Charts of Week - China's Consumption Recovery Continues; Online Shoppers Remain Cautious; Offline Sales Sustain Momentum

Charts of the Week is BAiGUAN's series on (usually no more than five) key data points that we think you should pay attention to, handpicked by our team. Whether you are on your daily commute or waiting for the elevator, our goal is to help you have a grasp of the general state of affairs in China in under 2 minutes.

Week of March 17, 2023

Datapoints covered in this issue:

• China online consumption and breakdown by category

• Offline consumption

• Meituan delivery orders

• Social sentiment on real estate market

1. Online sales in China remained flat during January and February 2023. The year-to-date gross merchandise volume (GMV) on major e-commerce platforms—Tmall, JD, and Douyin—shrank by 2% compared to the same period in 2022. The overall online retail sales, according to the National Bureau of Statistics, increased moderately by 5% year-over-year.

   

   Note: the discrepancy between BigOne's tracked GMV and the National Bureau of Statistics for February 2023 YTD may be due to the fact that many consumers have shifted to Pinduoduo, a rapidly growing e-commerce platform that is currently not being tracked by BigOne Lab.

2. Consumers showed caution entering 2023, with Medicine & Health being the sole category exhibiting positive year-on-year growth in GMV. Discretionary spending categories, including 3C products (computers, communication, and consumer electronics), Sports & Fitness, Car & Accessories, Makeup & Skin Care, and light manufacturing (household items, home improvements, and toys), witnessed above-average declines in GMV on a year-on-year basis.

   

3. Offline consumption sustains the recovery momentum. BigOne’s tracked offline catering revenue increased by 27% year-on-year during the week ending on March 12, 2023