China’s online retailers are anticipating strong demand for high quality imported produce ahead of the Chinese New Year celebration. The country’s main e-commerce sites are braced for a surge in sales in the weeks leading up to the festival, which this year falls on 19 February.
Pan Biao, vice-president of Shanghai-based yhd, an online supermarket owned by Wal-Mart, told China Daily News that the retailer had expanded its range of imported products in preparation for the event. As of the end of last year the company was offering almost 70,000 lines of imported foods compared with 14,000 in 2013.
“Based on our sales performance during the pre-Spring Festival season of the past two years, we believe that a large number of consumers will do their festival shopping online,” he said. “Imported food is expected to be on top of their mind in terms of making some special purchases for the celebration.”
Statistics from Shanghai-based yhd showed that the sales of nianhuo, goods purchased specially for CNY, increased by around 100 per cent before the 2014 Spring Festival, compared with the same period in 2013. Imported food made up 47 per cent of nianhuo sales in 2014, up from 37 per cent in the previous year.
Tong Yang of Womai, the e-commerce trading site owned by China National Cereals, Oil and Foodstuffs, said the purchase of imported foodstuffs had become “rigid demand”, especially for families in China’s first-tier cities.
“Since 2014 we have been offering a wide range of foodstuffs…including Chilean cherries, which have been very well received by consumers,” Tong said. “We are able to offer these products at very competitive prices, sometimes for less than the cost of locally-grown products on sale in Chinese supermarkets.”
