Spending up as dragon-themed products attract shoppers
City's shopping spaces have been decorated with dragon-themed items to reflect the auspicious atmosphere.
New Year spending has been picking up all around the city with dragon-related products and decorations injecting vitality into the market ahead of the Chinese Lunar New Year.
According to Shanghai Commerce Commission, Chinese style canteens have seen a strong demand for New Year's Eve dinners, with bookings already returning to 2019 levels.
According to Meituan's online booking data, the number of Shanghai customers' New Year's Eve dining reservation is ranking in the top spot with local canteens in full steam to welcome year-end gatherings.
Shanghai is also the top ranking destination along with Beijing, Sanya and Harbin in terms of domestic travel bookings.
Meituan's food delivery service has seen a surge in demand for traditional Lunar New Year dishes such as babaofan ("eight-treasure rice" puddings) and set menus, with the number of orders jumping 110 percent at the end of January from a month ago.
Chinese museums have been leveraging cartoon figures of dragons to promote cultural derivatives.
Kantar's China monthly consumer barometer also points to higher sentiment in January, with about five percentage more consumers tending to pursue higher product quality in a wide range of categories, especially alcohol, healthcare, hotel accommodation and electronics, compared with the fourth quarter of last year.
Over 30 domestic museums have already started to offer dragon-themed cultural derivatives on Alibaba's retail site Tmall with over 1,000 types of limited edition items available.
Since the launch of the New Year campaign in mid January, the sales volume of dragon-themed items has soared more than tenfold year-on-year, according to JD.
Car ornaments, household decorative items, clothing, daily necessities, alcohol, maternal and infant goods, and gold jewelry have been the preferred categories and purchases made by those born after 1990 accounted for nearly 55 percent of the total.
Bright Dairy's pop-up store in the newly opened Shanghai Museum's east branch attracted customers.
Bright Dairy's pop-up store in the newly opened Shanghai Museum's east branch has attracted visitors with limited edition milk bottles and tie-up offerings with the museum.
Drawing inspiration from the famous Jingdezhen porcelain from the Qing Dynasty, the new packaging is also seen on fresh milk and yoghurt offerings.
The iconic No.1 Shopping Shopping Center on Nanjing Road Pedestrian Mall has been hosting activities such as Shanghai dialect competitions, traditional music performances and family photo shoots at professional studios.
A street bazaar hosted by the No.1 Shopping Shopping Center.
