Shanghai's shopping season a resounding success

Shanghai Global New Product Debut Season has seen a resounding success so far, with over 320 launch events and 156 new flagship stores opening in the city since its launch on May 7.

Notable brands such as L'Oreal PRO, Bulgari, Gucci and Sony China all held their debut events in Shanghai over the past month, while 284 time-honored brands have released over 100 new products with distinctive Chinese cultural features. Additionally, a new batch of 104 Shanghai time-honored brands were collectively showcased.

As a result of the concentrated new product launch, the offline consumption during the first month of this year's Double Five Shopping Festival (from April 29 to May 28) reached nearly 8 billion yuan (US$1.12 billion) per day, a 33.6 percent increase from the same period during last year's shopping festival.

The "debut economy" is becoming a significant draw for consumers, as well as an important embodiment of the city's consumer innovation capabilities to support Shanghai building itself into an international consumer center through innovation, policy support, financial backing and international benchmarking.

The number and quality of new product launches is a crucial indicator of a city's consumption level. In 2022, Shanghai added 1,073 new first stores of various types, ranking first in scale and quality among all Chinese cities.

To promote innovative development in consumer markets, the city has emphasized the need to increase the organization and planning of consumer festivals and celebrations, continuously innovate consumer scenarios, and meet the personalized needs of consumers.

This year's Double Five Shopping Festival saw the launch of various innovative projects, such as an activity held at Bailian ZX Creative Center hoping to create a place of pilgrimage for ACGN (animation, comic, game and novel) culture fans in China.

The Shanghai Bureau of Commerce has launched a consumer market innovation development award program, aiming to reward retail and catering enterprises that achieve positive growth in retail sales while also showing outstanding performance in innovation, such as major first stores, creative activities, and new business patterns.

A total of 36 companies, including L'Oreal (China) Co Ltd, were selected for the 2022 Consumer Market Innovative Development Award. These companies will receive financial support from the government to encourage further innovation in consumer markets.

To offer strong financial support for the construction of an international consumer center city, the Shanghai branch of China UnionPay has enlisted the help of 12 major banks, including the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China and the Agricultural Bank of China. Together, they launched a special fund of over 20 million yuan and an initial credit limit of 1 billion yuan for special loans in support of enterprises.

Financial institutions will collaborate with the city's commerce bureau to support consumer market innovation projects. This will help reduce the financing costs of enterprises and accelerate the creation of new scenes and supplies for trendy consumption.