Chinese spend over 900b yuan in online Spring Festival shopping spree

BEIJING -- Staycationing Chinese consumers spent 905.76 billion yuan (about $140.16 billion) on a month-long online Spring Festival shopping spree that concluded Thursday, official data shows.

The 30-day period of online shopping, which ran from Jan 20 to Feb 18, saw online catering sales skyrocket by 48.5 percent compared with the same period in 2020, according to the Ministry of Commerce.

Products and services related to Lunar New Year's Eve dinner surged 78.8 percent from the Spring Festival holiday in 2020, while online sales of movie tickets spiked 412.7 percent on yearly basis to surpass 9 billion yuan, the data shows.

Many Chinese people opted to stay put during the Spring Festival holiday this year in response to the government's call for avoiding unnecessary gatherings as part of anti-epidemic measures.