E-commerce gives recovery solid momentum

"While value-based shopping is nothing new, consumers are more prudent and knowledgeable about potential purchases than ever before as they seek maximum value with every purchase," said Britton Russell, who leads the consumer and retail practice at global consulting firm AlixPartners Greater China.

Shoppers now carefully research options across channels and platforms to find true product differentiators, such as product quality and sustainability, beyond reduced-price tags, he said.

Chinese shoppers are becoming more rational, carefully reviewing their needs, with focus on quality and value. "They aspire to buy cost-effective commodities, rather than just obtaining low-priced goods at the cost of quality," said Jason Yu, general manager of Kantar Worldpanel China, a market research provider.

Agreed Wang Yun, a researcher at the Academy of Macroeconomic Research, which is affiliated with the National Development and Reform Commission, the country's top economic regulator. "The optimization of COVID-19 response measures has boosted the confidence of both consumers and market entities. Service-based consumption segments that were hard hit by the pandemic have recovered at a faster pace."

Greater efforts should be made to boost the sales of new energy vehicles in rural areas, accelerate the building of NEV charging infrastructure and provide more support for the recovery of service-based consumption sectors, including tourism and culture, she said.

Zhou Maohua, an analyst at China Everbright Bank, said e-commerce symbolizes new retail, and has been playing a vital role in reducing transaction links and information asymmetry, enhancing transaction efficiency of commodities, improving consumer shopping experience, and unleashing consumption potential.

Combined with a raft of measures, this has helped consolidate the recovery of China's consumer market, with automobiles, electronics, housing and home decor all registering growth. Retail sales, a major indicator of consumption strength, grew more than 10 percent year-on-year in November, up from 7.6 percent growth in October. In the January-November period, China's retail sales increased more than 7 percent year-on-year to about 43 trillion yuan. Online retail sales alone rose 11 percent year-on-year to nearly 14 trillion yuan, data from the National Bureau of Statistics showed.

Small wonder, the Central Economic Work Conference said China will focus on spurring domestic demand, adding efforts should be made to stimulate consumption in areas with growth potential and expand productive investment, to create a virtuous cycle of mutual promotion between consumption and investment.

The meeting also said the development of digital consumption, green consumption and health consumption should be further promoted, and new growth areas such as consumption of smart home appliances, entertainment and tourism, sports events and trendy domestic brands should be fostered.

Consumption of high-value products like NEVs and electronics should be stimulated, while efforts should be made to increase the income of urban and rural residents, and expand the scale of the middle-income group, it said.

The Bank of China Research Institute said in a report that consumption is expected to maintain growth momentum and continue to serve as the "ballast stone" in boosting the country's economic growth. Consumption will grow by about 6 percent in 2024, it estimated.

To meet consumers' growing demand for a wide range of products and nurture new consumption growth points, e-commerce platforms have accelerated steps to launch tailor-made and new products in collaboration with domestic and foreign consumer goods brands.