E-commerce firms look to ride themed shopping wave

After the success of Alibaba Group Holding Ltd's Singles Day Festival on Nov 11, which has made its mark in the world's retail calendar, e-commerce platforms in China are now drumming up efforts to create other made-up holidays to ride the consumption boom.

Shopaholics are now glued on to June 18, a major midyear shopping gala that can help quench their thirst for discounted items before November comes around.

E-commerce giant JD, which initially coined the June 18 campaign, kicked off its 18-day-long promotions from June 1. It said sales in the first hour alone reached 5 billion yuan ($780 million), an increase of 130 percent compared with same period last year.