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.
At present, various policies to stimulate consumption are taking effect, and online and offline
consumption is becoming more energetic, injecting more impetus to the high-quality development
of China’s economy.
