Shopping festival launches more campaigns

Shanghai’s Double Five Shopping Festival, which boosted both online and offline consumption, will launch more than 120 city-level key campaigns over the next two months.

In the first 24 hours after the launch of the shopping festival on May 4, city-wide consumer payments exceeded 15.68 billion yuan (US$2.21 billion).

From May 1 to 10 online sales grew rapidly in Shanghai, adding up to 40 billion yuan. The city’s express delivery volume reached 77.438 million units, up 26.3 percent from the year before. The volume on May 6 alone surged 31.7 percent year on year to over 10 million units.

The city’s offline business entities also enjoyed a recovery. Even with sales from visitors from outside the city still at a low level and merchants offering bigger discounts, Shanghai’s offline consumption still topped 48.2 billion yuan, close to last year’s level.

Retail sales of sample enterprises monitored increased by 10.3 percent year on year and 27.9 percent month on month.

During the Labor Day holiday, sales in business circles of East Nanjing Road, Lujiazui, Xujiahui and Wujiaochang increased 320 percent, 280 percent, 330 percent and 130 percent , respectively, from a month earlier. Meanwhile, 7.07 million tourists contributed consumption of 9.5 billion yuan.

More than 520,000 online merchants and over 100,000 offline businesses took part in the Double Five Shopping Festival, giving out more than 24 billion yuan in coupons.

The turnover of Shanghai merchants on the Tmall platform on May 5 nearly tripled from a year earlier. From May 1 to 10, local online fresh food vendor Dingdong Maicai also saw sales triple.

Meanwhile, Bailian's online and offline sales grew more than 8 percent year on year in the 10-day period; sales of the Shanghai New World shopping mall rose 2.1 times month on month; and sales of 10 gold and jewelry companies increased 1.7 times in general compared with a month earlier.

Since the launch of the festival, many shopping malls, including Plaza 66, Global Harbor, The Mixc, Bailian Qingpu Outlets and the Shanghai Village (Yioulai) have all seen sales soaring by more than 20 percent year on year.

As for platforms offering "6+365 days" exhibition and trading services, sales at Hongqiao Import Commodity Exhibition and Trading Center more than doubled from the same period last month, while Greenland Global Community Trading Hub posted total sales topping 11 million yuan.

In the next step, another over 120 campaigns and more than 480 activities will be launched in Shanghai during May and June.

In addition, preparations are under way for the first Shanghai Night Life Festival to be held in June, which will feature a number of nighttime consumption events.