(Yicai Global) Nov. 13 -- Great Wall Motors was among the Chinese automakers that took part in China’s Double 11 online shopping extravaganza this year to mitigate the challenges brought by the coronavirus pandemic.

Great Wall landed 26,916 orders over the Double 11 shopping campaign from Nov. 1 to 11 and the program livestreamed via its official store on Tmall, Alibaba Group Holdings’ business-to-consumer site, was watched 2.18 million times, the Hebei province-based company said yesterday.

Vehicle manufacturers on Tmall secured 330,000 orders during the 11-day shopping campaign, according to Alibaba data. Over 120 models from more than 50 marques were offered in the platform’s promotions this year, Yicai Global learned from Tmall, with discounts of up to CNY80,000 (USD12,100) available.

Carmakers are not normally active participants in Double 11, an industry insider told Yicai Global, but consumer spending habits have changed as a result of the virus and online marketing has become more important, so carmakers are having to adapt. 

Despite the large number of orders, final deliveries may be fewer as some customers make impulse buys based on the discounts, according to Cui Dongshu, secretary general of the China Passenger Car Association. 

The dealers benefit from the internet traffic brought by Double 11, but there are concerns the promotions will quench demand early and further expand price differences between vehicles sold online and those sold in physical stores, said Lang Xuehong, vice secretary general of the China Automobile Dealers Association. 

China's Vehicle Inventory Alert Index was 54.1 last month, down 8.3 percentage points from a year earlier, but still above the warning level of 50, CADA's latest data showed. 

China's passenger car market, the world’s biggest, bounced back in the second half of the year following two consecutive years of decline and the impact of the outbreak earlier this year, posting year-on-year gains in the four months since July. Retail sales rose 8 percent last month from a year ago to near a two-year high of 1.99 million units, CPCA data showed. 

Editors: Dou Shicong, Tom Litting