Home appliances and consumer electronics products witnessed strong sales during the Spring Festival holiday, as stay-at-home consumers purchased cutting-edge (尖端的) digital products to keep themselves entertained and to send wishes to family members in other cities. According to the Ministry of Commerce, sales of communication equipment and home appliances rose by 39 percent and 29. 9 percent during the seven-day holiday.
Ma Ke, a white-collar worker in Beijing, did not go back to her hometown in Wuhan, Hubei Province during the holiday. Instead, she bought a 5G smartphone and a smartwatch for her parents as New Year gifts. "My father is a fan of electronic products. He always wants to be an early user of the latest phones and smartwatches," Ma said. Consumers like Ma are answering the local measures to stay where they work during the holiday period in a bid to reduce the potential spread of the COVID-19 (新型冠状病毒). While staying put, they are buying the latest digital products and adopting cutting-edge digital technologies. Some of them have bought new fitness device, as the stay-at-home-fitness trend is booming in China.
Sensing many consumers have not traveled during the holidays, shopping malls have also come up with new ideas to better entertain them. Shopping malls in Shenzhen and Beijing, for instance, have set robots powered by artificial intelligence (AI) to issue a variety of coupons (优惠券) for dining, movies, sports and other activities to attract consumers.
Jacky Han, vice-president of marketing at tech company Cheetah Mobile, said shopping malls play a central yet complicated role in the retail ecosystem. "AI-powered robots can help merchants to convert foot traffic into intelligent data, by functioning as an interactive advertising platform and information desk and transforming the customer experiences," Han said.
