The National Day is a “Seven Day Golden Week” celebration that most Chinese people look forward to every year. In China’s public holiday calendar, only the international Labor Day and National Day will be granted a 7-day long holiday in the country. Hence, people plan long travel trips with families during that period.
However, the pandemic situation has restricted people’s travel plans. If you travel to any cities within China and that city has a pandemic outbreak, you may be quarantined in the city for a period of time until it is safe again to travel back.
As a result, the National Day this year was particularly quiet. Most people chose to remain in the province they were at with small population going for short trips. From October 1 to 5, the 10 provinces with the largest number of tourists in the province are Guangdong, Zhejiang, Jiangsu, Shandong, Sichuan, Henan, Hunan, Anhui, Hubei and Fujian. Among them the popular “camping experience tourism” drives the sales of personalized cross-border products. In Tmall Global, the sales of imported outdoor sports products and camping equipment, fishing rods, motorcycle helmets and other brands have increased significantly.
In addition to tourism, many Chinese people choose to stay at home to accompany their families or pets and enjoy the “quiet home companion”. Therefore, we can see that the sales of imported household goods of Tmall Global increased by more than 50% year on year. The sales of pet snacks increased by more than 200% year on year, and the sales of pet clothings, toys, etc. increased by more than 80% year on year.
Health products, global drinks and snacks, home furnishings and other categories maintained double-digit growth year-on-year. Many people could not travel to their favourite holiday destination overseas because of pandemic. Instead the Chinese people were shopping for products from popular travel destinations through cross-border ecommerce platforms. Goods from Japan, Thailand, South Korea, Malaysia and other countries accounted for most of the shopping items. Icelandic skin care essence, Israeli bath salt Czech crystal cups and other products also have strong demand.
At the same time, the central and western regions of China and the sinking market (small-town and rural markets) showed huge cross-border consumption potential in the China CBEC market.
During the National Day holiday from October 1 to 5, 2022, we found an interesting situation that consumers in the central and western regions of China have rapidly increased their demand for imported goods. They learned to use the Tmall Global platform to buy more overseas goods. The growth rate of import cross-border consumption in rural areas has exceeded that in developed cities. Rural consumers are no longer satisfied with basic necessities, but hope to obtain more imported goods.
With the continuous improvement of cross-border e-commerce platforms and adding of new categories, more and more Chinese people are used to finding their favorite overseas products on China’s cross-border e-commerce platforms in a familiar ways, as they enjoy better product quality and richer choices.
Data source ：https://new.qq.com/rain/a/20221007A03EY200
