Ningbo Leading Increases in Total Retail Sales of Consumer Goods
- Details
- Category: Ningbo News
- Published: Tuesday, 06 October 2015 11:01
Since the second half of 2015, the consumer market in Ningbo has been on a fast track of growth, reversing a downward trend successfully. It is recorded in a latest statistics that Ningbo has registered 98.73 billion yuan in total retail sales of consumer goods from January to August, up by 9.7% over last year. That makes Ningbo a leader in the growing momentum across Zhejiang Province. Beyond that, the port city has seen rises in such sales for 4 straight months.
Last week, businesses in Ningbo leveraged the opportunity of a changing season and a drop in gold prices by heavily promoting clothes, hats, caps, shoes and gold accessories. As such, Erbai and Yintai, two leading retailers, hit a record high in sales during the Mid-autumn festival. Since the beginning of the second half of 2015, Ningbo has seen visible hikes in sales of daily necessities, gold, silver and jewelries, which has become a strong driver for consumption. From January to August, the entire city has recorded 22.6 billion yuan, or an increase of 17.8%, in sales of daily necessities above a designated level, accounting for 22,9% of total retail sales of consumer goods, driving up 3.8 percentage points. Among them, total sales of clothes, shoes, hats and knitted goods reached 11.21 billion yuan, accounting for 11,3% of total retail sales of consumer goods, driving up 2.6 percentage points.
Sales of gold, silver and jewelries have emerged from sapping growth. From January to August, retail sales of gold, silver and jewelries hit 1.57 billion yuan, up by 2.4%. Sales accounted for 21.1% and 16.2% in July and August respectively. Furniture has maintained a relatively fast growth, the driving force behind it is anaemic, though. According to statistics, from January to August, furniture sales totaled 6.86 billion yuan, a rise of 29.6%, accounting for 1.7 percentage points. The figure downed 0.3 points over the same period of last year.
Sales in catering sector have shown a downward trend following continued heightened growth. According to statistics, from January to August, the port city has registered a turnover of 3.79 billion yuan in catering, up by 9.7%. The increase came in at the third provincially, though it has downed 1.9 percentage points. “Restaurants entail marketing strategies with local characteristics and friendlier specialties for more customers after reform and transformation.” So said a responsible person from Ningbo Catering Association, “Xiao Er Mei” Restaurant is poised to emerge as the mainstream down the road. He added, “Scale Catering has steadily lost its competitive edge amid increasingly personalized consumer needs. Rather, experiential, individualized catering culture is gaining rising popularity.”
There is still a long way to go for the transformation of conventional retailers. From January to August, Ningbo has seen a dip of 1.4% in the sales volume of leading grocery stores. Only 5 key sales market registered negative sales growths. Sales of 3 leading convenient stores rose by 1.2%.
