Where mooncakes sell like hot cakes: GBA fest nets $15b, spurs brands

The First Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area Shopping Festival, which ended on Wednesday, helped sell products, including mooncakes, worth more than 100 billion yuan ($15.4 billion) online over a period of 20 days.

More than 20 brands from Hong Kong and Macao achieved sales of more than 10 million yuan each, the festival’s organizers said.

And more than 9 million boxes of mooncakes that were made in Guangdong, Hong Kong and Macao were sold during the three-week online shopping festival.

Popular during the Mid-Autumn Festival, the round cakes are mainly stuffed with sweet bean paste, lotus seeds, roasted pork, nuts and egg yolk, sesame and fruit.

Cantonese style mooncakes usually account for about half of all mooncakes sold in the mainland. They also form a large proportion of those exported annually around the MidAutumn Festival, one of the major Chinese festivals and a time for family reunions. It falls on the 15th day of eighth lunar month. It was celebrated on Tuesday, which was preceded by an extended weekend.

A senior executive with Imperial Patisserie, one of the major mooncake producers in Hong Kong, said the firm prepared more than 95,000 boxes of mooncakes for the festival — and all the mooncakes were sold out in the first half of the shopping festival period.

Other major mooncake producers from Guangdong, Hong Kong and Macao also reported brisk business during the festival.

The online festival also helped sell garments, household appliances, digital products, medicines and cosmetics. It offered more than 13 million items of 298,000 brands on Chinese online shopping platforms such as Taobao and Tmall.

Hong Yong, an associate researcher with the E-commerce Research Institute, which is part of the Ministry of Commerce, said the traditional manufacturing industry in the GBA will be further transformed and upgraded by e-commerce, which optimizes the industrial division of labor and widens the market space by integrating their advantages in production, R&D, marketing, design and logistics in the area.

With the rapid development of information and communication technologies, the GBA will be deeply integrated in terms of “people flow, logistics, capital flow and information flow” and that is further accelerating the dual-circulation development pattern and helping create more new models and new business formats, he said.

Zeng Shiyang, a senior executive with Made by Tao Heung, said business was brisk during the shopping festival with daily sales exceeding 50,000 yuan, 10 times higher than the usual level.

Zeng said the company, which mainly sells dumplings and other Cantonese style dimsum (an umbrella category that describes small Chinese dishes and wrapped foods like egg rolls), offered discounts to promote sales during the festival.

And He Wenfeng, chief executive officer of Guangzhou Xiangxue Asia Beverage Co Ltd, said the shopping festival offered his company a good channel and platform to increase its presence in the Hong Kong and Macao markets.

“We have let more consumers in Hong Kong and Macao know more about the domestic brands through the e-commerce channels and platforms,” he said.

Wang Qingshan, an office worker in Guangzhou’s Yuexiu district, said the shopping festival has helped spur consumption in the region, benefiting both producers and consumers.

“Many producers have offered big discounts to attract buyers during the festival, and I have purchased more than 2,000 yuan worth of cosmetics,” she said.

The festival has also allowed more people to know more about the products made in Hong Kong and Macao, she said.

The event is conducive to promoting the integration of the GBA and driving consumption upgrade, the organizers said in a statement.

The GBA includes Hong Kong, Macao and cities of Guangzhou, Shenzhen, Zhuhai, Foshan, Dongguan, Zhongshan, Huizhou, Jiangmen and Zhaoqing in Guangdong province.

The GBA, which boasts many homegrown brands, ranks among the most open and economically vibrant regions in the country.