Text | Whale Shang, author | Xiaojie
The annual “New Year’s Day” has begun. This has always been a battleground for businesses, and this year’s New Year Festival exuded a strong “New Year flavor” early.
E-commerce platforms are rushing ahead of the New Year sales, just like the Double 11 and 618 sales, they are all ahead of schedule this year, largely due to changes in the consumption macro environment.
This year, major e-commerce platforms are working particularly hard. Alibaba, JD.com, Pinduoduo, Douyin and other platforms have launched New Year goods festival activities. Their product selections will be adjusted according to consumer trends, and they will use price wars, event subsidies, and fun interactions to seize opportunities in the New Year goods market. Various brands have also launched “gift packages” and other products for consumers to choose from.
However, Double 11 and Double 12 have just ended. Will consumers’ needs change? How can merchants seize the business opportunities of the New Year’s Festival? How to grasp the needs of consumers for purchasing new year goods and stimulate their enthusiasm for purchasing? You can all get a glimpse of it from the New Year sales on e-commerce platforms.
Fancy “price war” is still the mainstream
With the steady improvement of people’s living standards, consumers’ demand for New Year’s goods has become increasingly complex. A few years ago, people’s favorite New Year products were mostly traditional food, new clothing and other categories. Nowadays, consumers have more diversified needs, and some subcategories are gradually “emerging”.
According to relevant data, from January to November 2024, the total retail sales of consumer goods was 44,272.3 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 3.5%. This means that the domestic consumer market has entered an era of low growth.
However, there are also many consumers who believe that the “New Year flavor” is getting weaker and weaker.According to iiMedia Research’s “Consumption Behavior of Chinese Consumers’ Spring Festival New Year Goods in 2024”, setting off firecrackers and buying New Year goods are one of the activities that best feel the flavor of the New Year. Many consumers also believe that there are more and more online New Year activities. So, how to regain the feeling of celebrating the New Year and further stimulate consumption vitality is closely related to e-commerce platforms and merchants.
First of all, price war is still a routine operation of major manufacturers.Traditional e-commerce Taobao has launched a variety of ways to receive threshold-free red envelopes, such as daily check-in, participating in interactive games, etc., and you can get large red envelopes of up to 8,888 yuan. Some products directly enjoy official instant discounts, and the specific discounts vary depending on the category.
JD.com, which has been competing with Taobao, is one of the first e-commerce platforms to launch the New Year Goods Festival this year. As early as December 24, 2024, JD.com has already launched the New Year Goods Festival. During the JD New Year Goods Festival, it launched “You can get 60 yuan extra every day” “Subsidy” activity, you can also enjoy state subsidies when purchasing home appliances and 3C digital products. In addition, we also launch related promotions such as buy one, get one free, buy formal wear and get formal wear.
Pinduoduo, the low-price “fighter”, has provided tens of billions of subsidies as always. During the “New Year’s Day” period, Pinduoduo said it would continue to subsidize new-quality agricultural products, new-quality New Year’s goods and other merchants, continue to enrich the “new quality supply” during the Spring Festival, and drive various industries through “direct shipment from origin” and “direct supply from factory”. Large agricultural production areas and industrial belts are directly connected to the national new year goods markets, helping businesses, workers and farmers in agricultural production areas and industrial belts to increase production and income.
Special e-commerce Vipshop’s preferential methods are still mainly “one item instant discount”. It is understood that Vipshop’s New Year’s Eve Shopping Festival will be launched twice online at 8:00 pm on January 6 and 8:00 pm on January 16. During this event, prices as low as 15% off the lowest price in the past 30 days include new clothes, new year gift boxes, nut snacks, gold jewelry, cosmetics and skin care. In the first four hours of the New Year’s Day, there are limited-time discounts, and many products will be discounted on top of the big sale prices.
Live streaming e-commerce has also begun to fully embrace the New Year’s Eve this year. As the last big promotion before the Spring Festival, the New Year’s Eve has also become the key to the success of Douyin, Kuaishou and others. The Douyin New Year Goods Festival will run from January 2 to January 22, 2025. In addition to official instant discounts, one-piece direct discounts, “big-name discounts” and other activities, the live broadcast room has also added new features such as hometown New Year goods.
The official period of the Kuaishou New Year Shopping Festival is from December 21 to January 5, 2025, and the welfare return period is from January 6 to 12. According to the relevant person in charge of Kuaishou e-commerce, the 2025 Kuaishou New Year Goods Festival will set up a more New Year-style marketing method, introduce and create more authentic popular New Year goods, and enhance the user purchasing experience.
Different from previous years, this year’s New Year’s Festival consumer activity subsidies not only have a platform, but also the country’s “two new” policies continue to increase.Starting from January 1 this year, various regions have begun to implement a new round of consumer goods trade-in and large-scale equipment update policies.
In addition to price wars and subsidy activities. For consumers, the service quality of platforms and merchants is also very critical. With Taobao and JD.com opening up logistics cooperation this year, they have provided merchants and consumers with more diversified logistics options and distribution services. In terms of the timeliness of logistics and distribution, both users and merchants can be better satisfied.
In addition, customer service and after-sales service satisfaction also directly affect consumers’ shopping decisions. After all, in the stock era, whichever platform can offer more benefits to consumers and whichever platform has more categories will be able to gain more consumer support.
Therefore, for the platform, it is top priority to gain insight into the changing trends of consumers and formulate differentiated strategies based on the needs of different groups.
New Year’s goods are trendy and must have both cost-effectiveness and emotional value
Since this year,It is not difficult to see that consumers will be more sensitive to goods and services, prefer cost-effective products, and pursue rational consumption more significantly.
According to a survey by China News Weekly’s Interesting Report, nearly 90% of people plan to buy New Year’s goods this year, with those born in the 1990s and 1995s accounting for half of the purchasers.What young people value most when purchasing New Year goods are quality, price and practicality.
This data is also confirmed in Taobao and Tmall data. Nowadays, those born in 1995 in Taotian are the absolute main consumers of New Year’s goods, and those born in 2000 (18-24 years old) have the fastest growing consumption power. This change in consumer groups is driving profound changes in the entire New Year goods market. The younger generation pays more attention to personalized experience, is more receptive to digital services, and makes more rational consumption decisions.
Focusing on the above two sets of data, it is not difficult to find that young people, as the main force in the consumer market, prefer products with both high quality and high cost performance.
According to iiMedia Research’s “2024 Spring Festival New Year Goods Consumption Behavior of Chinese Consumers” survey data, the top three New Year goods that Chinese consumers buy or plan to buy are fresh fruits, snacks, clothing, shoes and bags. Among the top ten, food categories account for more than half. In other words, New Year products that revolve around eating, drinking and dressing up are more likely to be loved by consumers. Satisfying the appetite is a reward for consumers after a year of hard work.
Whale merchants have discovered that leading snack brands such as Three Squirrels, Bestore, and Cha Cha Food have taken advantage of the year-end consumer market by expanding production and stocking, launching new products for the Year of the Snake, and deploying multiple channels. As the weather gets colder, nourishing and health-preserving foods such as bird’s nest and donkey-hide gelatin, as well as white radish, morels, walnut kernels, blueberries, and red matsutake mushrooms are deeply loved by consumers.
but,The popularity of traditional products cannot fully reflect the “taste of the year”. Young consumers’ pursuit of “emotional value” makes the New Year flavor even stronger.A variety of Spring Festival couplets and New Year festive pendants can make people feel the beautiful expectations of the New Year and the new atmosphere. Currently, Hema’s aromatherapy gift box called “The Smell of Money” is becoming popular on social platforms, and another aromatherapy pendant called “New Year’s Sign” is also very popular.
What’s more interesting is that with the changes in the main consumer groups and the importance that young people attach to festival rituals, when they come to the wet market to buy New Year’s goods, they are more willing to buy high-quality, trendy food. For example, there are some personalized snack gift bags and fruit gift boxes, as well as some high-end seafood, co-branded gift boxes, and trendy snacks. Most of the audiences are young people. There are also specialty categories such as jewelry and cultural and creative toys, which are gradually becoming the new favorites of young people and have huge explosive potential. These products can not only satisfy the sense of festival rituals, but also bring interactive gameplay and enhance festival entertainment.
Overseas markets are also very popular. For overseas consumers, they will also buy new year products around Christmas. According to the Beijing News, consumers in Asian countries such as Japan and South Korea prefer colored light strings, while overseas consumers in Europe and the United States prefer white light strings. Merchants must not only prepare enough light strings and accessories, but also prepare various decorative light strips in advance.
Data from multiple e-commerce platforms show that seasonal products such as hand warmers, heated insoles, and tire chains have experienced a sales boom at home and abroad. At a time when consumers are paying more and more attention to appearance and functionality, there are many products in the segment that are expected to hit new tracks, such as self-heating insoles, self-heating underwear, etc. Among them, the demand for heated mouse pads increases in winter, and merchants stock up in advance.
In short, whether at home or abroad, platforms must understand changes in consumer preferences and segment trends in order to implement more targeted subsidy strategies. For merchants, the New Year Festival is the last sprint of the year, and how to avoid “running with them” is a big problem.
Build momentum on the platform and grab orders through multiple channels at the end of the year
During major promotions, many merchants often laugh at themselves for “losing money and making money” and complain that the advertising fees of various e-commerce platforms are too expensive. Major manufacturers have to make changes to avoid disappointing businesses.
This year, merchants who sign up for the Tmall New Year Shopping Festival, in addition to meeting the basic promotion access requirements, must also support the “Consumer Experience Improvement Plan” (that is, support the return treasure). Replacing freight insurance with a return product can reduce the losses caused to merchants by swindling users, and can also improve consumers’ shopping experience.
JD.com recently announced that it will once again upgrade the salary and benefits of customer service staff. The monthly fixed salary of more than 20,000 JD customer service staff will be significantly increased, achieving an average salary increase of 2 months for all employees. After Pinduoduo waives logistics transfer fees, it reduces merchants’ logistics costs per order.
For merchants on short video platforms, Douyin and Kuaishou assist merchants in planting content, making key search terms for products, using search and shelves to engage consumers, and improve conversion rates.
Meituan has joined forces with retail brands such as Walmart, Yonghui Supermarket, Meiyijia, Sephora, and Miniso, as well as many small and medium-sized supermarkets and convenience stores to participate. Traditional e-commerce, social e-commerce, and local life service platforms each work hard to build a comprehensive consumption scenario.
In fact, in the context of consumption downgrade, the iteration of the big promotion model can reflect the changes in consumer culture. From Double 11 to the New Year’s Day, from traditional e-commerce to instant retail, the official gameplay and traffic incentives of various major manufacturers are reshaping the development direction of China’s retail industry. Changes in consumer demands and habits are also constantly pushing the entire industry to develop in a more mature direction.
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