This year’s Spring Festival came earlier than in previous years. Just after New Year’s Day, everyone was busy buying New Year’s goods. On January 8, the reporter visited major shopping malls and supermarkets and found that the purchasing power of Hunan people’s New Year’s goods this year has not decreased, and there have been many new changes, buying "new tricks".
While major shopping malls and supermarkets usher in the peak passenger flow before the Spring Festival, major online e-commerce companies have rushed to the New Year’s goods market. Hunan people who love to taste "fresh" not only pursue seasonal local specialties, but also put "foreign fresh" on the table; with the advent of the 5G era, smart products have also "broken" into people’s New Year’s shopping lists.
1. Online and offline, the price is much more "beautiful" than usual.
There is still half a month for the Spring Festival, and when I enter the supermarkets such as BBK, China Resources Vanguard, and Carrefour, I can already feel the Spring Festival atmosphere. Decorations such as "Happy Year of the Rat 2020" are beaming, and cookies, dried fruits, candies and other areas are full of hot-selling gift-giving products.
The reporter saw in the BBK Changsha Dongtang store that there are a wide range of preferential activities such as buy 100 yuan and get 100 yuan cash coupons for snack food, and price-break discounts for milk cartons. Ms. Yang, a citizen who is shopping for chocolate gift boxes, said that there are many relatives visiting during the Spring Festival, and they take advantage of the strong discounts in supermarkets to stock up on some snacks.
The supermarket salesperson of BBK Changsha Dongtang store told reporters that preserves, candies, milk and puffed food are still must-have items in the shopping cart of Hunan people’s New Year’s goods, but with the gradual rise of the health craze in the "post-80s" and "post-90s", nuts have become one of the popular New Year’s goods. Sugar-free, low-fat biscuits and cakes and other healthy snacks are increasingly sought after by young people.
Offline supermarkets offer strong discounts, and online e-commerce is also in full swing. The "New Year’s Shopping Festival" that started one after another in January has become the first promotion of the new year for major e-commerce in 2020.
Tmall’s "New Year’s Shopping Festival" this year set a small goal of "helping farmers across the country to underwrite at least 300 million catties of fruit"; JD.com uses "Spring Festival does not close" and "buy expensive and pay" as selling points to provide New Year’s goods while upgrading services; Sunny Retail Cloud, which sank into the county market, released data on January 4. During the "New Year’s Shopping Festival" event, the overall order volume increased by 113%.
Li Ying, a girl from Chenzhou who works in Guangzhou, told reporters that this year her family was in Guangzhou for the Chinese New Year. To understand her homesickness, she ordered Xiangxi five-flower bacon from Songkwai Fong online. The store coupons and promotional allowances provided by e-commerce platforms made the price much more "beautiful" than usual.
2. All local and specialty "foreign products" will be accepted according to the order.
It was New Year’s Eve in the market. At this time, the ordinary people in Shili Baxiang would sell their own native products, and this year was no exception.
On January 2, Zhangjiajie Yongding District Jiaoziya Town held the first Tujia New Year’s Shopping Festival. Xiang Zuopeng, a villager in Qijiaping Village, Jiaoziya Town, did not expect that the rice and rice he brought were so popular and sold for thousands of yuan. It is understood that Tujia New Year’s Shopping Festival attracted nearly 30,000 people from urban areas and surrounding townships to the market to purchase authentic New Year’s goods, and 925 on-site exhibition booths sold a total of more than 50,000 kilograms of agricultural and sideline products.
Guiyang County also collected local and special products from various villages, and held the third New Year’s Shopping Festival on January 6. Fungus food, local chicken and duck, white water sour chili peppers, etc. merged into a "New Year’s goods street". As Mr. Chen, a citizen, bagged the New Year’s goods, he said: "Sour chili peppers are very famous, but it is difficult to buy them too far from the county seat. This time I specially bought a few more cans for relatives and friends to give them a taste."
Local seasonal agricultural products continue to sell well, and novel New Year’s goods from all over the world have also begun to hit the shelves.
Reporters in Hema Fresh Changsha Xiyingmen store saw that Thailand’s rich shrimp, Australian lobster, New Zealand blue abalone and other fresh seafood and Chilean cherries, afterfruit, Australian mango and other southern hemisphere fruits have been put into the shopping cart by consumers one after another.
According to the "Fresh New Year’s Cargo Spring Festival Travel Map" released by Hema Fresh on January 8, there are currently hundreds of high-quality fresh New Year’s cargoes from more than 40 countries around the world, successfully grabbing tickets, air tickets and ferry tickets for the Chinese Spring Festival travel, and non-stop shipping the best local agricultural products to China.
According to Hema Fresh data, many Hunan people have achieved "cherries freedom". Chilean cherries have seen a large increase in sales, with sales increasing by more than 500% compared with the same period last year. Consumption frequency has also increased. Hema Fresh staff said that imported fruits and seafood have changed from gifts for relatives to daily consumer goods in people’s family life, appearing on the New Year’s Eve dinner table of more and more families.
3.5G era is approaching, keeping up with the new trend of smart consumption
"Xiao Ai, play a song" Gong Xi Fa Cai "." At the Xiaomi Home Changsha Wangfujing store, as soon as the staff finished speaking, the smart speaker immediately began to play lively Spring Festival songs. The staff said that before the Spring Festival, many people added household items, and a full set of smart home products such as Xiaomi TVs, air conditioners, sockets, and switches were loved by many young people.
According to data released by Tmall on January 8, during Tmall’s "New Year’s Shopping Festival", "post-00s" who officially entered the 20-year-old threshold became loyal fans of smart devices. Bluetooth headphones and smart speakers are new choices in the "post-00s" New Year’s list. Buying a Tmall Genie for parents to enjoy a high-tech smart life has also become a new way for "post-00s" to be filial to their parents.
Suning big data shows that on January 1, the sales of smart drying racks on the Ning platform increased by 471% year-on-year, the sales of smart toilet covers increased by 159% year-on-year, and the sales of water purifiers increased by 129% year-on-year. 5G mobile phones have become the new favorite of shopping years ago. The sales of online and offline omni-channel mobile phones on Suning.com are hot, and the sales of 5G mobile phones have increased by 490% month-on-month.
It is understood that this year, the sales of Tongcheng Electric smart products have also increased by more than 300% year-on-year.
Technology has added new options to Chinese New Year gifts. Mr. Tang, a resident of Changsha, is preparing to buy a smart bracelet as a gift for his grandfather. "It’s Chinese New Year. Wear a smart bracelet for the elderly, so you can monitor your physical condition in real time and do your filial piety," he said.
(Text by Huang Tingting)