BEIJING, July 12 Reuters Chinese ecommerce vendors are struggling for survival as sales growth slows, price pressure rises and shopping platforms compete with evermore aggressive policies to attract increasingly costconscious customers.

A oncethriving ecommerce industry punctuated by shopping bonanzas featuring galas and celebrities is bearing the brunt of a sputtering economy that has seen consumers all but tie knots in their purse strings.

While extreme discounting, influencerled sales campaigns and generous returns policies did much to enrich the sector, those same practices by which vendors have to abide are now hurting those upon which the sector rests.

The good times for ecommerce are over, said Shanghaibased ecommerce operator Lu Zhenwang, who sells everyday items for small vendors. This year there is fierce competition and I don39;t think a lot of sellers will survive another three years.

Profit margins are being squeezed at big platforms such as those of Alibaba and JD.com, but also at the thousands of small businesses which joined the ecommerce boom decade that started around 2013.

That boom has left ecommerce accounting for 27 of retail, with 12 trillion yuan 1.65 trillion of goods sold annually.

But as the economy slows, so does ecommerce, with the doubledigit growth of recent years set to be replaced by single digits, showed data from Euromonitor.

One outcome is that enthusiasm for participating in sales festivals is noticeably cooling, Lu said, with…