Alibaba’s marketplace Taobao has dropped its presale period for the upcoming 618 shopping festival, a promotional mechanism that it had been using for a decade to stimulate sales. Details: According to local media outlet LatePost, Alibaba CEO Eddie Wu finally made the decision to cancel presale promotions after employees “overwhelmingly supported” the proposal in internal debates. The report added that presale deals would still appear in e-commerce livestreams, a major channel for presale items, mostly in the makeup category. Taobao and Tmall have announced that they will kick off the country’s second-largest festival on May 20 this year, offering discounts for almost a month until June 18, or 618. The media outlet quoted his post as saying the team has launched more than 60 new features in less than two months.