China sees expansion of new businesses, upgrading of new consumption
By Luo Shanshan, People’s Daily
China’s online retail is now quickly making up
the losses suffered by the offline sector during the COVID-19 epidemic.
According to China’s National Bureau of
Statistics, the online retail sales of physical goods went up by 11.5 percent
in the first five months this year, accounting for 24.3 percent of the total
retail sales of consumer goods. China also saw its express delivery volume
surge 41 percent year-on-year in May, and the revenue of express delivery
companies increased 25 percent year-on-year, said the country’s State Post
Bureau.
With emerging new businesses and vital online
consumption, the online retail sales of physical goods is contributing an
increasingly larger share to the growth of the consumption market, bringing
more benefits and convenience to the consumers.
At 4:00 a.m. every day in Yantai, East China’s
Shandong Province, the machines at a logistics distribution center of Suning
Logistics, a Chinese self-operated retail logistics company, crank up. Parcels
are being sorted by employees and then loaded onto vehicles heading for 12
first-level branches, where the commodities will be sorted again and shipped to
over 200 service centers in different townships.
“There is a huge demand for online service. Our
delivery volume expanded by about 23 percent on a yearly basis in May,”
introduced Wang Baoyu, a principal of a Suning Logistics service center in the
city.
The
growth in online retail sales of physical goods indicates strong momentum of
China’s consumption upgrading.
“Although we had to stay at home, we could
still taste the delicacies in different parts of the country,” said Zhang Ju in
Hefei, capital of East China’s Anhui Province. She placed an order online of
Orah mandarins, a specialty of Wuming county of Nanning, South China’s Guangxi
Zhuang Autonomous Region, after her relative-visiting trip to Guangxi was
suspended by COVID-19. “The mandarins were delivered to me on the second day,”
Zhang said, adding that the fruits were tasty and fairly priced.
As consumption upgrading accelerates,
consumers’ demands are becoming increasingly diversified and personalized. The
consumption upgrading showed a strong momentum in the January-May period
despite the impacts of the COVID-19 epidemic, and commodities from across the
world are now accessible on e-commerce platforms for the Chinese public.
The
growth in online retail sales of physical goods indicates flourishing new
consumption.
A livestreaming marketing event was recently
held by Pinduoduo, an interactive e-commerce platform in China. It attracted a
total of 7.23 million consumers in 48 hours, gaining over 630,000 new followers
for enterprises on the platform.
The event was joined by multiple government
officials, including He Jinshan, head of Nankang district, Ganzhou of East
China’s Jiangxi Province, who tried to sell furniture made of the solid-wood
produced in the district. When the event concluded, Nankang’s furniture
manufacturers achieved a turnover of over 50 million yuan ($7.08 million).
China’s e-commerce live-streaming sessions
topped 4 million in the first quarter, in which over 100 mayors and county
chiefs promoted local products, according to statistics released by the
country’s Ministry of Commerce.
New online businesses accelerated their
innovation in the epidemic, and new consumption, such as influencer marketing
and community-based group buying, also demonstrated strong vitality.
Driven by digital technology, new online
consumption is able to better match the demand and supply sides, tap into the
potential of regional industrial clusters, and facilitate the resumption of
production of relevant enterprises. It also helps make up the declined
consumption, unleash the consumption potential, boost economy and stabilize
employment.
The
growth in online retail sales of physical goods indicates the vast space of
China’s domestic market.
Chinese e-commerce giant JD.com kicked off its
annual shopping festival on June 1 and witnessed robust sales thanks to its
high-quality service.
Statistics showed that the total transactions
on the company’s platform reached a staggering amount of 269.2 billion yuan
from June 1 to 18, and 187 brands gained more than 100 million yuan on the
platform during the same period. The orders of home appliances,
groceries and daily necessities all increased.
China is a country with 1.4 billion people,
including 400 million middle-income earners. As one of the world’s largest
markets, the country is bringing its consumption upgrading into full swing.
![]() |
Workers pack oranges for online orders in
an e-commerce industrial park in Yiling district, Yichang,
Central China’s Hubei Province, June 18. (Photo by Zhang Guorong/People’s
Daily Online) |

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