For many women in China, the 2020 International Women’s Day will be remembered as an unusual one.
As the coronavirus outbreak drags on into the third month, housebound Chinese women, diverted from their usual online shopping behavior to become more practical, data compiled by three local e-commerce platforms shows.
According to Beijing-based e-commerce giant JD.com, which compiled sales data in the period from last December to February, their female customers’ online shopping carts were now filled with family necessities such as face masks, sanitizers, as well as rice cookers, when clothing and beauty products were nowhere to be found on the top 20 sales growth categories.
JD.com, the country’s second-largest online shopping platform, noticed that female customers bought 14 times more personal protective equipment such as face masks, as well as toys & instruments than they did last year.
Personal care products, like hand-wash and sanitizers, also increased more than nine times among female spenders from a year earlier, a report by JD.com obtained by KrASIA reveals.
Also, Chinese moms and wives purchased almost 20 times more rice cookers on Suning.com, another popular e-commerce platform, from February 5th to March 4th, as compared to the same period last year.
It is noteworthy to mention that hardware tools saw a 195% sales increase on Suning.com, while hair shavers sales also increased by 1069.3% from February 5th to March 4th, as the biggest quarantine in human history has led women to be self-reliant when home appliances need fixing and hair needs trimming.
Boxing gloves also saw its sales doubled in this period compared to last year, as women actively seeking for indoor exercise methods to keep fit.
Sales data collected by Pinduoduo shows that Chinese men are reciprocating women’s efforts in protecting their families. Still, the gifts they ordered on Pinduoduo this March, interestingly, are less practical. Flowers, perfume, and lipsticks are the top three categories male ordered for their partners as gifts on the platform. That said, face masks made it to the top ten list of gifts for women for the first time on the platform, on the tenth position.
