Holidays boost Chinese e-commerce Numbers

An extended May Day holiday has proved a boon for Chinese e-commerce, especially among millennial consumers and high-end brands.

Food orders among the generation group rose 112.4 per cent during the holiday period compared to last year, according to figures recorded at online delivery platform Eleme. Alibaba tourism platform Fliggy recorded a 500 per cent increase in the purchase of tourism products among people born after 2000, while online hotel orders from young parents with children under the age of three increased 77 per cent.

Additionally, quality home appliances are now among the most highly sought-after products purchased on e-commerce sites.

“This year’s May Day Holiday showed that people have stronger high-quality consumption demands, reflected not only in high-quality products but also in services,” said the Academy of China Council for the Promotion of International Trade’s head of international commerce Zhao Ping.

“The growth has been driven by a surge in disposable incomes and the middle-income population,” she added.

Millennials have now surpassed Gen-X consumers as the biggest e-commerce spenders, according to a report by market consultancy CBNData.

“The younger generation, especially those born after 1990 and 1995, are more used to ‘fingertip’ consumption and are fast becoming disrupters in the e-commerce sector,” said CBNData business analyst Yang Qin.