Today is the day for yet another of China's online shopping sprees -- the "618 Shopping Festival". June 18th belongs to JD.com, but almost all of the e-commerce platforms are offering special discounts in order to attract buyers. In fact, the strongest backers of the shopping sprees are the brands themselves. Our reporter Chen Tong has more.

June 18 may have started with JD.com, but all the major e-commerce platforms you can imagine, from T-Mall to Suning, are offering special discounts today. Some brands got started as early as two weeks ago, like cosmetic brand YSL that started its special offers on T-Mall at the beginning of the month. Working closely with the e-commerce platforms during shopping sprees is on the brand's "must-do" list.

XING XIACHUN, BRAND DIRECTOR YSL CHINA "The e-commerce environment is changing and our brand is upgrading our image. So working with high-quality platforms is one thing we have to do to meet consumers' expectations."

But while the big brands are promoting themselves online as fast as they can, it seems the consumers are becoming more selective -- instead of just adding things to their shopping baskets at random, many were making specific plans before today's shopping spree got started.

I have bought some because of their discounts. But mostly I bought the things I needed. I thought about what to buy before "618", I won't just buy things at random.

If I really need something, I'll buy it, otherwise not.

"618" and Alibaba's "Double 11" are just two of China's better-known online shopping festivals. But more and more, the E-commerce platforms are grabbing all the opportunities they can to come up with shopping sprees -- they are offering discounts during Spring Festival, Valentine's Day and even Women's Day. This costs the brands and the e-commerce companies a good deal, but experts believe it's the cost of doing e-commerce business in China these days.

YEO ENHUI, E-COMMERCE DEPUTY GM CARAT CHINA "Because consumers are more rational now, brands need to think of more creative ways, they need to become more strategic in how they plan for their e-commerce marketing activities so as to attract or fight in this competitive environment. You need to be creative, you need to have a specific special brand day, you need to create special products."

Sales volumes during the online shopping sprees are still breaking the records every year. Last year the total sales volume during JD's 618 shopping festival hit 120 billion yuan. That record, was already broken this morning.