As the Spring Festival approaches, people are either planning how to spend the holiday, or they are already on their way out. According to the Ministry of Transport's estimate, there will be 9 billion people traveling, visiting relatives, and leisure activities during the 2024 Spring Festival travel rush, and more and more people will choose to drive themselves. It can be said that for daily retail and catering, consumers returning home, traveling, or celebrating the Chinese New Year in reverse, "on the road" will become a major theme of this holiday. Whether on the road or at the table of the New Year's Eve dinner, eating well remains the same theme.
This year is also the seventh year for Dingdong Maicai to carry out the "Spring Festival does not close" supply guarantee activity. Currently, Dingdong Maicai has prepared itself from various aspects such as product reserves and services, and is ready to meet the consumption needs of consumers in various scenarios such as travel, home, and gatherings during the Spring Festival. Dingdong Maicai once predicted that there would be a peak in sales of New Year's related products in the week before New Year's Eve, which may increase by over 60% compared to the same period last month.
Travel and reverse Chinese New Year fever, package gift boxes, and "hardcore snacks" are hot selling
Eating a colorful, fragrant New Year's Eve dinner is the most concrete expectation of Chinese people for the Chinese New Year, so purchasing New Year's goods is particularly important no matter when or where. For many young people in cities, their luggage or trunk is often full for both travel and return.
This year, Dingdong Maicai launched a "one-stop" New Year's goods theme event, which can achieve instant delivery from daily fresh products to package gift boxes suitable for visiting relatives and friends. In the past two weeks, some of the packages on the platform can be bought for New Year's Eve dinner or brought back to their hometown as a family visit gift, becoming the first choice of platform users. Among them, gift boxes for fruits such as raked citrus, cherries, strawberries, Gannan navel oranges, and Hainan Xizhou honey melons have high sales, while special and high-end pre made dishes, meat and poultry, and seafood gift boxes are also popular.
Long distance travel is the "theme" of this Spring Festival, no matter whether people who work in cities return to their "hometown" for the Spring Festival, or relatives are taken to the city for the "reverse Spring Festival". Therefore, topics related to travel food, home snacks and so on continue to be hot. In the past two weeks, the sales of snacks, baked goods, and ready to eat pre packaged vegetables on the Dingdong Maicai platform have continued to rise.
Due to the frequent long-distance travel, many users often choose braised and cooked foods that are simply heated or ready to eat with open bags. They can be used as both "hardcore snacks" and as a regular meal along the way. In the past two weeks, Dingdong's private brand Cai Changqing has launched Hong Kong style roast duck, finger sucking duck collarbone, spiced beef tendon, and sauce duck, among which the finger sucking duck collarbone has increased by nearly 80% in ring ratio. In addition, the sales of winter "exclusive" snacks such as Roasted chestnuts in sugar-coated heated sand with sugar and roasted sweet potatoes also exceeded expectations. Dingdong Buying Vegetables is expected to have a shopping frenzy for snacks and braised and cooked foods before New Year's Eve.
Of course, fruits are an essential food pairing on the road. At present, citrus fruits, cherries, blueberries, mangoes, Hainan Xizhou honey melons, pineapples, longans, persimmons, and so on are all popular fruits on the Dingdong Maicai APP.
Consumers gather more around the year, and the variety of dining tables exceeds previous years
Just one week before the Spring Festival, consumers from all over the country have started gathering with family and friends. Dingdong Maicai has added a lot of color to the platform's dining table for this year's Spring Festival through its efforts in high-quality pre made dishes and specialty ingredients.
According to the consumption data of Dingdong Maicai, the sales of hot pot related products have increased significantly in the past two weeks, and many families choose the form of "small hot pot+home cooked dishes" at the dining table. A pot bottom with rich content, paired with a few boxes of convenient side dishes, and several restaurant dishes with a variety of colors, flavors, and flavors, become the main components of family gatherings. Based on previous years, the overall sales of pre made dishes will reach a peak in the week before the Spring Festival, with an expected 40% month on month growth.
In the past two years, under the influence of the trend of young people starting to host New Year's Eve dinners at home, daily products such as specialty meat, poultry, and aquatic products on the Dingdong platform have also shown an upward trend in the past two weeks. Among them, the local pig and black pig categories have performed well, with single product sales growth ranging from 30% to 110%.
Dingdong Maicai has also introduced many festive seafood products that are suitable for family sharing this spring, such as Canadian snow crab platter, fresh gentian grouper, sea caught red shrimp, etc. The variety of aquatic products has expanded to about three times that of normal times.
For consumers, this year's Spring Festival is still a "fresh year". Due to the late holiday season this year and the support of the fresh e-commerce supply chain, consumers can eat fresh spring vegetables that used to only be available in March and April earlier. As of the week before the Spring Festival, users can buy nearly 30 rich types of spring vegetables on Dingdong Maicai, including fresh picked fava beans, fresh morel mushrooms, Chinese toon and Chinese toon head, Malan head, green garlic, bean sprout tips, Lei bamboo shoots, and more.
Silver willow sales are expected to exceed one million branches, with small and exquisite New Year's Eve flowers dominating the market
In addition, due to the overlap between this year's Spring Festival holiday and Valentine's Day, flowers and New Year's Eve flowers have become one of the essential sources of atmosphere during the Chinese New Year. According to the consumption data of Dingdong Maicai, the most popular New Year's Eve flowers this year have shown an overall trend of small bouquets and exquisite shapes. For example, this year, Dingdong Maicai has increased the number of SKUs for lucky bucket type products with the help of its own flower factory processing capacity, and launched mini lucky buckets and smaller desktop decorations and pendants. The lowest price during the event is only 11.9 yuan/serving, which is highly cost-effective and can be placed on the dining table for a long time Adding joy to the office desk.
It is understood that Dingdong Maicai has launched over 10 SKUs this year, just for silver willow decorative bouquets and ornaments. It is expected that by next week, the overall sales of silver willows will exceed one million branches.
At present, the flower categories on the platform not only include various kinds of potted phalaenopsis and hybrid cymbidium, as well as traditional flowers and materials popular during the Spring Festival, such as wintersweet, holly, gladiolus, and Dracaena sanderiana, but also delicate and beautiful flowers such as fleshy, air pineapple, and dream vanilla, as well as flower combinations with festive atmosphere and cost-effective, green plant potted plants, and various Chinese simple hanging decorations, which are sought after by young consumers.
Nearly 80% of frontline personnel stay at their posts and do not close for good products and services
In order to ensure the supply of goods and services during the Spring Festival, Dingdong Maicai has also launched its seventh year of "Spring Festival does not close" activities, increasing stocking and ensuring supply, such as doubling the stocking volume of meat, eggs, milk, vegetables, fruits and other commodities to daily levels; In addition, the variety of seasonal seafood products such as Canadian snow crab platter, fresh gentian grouper, and sea catch red shrimp will be expanded to about three times that of normal days. It is expected that on New Year's Eve, aquatic products will experience a peak in annual sales, with sales reaching 5-7 times the usual level.
To address the potential shortage of labor and transportation during the Spring Festival period, Dingdong Maicai has been recruiting personnel in advance since November to extend the personnel reserve period. In addition, it has also prepared third-party platform transportation capacity to provide flexible and flexible transportation support for frontline operations. In addition to personnel supplementation, Dingdong Maicai will provide Spring Festival leave behind welfare subsidies and staggered holidays to encourage employees who stay at frontline positions and provide services to citizens during the Spring Festival period. It is expected that nearly 80% of frontline employees at Dingdong Maicai will remain in service positions during this year's Spring Festival holiday.