CHINA’S e-commerce giant Alibaba Group is pressuring merchants to offer rock-bottom prices on its marketplaces in this year’s Singles’ Day extravaganza, industry sources said, as the company seeks to boost sales and stem a drop in market share.

The sources, who help dozens of brands operate their stores on Alibaba’s platforms, said they were told to offer the best price of the year on Tmall or Taobao for the blockbuster shopping event, or risk losing the traffic and support given to event participants.

While Alibaba has announced that it will offer 80 million products at their lowest prices this year during the Singles’ Day, which began in late October and stretches till Nov. 11, the push to get merchants to toe its line is unusual for the company, they said.

The strategy points to how Alibaba is fighting back against rivals such as Douyin and PDD Holdings’ Pinduoduo which have changed the landscape of Chinese e-commerce in recent years by selling lower-cost and discounted items year-round, relying on approaches like live-streaming and taking the shine off mega events like Singles’ Day.

“Alibaba came out this year and is being super aggressive on price. They’re like ‘lowest prices on the internet, period’,” said Josh Gardner, CEO of Kungfu Data, which helps operate online stores in categories including fashion and performance-wear.

“They leveraged all their merchants like us saying, ‘If we catch you doing equal or less pricing on any other platform, we will remove you and all your listings from the event’.”

Three e-commerce consultants said the company’s demands did not appear to show anti-competitive behavior, with one saying some of its rivals were also making similar stipulations to merchants.

Ashley Dudarenok, founder of digital consultancy Chozan, said that some brands who are selling on competing platforms might meet Alibaba’s demands by giving it the best prices but simultaneously launch a special line of products on Douyin, for example.

This year’s Singles’ Day event is also the first since Alibaba split into six business units. The unit encompassing the Taobao and Tmall businesses is the only one that will remain under the control of Alibaba Group after it spins off the others. (SD-Agencies)