Festival bonanza for Shanghai's shoppers

Shanghai is set to launch around 1,900 promotional activities during this year’s Double Five Shopping Festival.

Compared with last year, this session will be larger, better in supply quality, wider in scope and more practical in benefiting consumers, said Liu Min, deputy director of the Shanghai Commission of Commerce.

Among the activities will be over 130 new product launches. 

L’Oreal Group, for example, will debut more than a hundred new products as well as three new brands, and set up its first concept flagship store. Two brands owned by the group will also open their first Asian stores in Shanghai during the festival.

Bright Food Group will roll out over a hundred new products via over 3,000 online platforms and offline stores.

Financial institutions such as the People's Insurance Co (Group) of China, the Agricultural Bank of China, and China UnionPay will also take part, providing services, including property insurance, financial payment and brand promotion, for all types of brands.

Another highlight is the pilot application of digital yuan. 

As of the end of last year, the city’s commerce and trade industry has been pushing forward trials of the digital yuan. At present, many of Shanghai’s key commercial districts, shopping malls, major enterprises and platforms are testing out the digital yuan payment system, according to Liu.

During the shopping festival, Meituan Group will support testing of digital yuan payment, which means consumers can pay by digital yuan on some online platforms of the group and also in certain offline merchants which cooperate with Meituan.