[Photo/WeChat account: suzhoufabu365]
The prefecture-level city of Suzhou, located in East China's Jiangsu province, recently joined forces with nearby Shanghai to host the May 5 Shopping Festival on the first day of Labor Day – in a wider bid to boost consumer spending – and as a result, reportedly made successful efforts to build up its brand.
The May 5 Shopping Festival event aims to stimulate both online and offline sales. Similar to the nation's popular Singles Day and mid-year shopping spree, it reportedly involves a slew of vendors and retailers and also promotes the night economy and time-honored brands.
Taking advantage of festivals including the Labor's Day, Chinese Youth Day, Mother's Day, Children's Day, Dragon Boat Festival and Father's Day – Suzhou has held over 1,000 shopping fairs and the like and joined hands with Shanghai to launch about 220 activities. Thanks to the promotions, the festival has remained popular with locals and the city's total retail sales of consumer goods this May reached 76.3 billion yuan ($11.82 billion).
That hit a record compared with the same period last year, rising 19.25 percent year-on-year, a gain which was 6.85 percentage points higher than the country's increase and 1.65 percentage points higher than the province's.
The city's total retail sales of consumer goods increased 30.3 percent from January to May, ranking first in the province and the sixth in the country. Its total retail sales from January to June maintained that ranking and contributed 20.33 percent for the province's retail sales growth.
It was said that Suzhou's cooperation with Shanghai in the endeavor helped increase the influence of the May 5 event. Activities such as a gourmet festival in the Yangtze River Delta and a trip to the city's Gusu district and Shanghai's Huangpu district were particularly favored by residents.
As a result, more and more enterprises were reportedly willing to attend the event and about 13,000 enterprises participated this year, 3,000 more in 2020.
In addition, a pilot program for the digital renminbi was launched during the festival. Residents were able to spend the e-money in 50,000 designated bricks-and-mortar shops, department stores, restaurants and food outlets and in the cultural, education and tourism sectors, among other things.
The Xiangcheng district set up pavilions for people to experience the digital renminbi on the opening ceremony of the festival and in Shanghai.
Taking advantage of Suzhou's prowess in manufacturing, the city is also working on bringing in leading platforms – such as JD.com, Tik Tok, Freshippo, Taobao, Tmall, AliExpress and Suning – to promote a shopping platform economy.
The goal is to promote Suzhou's products across the country with the help of the platforms.