and medium-sized ones, need to address.

(Lv Qian, a reporter from Yicai, also contributed to this article.)

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