Double 11 shopping spree: Four ways to score discounts

Shopping spreefor the Double 11 festival has officially kicked off. Instead of comparing it to Black Friday, many call it a shopping "Super Bowl."

Major e-commerce platforms such as JD.com and Tmall are setting up live performances to feature stars including Katy Perry, Chris Wu and Jackson Yee.

Social media short-video platforms like have joined the competition via powerful livestreams featuring products.

Sellers offer discounts during the shopping carnival this year though four ways: cash back, deposits, livestream sales and cat feeding.

E-commerce sellers offer discounts to consumers through four ways during this year's Double 11. /CGTN

Cashback is nothing new. Most of the platforms give out coupons for the discounts and it is pretty straightforward.

A newer form is deposit, which began last year. A consumer pays 200 yuan and he or she would get 25 yuan written off.

Since the sales stared quite early this year, the buyers will pay part of the payment to secure the item at a discounted value. Later on, they pay the rest on Double 11.

Meanwhile, when consumers tune in to livestreams on these platforms, they have spontaneous sales. That's the third way to score a discount.

While watching the host selling goods, shoppers have to put the desired item in the shopping cart and check out right off the bat to secure it at the cheaper price.

Alibaba Group's Tmall also sets up different social games each year to give out what they call "red packets." It is "cat feeding" this year. Users can either play the game alone or team up with friends to level up their virtual cat pet.

The higher the ranking the cat eventually gets, the more red packets the users would win. In other words, that means more bonuses to use as shopping credits.

Till half past midnight on the special date, T-mall had made 372.3 billion yuan ($56.26 billion) worth of deals since the first day of November.