Valentines’ Day sales find way into romantic hearts of Chinese online shoppers

The “romance economy” seems blossoming in China on Valentines’ Day, which fell on Thursday.

Flowers remain the most popular gift on Valentine’s Day. A total of 500,000 flowers from farms in Southwest China’s Yunnan Province were sold on online platform Taobao’s shopping channel Juhuasuan within three days.

Aside from the ever-popular roses, sales of tulips increased 130 percent compared with the previous year. They become one favorable choice among young people.

There’s been a gender reversal in the past two years when it comes to flower-buyers on Taobao.

This year, 60 percent were female; in

2017, men dominated the sector at 70 percent. On a more intimate note, according to figures released by online retail giant suning.com, the sales of condoms between February 4 and Tuesday rose 204.9 percent year-onyear.