China’s Online Shopping Growth Drops To Just 4% In July
China’s economic data for July demonstrated growth that was slower than anticipated as the world’s second-largest economy suffered severe flooding and increased cases of covid-19.
Online consumers in China cut back on spending in all areas in July, from large items such as cars to smaller items such as cosmetics. Retail sales increased by 8.5% from a year ago, coming in lower than the predicted 11.5%. However, auto-related sales, the biggest component of retail sales by value, was the only category to see a decline in July, down 1.8% year-on-year.
One of the slowest-growing categories was the cosmetics sector, with sales rising by just 2.8% in July from last year, compared with a growth in June of 13.5%. According to CNBC, online sales of physical consumer goods increased by just 4.4% in July.
The head of macro and strategy research at China Renaissance, Bruce Pang, has pinned the sharp decline in online sales on widespread shopping promotions offered in June, in addition to the logistics disruptions caused by pandemic-related travel restrictions and the severe weather events suffered in July.
