More and more people are shopping for Festival goods on line

As the Spring Festival approaches, residents in Beijing are starting their annual shopping for this big event, but what is special about this year is that a lot of young and middle-aged people have chosen to do their Spring Festival shopping on-line. Shopping websites are competing fiercely to cash in on this unprecedented boom by offering year-end discounts as high as 50 percent.

More and more people are shopping for Festival goods on line

A number of popular shopping websites have launched sections dedicated to Spring Festival purchases with eye-catching promotional ads such as "Get everything you need for the Spring Festival online!" and "the largest selection with the lowest price!"

In this information age there has been a consumption revolution where the post-1980 generation has become a major force behind the increase in online Spring Festival purchases. Compared with the traditional method of shopping, shopping online can take place anytime and anywhere. Just by clicking the mouse, shoppers can get their purchase at home through surprisingly efficient delivery.

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Gao Ying, a lady from Hunan, has been working in Zhongguancun for six years; she spends every Spring Festival with her family back in Hunan where gift-giving is the local custom. "It is really a huge challenge to take so many gifts home with me, so this year, I have chosen to spend about 5000 RMB online on clothes, food and decorations for the year of the tiger, and they will arrive home at almost the same time as me," said Miss Gao with an excitement that comes with trying a completely new way of buying gifts for the family reunion.

Reporters have also noted that items with unique Beijing characteristics are the most popular purchases on some famous shopping websites, such as vacuum-packed Beijing duck, sugar-coated haws in individual packages, delicately packaged hams as well as the traditional Beijing pickles "Laotanzi" in glazed jars, all of which are brimming with Beijing's local culture. Besides, all kinds of roasted food, seafood, tobacco and alcohol are also seeing continued increases in sales.

Reporters searched using the keyword "Spring Festival Purchases" on Taobao, and received over 15,000 articles in 7,000 categories in return. The latest figure from Taobao shows that for the past week, the average sales of Spring Festival purchases has reached about 760 million RMB per day, more than double that from the previous year. From that total, daily transactions on the Taobao Mall reached around 10 million RMB.

Several young consumers told reporters that even meat, eggs, milk and vegetables can be purchased online, and handling your daily life by just clicking the mouse is no longer a fantasy. They added that goods for the Spring Festival that are sold online could be 10 to 20 percent cheaper than traditional shopping malls, and the purchases can be delivered quickly, this is very appealing to office workers who are always in a rush.