(Yicai) June 19 -- This year's 618 shopping festival, which lasted for over a month, had a different pattern than previous years, with a solid beginning but ending on a low note, mainly due to local governments using up national consumer vouchers weeks before its end.

This year's 618 promotional season started a week earlier than in previous years, industry insiders told Yicai. In its latter stage, some Chinese provinces ran out of government subsidies, which caused some consumers who had planned to buy goods to hold off and wait, contributing to the sales decline, they added.

The 618 shopping festival is China's largest annual retail extravaganza after Singles' Day in November and typically takes place from June 1 to 18. This year, most e-commerce sites launched 618 discounts on May 13 to embrace '520,' shorthand for May 20, which is celebrated in China in a similar way to Valentine's Day.

"After the local government suspended national subsidies, it became difficult to achieve a surge in sales at the end of the shopping gala," the manager of a home appliance chain in South China said to Yicai. The area stopped handing new vouchers to home appliance consumers as early as June 6, the person pointed out.

The offline consumption at a home appliance chain in Northwest China dropped after the government suspended subsidies, the manager of the firm told Yicai. However, sales via livestreams on Douyin, the sister app of TikTok in China, were relatively good during the final phases of the 618 event, the person added.

The suspension of national subsidies for consumers in certain regions significantly impacted sales during the later stage of this year's 618 shopping gala, a representative from a television manufacturer told Yicai. However, the earlier start of the event meant that national subsidies had a noticeable effect on boosting sales in the initial stages, the person noted.

Online TV sales in China surged 32 percent to 937,000 units from May 12 through June 1 from a year earlier, with revenue soaring 34 percent to CNY3.5 billion (USD485 million), according to data from market consultancy AVC.

Regarding several regions suspending national subsidies, the National Development and Reform Commission said yesterday that the policy will be implemented throughout the year. The central government has allocated CNY300 billion (USD41.7 billion) in ultra-long special treasury bond funds to support its consumer goods trade-in program, with CNY162 billion issued to local governments so far, while the rest will be distributed in an orderly manner, the NDRC added.

Since the implementation of the national subsidy policy began in the fourth quarter of last year, and given the effectiveness of the policy in boosting sales, maintaining a strong growth in home appliance consumption in the second half of this year will likely be challenging due to a high comparative base from a year ago and the release of some demand in the first half, Liu Jiyuan, deputy director of AVC's research and innovation department, said to Yicai.

Editors: Tang Shihua, Martin Kadiev