Home appliances record big demand ahead of Spring Festival

Home appliances became one of the three fastest growing sectors in terms of shipments on short-video platform Kuaishou during the platform's promotion campaign from Dec 24 to Jan 2, weeks ahead of the Chinese New Year, Caijing.com.cn reported on Thursday.

Among the home appliances, the gross merchandise volume of refrigerators grew 412 percent year-on-year during the campaign and that of the air conditioners increased 170 percent. Active consumers jumped more than 20 percent in the same period.

Grabbing the last chance to improve the sales performance in 2022, both e-commerce platforms and home appliance providers were eager to prepare for the Spring Festival promotion.

E-commerce platforms Tmall and Taobao held the Spring Festive promotion campaign from Dec 27 to Jan 4, Vipshop from Dec 29 to Jan 21, JD from Dec 26 to Jan 28, and Douyin from Dec 28 to Jan 7.

Home appliance providers, including Gree, Haier, Midea, Hisense and TCL, offered various discounts such trade-in discounts.

Chu Jifa, head of the TCL e-commerce marketing department, said the sales growth of home appliances was due to multiple reasons: First, the restrained shopping desire by the pandemic was unleashed. Second, the pandemic prevention and control measures have been adjusted. Third, Spring Festival creates a promotion window.

In addition, local governments' giving out consumer vouchers was another facilitator. Taking Shaoxing of Zhejiang province as an example, the city issued on Jan 7 alone a total of 6 million yuan ($884,819) vouchers. Changchun of Jilin province issued online vouchers for home appliances with the largest face-value up to 400 yuan, and Shenyang of Liaoning province issued 15 million yuan vouchers.

It is noteworthy that pandemic related and smart home appliances were especially popular. According to JD.com, shipments of germicidal lamps in Shanghai surged 57 times year-on-year since Dec 29.