
Consumers choose cosmetics in Darongcheng Shopping Mall in Jiangbei District, Chongqing. Xinhua news agency

Julu County, Xingtai City, Hebei Province, New Year Collection. Hu Liangchuan photo/bright picture

The ancient city of Chaozhou, Guangdong welcomes tourists during the Spring Festival. Xinhua news agency

Tourists visit the historical and cultural block of Xiaoxi Street in Huzhou City, Zhejiang Province. Lu Yiping photo/bright picture
[Economic Interface]
In the Spring Festival of the Year of the Ox, China’s consumption achieved a "good start". According to the monitoring of the Ministry of Commerce, from the New Year’s Eve of the Year of the Ox to the sixth day of the first month (February 11 -17), the national key retail and catering enterprises achieved sales of about 821 billion yuan, an increase of 28.7% over last year’s Spring Festival Golden Week and an increase of 4.9% over the Spring Festival Golden Week in 2019.
The popularity of the consumer market during the Spring Festival holiday reflects the vitality and potential of China’s economy.
This Spring Festival is different. More than 100 million people celebrate the New Year on the spot, but the epidemic can’t stop the flow of family ties. This year’s Spring Festival consumer market is not only traditional, festive, peaceful, warm and prosperous, but also presents new features and changes, showing the strong endogenous kinetic energy of China economy. It is reasonable to expect that China’s consumption will continue to be "bullish" after a "good start".
Celebrate the New Year on the spot, blowing a new wind for the Spring Festival consumer market.
After working in Beijing for almost a year, Xiao He usually doesn’t cook and often orders takeout. This year, she chose to spend the New Year’s Eve with her friends. They ordered some cooked food and semi-finished products online, and bought dumpling wrappers in the supermarket to wrap jiaozi together. She said: "Bao jiaozi is a sense of ceremony for the New Year. In previous years, parents prepared materials and made dough. This year, we celebrate the New Year ourselves. Without the skills of our parents, we have to buy some ready-made materials and do it ourselves."
The Spring Festival is a festival with the strongest flavor and the longest duration of traditional culture in China. The New Year’s Eve dinner is the most ceremonial meal in Chinese. This year, due to the impact of the epidemic, more than 100 million people across the country celebrated the New Year on the spot, among which young people accounted for a large proportion. Most of them didn’t spend the New Year with their parents and elders at home for the first time, and took on the "heavy responsibility" of arranging a table for New Year’s Eve dinner for the first time, and they all "made their own moves".
The 24-year-old Xiao and her friends booked a fully equipped daily rental house, such as a board game room and a projector. We went to the supermarket to buy ingredients, prepared the New Year’s Eve dinner in the house, and greeted the arrival of the New Year with great excitement.
Different from previous years, a large number of express delivery was sent from big cities to small and medium-sized cities and rural areas. During the Spring Festival this year, "two-way flow" became the biggest feature. Ms. Zhang’s home, a teacher in Beijing, is already full of all kinds of things sent by her mother from home: roast chicken, sausage, dumpling stuffing, nuts … … My mother was worried that her daughter would not be prepared for the first Chinese New Year, and even the hedges for cooking jiaozi were specially bought for her daughter and sent from Jilin to Beijing. Teacher Zhang also bought many Beijing specialties and some gift boxes in advance as new year’s goods and sent them to his parents in his hometown to express his holiday wishes and thoughts for his family. This year, many people like Mr. Zhang, who celebrate the New Year on the spot, have sent each other new year’s goods in the form of express delivery and online reunion with their families.
The data shows that millions of merchants don’t fight for holiday takeout, online catering sales increased by 135% compared with the same period of last year’s Spring Festival, and the sales of New Year’s Eve series products increased by 54.9% compared with the same period of last year’s Spring Festival.
During the Spring Festival this year, on the basis of doing a good job in epidemic prevention and control, the majority of catering enterprises have enriched the variety of dishes, innovated online and offline business models, and strived to provide safe, high-quality and diverse catering services for consumers, especially the local Chinese New Year people. The catering consumption is booming, and the sales of New Year’s Eve packages and semi-finished New Year’s Eve takeout are hot, and the offline catering performance is also very eye-catching.
During the Spring Festival, the sales of catering merchants monitored by large payment institutions increased by about 1.3 times year-on-year, and the online catering consumption of some take-away platforms increased by more than 2 times. On New Year’s Eve, the take-away orders of some platforms increased by 70% year-on-year, and Beijing, Shanghai, Shenzhen, Guangzhou and Chongqing ranked in the top five. Some time-honored catering enterprises have also accelerated their launch. The take-away sales of some restaurants in Beijing have more than doubled, accounting for over 50% of the revenue. Many restaurants in shopping centers and commercial complexes around the country are hard to find and business is booming. The turnover of key monitoring catering enterprises in Shanghai, Anhui, Qinghai and Shaanxi increased by 79.0%, 40.5%, 21.0% and 18.1% respectively.
On-site Chinese New Year promotes a substantial increase in household goods consumption. Traditional products such as new year gift boxes, household appliances, snack foods, seasonal clothes and fitness equipment are selling hot. In addition, the Spring Festival coincides with Valentine’s Day, and the consumption of quality goods such as gold and silver jewelry, beauty products and flower gifts is particularly strong. From buying goods to buying services, during the Spring Festival, service consumption also showed explosive growth, driving the rapid recovery of catering, entertainment, hotels and other industries.
Alibaba recently released the "Send Love Home" Spring Festival consumption report, pointing out that celebrating the New Year on the spot has spawned many new consumption phenomena. The reverse rush of new year’s goods in hometown and Taobao-style New Year’s greetings set each other off, and people send "homesickness" from afar; One-person food and semi-finished New Year’s Eve dinner expand the extension of New Year’s Eve dinner; The travel radius is smaller, but playing hotels, visiting scenic spots and "cloud tourism" have become hot choices for the Spring Festival; Stay in the city for the New Year to promote the "self-satisfied economy", and stay at home to exercise, watch movies and pet for the Spring Festival consumer market.
The new trend is bright, and safe and intelligent consumption is growing rapidly.
In Hebei, Fujian, Shandong, Guangxi, Gansu and other places, watching fireworks, visiting temple fairs, enjoying lanterns, visiting relatives and friends, and buying new year’s goods in the cloud feel full of flavor. In Yunnan, Guangdong, Hubei, Heilongjiang, Xinjiang, Tibet and other places, activities such as "a mobile phone to visit the business circle", "online cloud flower market" and "online new year’s goods" have received online coupons and offline discounts, which has benefited the local Chinese New Year people.
Online shopping for new year’s goods, "cloud festivals", digital red envelopes and other consumption methods have become the new trend of this year’s Spring Festival. The epidemic situation can’t stop Chinese from celebrating the Spring Festival. The prevention and control of the epidemic situation has led to the rapid growth of safe and intelligent consumption, and the development of contactless transaction services has accelerated … … With the popularization and application of new technologies such as 5G and 4K, more and more people "cloud" the Spring Festival of the Year of the Ox, enjoying the new enjoyment and new experience brought by high technology anytime and anywhere.
On February 17th, Alipay Digital Life Platform released the data report of the New Year, which showed that the local New Year gave birth to an explosion of interaction, entertainment and consumption on the cloud: online red envelopes increased by nearly 270%, and 260 million people wrote blessings online. The Ministry of Commerce, together with relevant departments, guided local and enterprises to launch the "National Online New Year Festival", and the online retail sales in the first six days of the holiday exceeded 120 billion yuan. Beijing, Shenzhen, Suzhou and other places distributed tens of millions of digital red envelopes, allowing local people to take the lead in enjoying the special "big gift package" brought by smart technology.
During the Golden Week of the Spring Festival in 2021, non-contact and less gathering for safe consumption became a consensus, and the appointment system and peak-staggered leisure vacation were widely respected. The multi-level, diversified and upgraded consumer demand such as home shopping, online holidays, home service and suburban play was released, and the consumer market showed great vitality. With the help of online shopping, express delivery and other channels that don’t fight, the local Chinese New Year people and their hometown relatives send each other special products for the New Year.
According to the statistics of the Postal Industry Security Center of the State Post Bureau, from February 11th (New Year’s Eve) to February 17th (the sixth day of the first month), the national postal express delivery industry collected and delivered 660 million express parcels, a year-on-year increase of 260%. Among the express parcels, the most are specialty foods sent from all over the country. The flowing new year’s goods have spawned new consumer demand and activated the huge domestic demand market.
From the growth of quantity to the improvement of quality, this Spring Festival, the people’s consumption list is also richer, and quality consumption has become fashionable. During the Spring Festival, the sales of automobile products, high-end daily necessities and pet products have doubled; Orders for cleaning, maintenance and replacement services for digital home appliances, communication equipment and mobile phones and computers increased by about 30%.
During the Spring Festival, the number of jewelry, clothing, communication equipment and home appliances monitored by the Ministry of Commerce increased by 160.8%, 107.1%, 39.0% and 29.9% respectively compared with the same period of last year, and the sales of fitness equipment on some e-commerce platforms increased by 49% year-on-year. The sales volume of flowers in Xiamen and other places increased by more than 30% compared with last year. The sales of retail merchants monitored by large payment institutions increased by 76.5% year-on-year. Sales of key monitoring enterprises in Henan, Tianjin, Guizhou, Ningxia and Sichuan increased by 68%, 64%, 43%, 23% and 20% respectively. Sales of communication equipment, high-end daily necessities and automobile products of key monitoring enterprises in Liaoning, Jilin, Zhejiang and other places have doubled. According to the monitoring of relevant institutions, the average daily passenger flow of shopping centers in 10 first-and second-tier cities nationwide increased by over 200% year-on-year, reaching the level of 86% in the same period of the Spring Festival in 2019.
"One ticket is hard to find", and the new scene activates cultural consumption in the New Year.
On New Year’s Day, the most popular cultural consumption is watching movies. People who don’t need to visit relatives this year have chosen to come to the cinema to watch the Spring Festival movies. Different from previous years, in the last two days of the Spring Festival holiday in previous years, the attendance rate of cinemas will drop significantly, and this year’s cinemas show the characteristics of "one ticket is hard to find".
On the afternoon of Lunar New Year’s Eve, the reporter browsed the ticketing platforms of many cinemas and found that popular movies such as Hi, Mom Detective Chinatown 3 were still all "full" and only some midnight shows could be booked. Many consumers said that their wish to go to a movie during the Spring Festival was realized by grabbing tickets for several days.
A number of domestic films were released, detonating the Spring Festival film market. According to the preliminary statistics of the State Film Bureau, as of February 16th, the total box office of China film market in 2021 has exceeded 10 billion yuan. Behind the continuous hot movie-watching fever is the rising box office income. According to the data of Lighthouse Professional Edition, as of 20: 56 on the 16th, the total box office of Spring Festival movies (including pre-sales) exceeded 7 billion yuan, continuing to set a new record.
It is not only the movie market that is hot, but also the local Chinese New Year to activate cultural consumption. Online cultural activities such as cloud events, cloud tourism and cloud flower market have enriched the holiday and leisure needs of the people. During the Spring Festival, tourist attractions in some cities are crowded with people. According to the requirements of epidemic prevention and control, all scenic spots, parks and indoor exhibition halls need to make online real-name appointments and visit in different periods. Many tourists report that admission tickets are the same as movie tickets, and they also regularly grab tickets in front of their mobile phones every day.
On-the-spot Chinese New Year local tours, Zhou Bianyou, short-distance go on road trip, parks, scenic spots, cinemas, ski resorts and other leisure and entertainment places have seen a significant increase in passenger flow, and resort hotels and homestays in the suburbs of the city have been booked hot. According to relevant data, during the Spring Festival, the consumption of accommodation in suburbs such as Yanqing, Miyun and Huairou in Beijing increased by more than 3 times compared with the same period of last year, while that in suburbs such as Chongming, Qingpu and Jiading in Shanghai increased by more than 2 times.
Traditional cultural consumption is still attractive. During the Spring Festival, the fire tree and silver flower on Wangfujing Street in Beijing, located in the 2022 Winter Olympics licensed commodity sales office on the first floor of Gongmei Building, attracted many consumers with a dazzling array of metal products and badges. On the colorful streetscape car, the naive rabbit is wearing armor and imposing; Colorful windmills turn in the wind and make a "squeaky" sound; Traditional cultures such as Latin films and sugar blowers attract children to stop.
This year’s Spring Festival, bookstores in famous business districts in big cities have also become popular punching places. Beijing Wangfujing Bookstore tried to set up a 24-hour non-closing area on the first floor for the first time during the Spring Festival. The Sanlian Bookstore in Longfu Temple Business Circle specially introduced some new books before the Spring Festival. During the Spring Festival holiday, the reading area near the window of the bookstore is often full, and people spend a peaceful Spring Festival holiday in the book.
The fiery cultural consumption market in the Spring Festival shows that residents have a strong demand for high-quality cultural tourism products, which will certainly promote the upgrading of cultural consumption and make cultural feasts more embedded in the daily life of the people.
Release potential, how to keep "bullish" after a "good start"
The realization of a "good start" in consumption during the Spring Festival reflects that China has great potential for promoting consumption, broad space for expanding domestic demand, strong momentum of high-quality economic development, and smooth and efficient domestic circulation.
How to keep the consumption of the Year of the Ox "bullish" after a "good start"?
"Although the consumer market faces many difficulties and challenges this year, overall, the development of the consumer market has many positive factors and favorable conditions. In particular, with the continuous effectiveness of various policies and measures to expand domestic demand and promote consumption, the adaptability between supply and demand has been further enhanced. It is expected that this year’s consumer market will generally show a recovery growth trend. " Zhu Xiaoliang, director of the Consumer Promotion Department of the Ministry of Commerce, pointed out.
In 2020, China’s final consumption expenditure will account for 54.3% of GDP, and consumption is still the "ballast stone" for stable economic operation. More importantly, in the process of steady recovery of the consumer market, many new features, new highlights and new trends have emerged. New consumption has developed rapidly, and new modes such as online shopping and live broadcast have developed rapidly. The online retail of physical goods has increased by 14.8%, and the live broadcast of e-commerce has exceeded 24 million, making it the largest online retail market in the world for eight consecutive years.
While the Spring Festival in the Year of the Ox left a full and happy memory, it also gave a good start to the bullish market of China consumption.
According to reports, this year, China will take various measures to promote consumption, further enhance the basic role of consumption in economic development, smooth the internal and external circulation, and constantly meet the people’s growing needs for a better life. Promote traditional consumption and cultivate new consumption. We will promote the transformation of consumer goods such as automobiles from purchase management to use management, deepen the reform of automobile circulation in streamline administration, delegate power, strengthen regulation and improve services, and encourage automobiles to go to the countryside and trade-in automobiles, household appliances and furniture. Expand service consumption, accelerate the development of community life services, promote the recovery and development of catering industry, and promote the upgrading and expansion of domestic service. Support traditional commercial enterprises to accelerate digitalization, intelligent transformation and cross-border integration, and enhance the consumer experience. Encourage the development of new consumption patterns and new formats and promote online and offline integration. Improve the new consumption development environment, improve relevant norms and standards, and strengthen the construction of the credit system.
China will expand urban consumption, accelerate the cultivation and construction of international consumption center cities, promote the transformation and upgrading of pedestrian streets with high quality, build high-end consumption carriers, and make urban life more quality; To expand the consumption of counties and towns as a starting point to drive rural consumption, strengthen the construction of business facilities and logistics sites in counties and towns, encourage qualified business enterprises to sink channels, fully release the potential of rural consumption and improve the rural consumption environment. Improve the circulation network of agricultural products, speed up the short-board of cold chain logistics, further improve the circulation efficiency of agricultural products and reduce the circulation cost.
"In 2021, we will take advantage of the trend and work hard to solve the pain points and difficulties in the development of new consumption highlights and new trends, so that the consumer market can develop better." Zhu Xiaoliang stressed.
(Reporter zhang yi Dong Wei)
[Micro-survey]
[What did you buy this Spring Festival]
Spring Festival couplets, blessings, window grilles, sweets, drinks and meat are all "frequent customers" on the Chinese New Year shopping list. This year, in order to enable people who celebrate the Spring Festival on the spot to enjoy the same warm Spring Festival, some enterprises provide New Year’s Eve dinner and red envelope benefits, and some places issue coupons. What did you buy for the Spring Festival this year? Did you buy it online or offline? Let’s talk together.
@ Happy Online:New year’s goods are out of season, and I bought some daily practical and high-quality good hearts.
@ Green Orange 77:Online and offline, there are blessings, liqueur, cherries, strawberries, chocolates, melon seeds, duck necks, all kinds of meat and vegetables for New Year’s Eve, as well as puzzles, bookshelves and new kitchen utensils.
@ Hele Hele:Dried fruits, fruits, vegetables, Swiss rolls, candy, movie tickets, smoked blind boxes, and ordered takeout several times.
@ Fushun Kid 666:I bought a lot of things online years ago, and there are still twenty or thirty couriers on the way these days.
(Dong Bei finishing)