Winter economy booms amid big freeze

In freezing winters, consumers covered in warm clothing feet to head love to gorge on hot food like hot pot, especially when piercing, roaring winds are in their element outdoors, Hu said.

So, the supermarket at New World began sales of hot pot materials like vegetables, beef rolls, mutton rolls, and all kinds of meat balls in the run-up to Spring Festival. The hot pot set also contained sesame, soy sauce, chives, and edible flowers.

"The strong holiday atmosphere began around Jan 20. Owing to epidemic prevention and control measures, we prepared raw materials early so that people can eat hotpot at home. We also plan to launch a promotion program involving restaurants in New World, to offer semi-baked materials for consumers to cook during the Spring Festival holiday. For the seven-day holiday, we will offer a semi-finished dish for each day," she said.

Sales of heating devices also rose during the winter. New World data showed that in the November-December period, the store's offline sales of heating appliances like electric radiators and heating blower fans surged 10 percent year-on-year.

The rise in sales was noticed across the country, not just in North China. According to Alibaba's procurement platform 1688.com, in November, sales of radiators in China's southern cities surged 300 percent on a yearly basis. Sales revenue relating to heating appliances rose 200 percent year-on-year.

"Among the heating appliances, heating pads, table warming pads and garment dryers are the bestsellers," said Wang Jie, a shop assistant at the No 1 Shopping Center in Shanghai.

According to Manmanbuy, a Hangzhou-based, e-commerce-focused data analytics platform, 34,000 heating devices were purchased from JD in September. The figure surged 20 times in October, and rose a further 37 percent in November, quickly surpassing 1 million units, with sales revenue reaching 220 million yuan ($33.6 million).

Hu Chuncai, founder and general manager of Shanghai-based consulting firm UI Sharing, said: "China is experiencing consumption upgrade. In the past, people only wore new clothes at the beginning of a year and ate good food during holidays. Now, with people's rising living standards, tremendous changes took place. The public now pursue personalized clothes and healthy food."

To grasp the opportunities presented by the winter economy, retailers should track seasonal shopping trends and offer diversified choices to consumers, He said.

"Five to 10 years ago, merchants just needed to observe which products made money and follow the lead. However, now, consumption is highly diversified and personalized. Enterprises should think about new ideas and look to develop products with distinct features.

"As sporadic COVID-19 cases rise, offline stores should also consider epidemic prevention and control while selling products."

Agree Hu from New World. "We intensified disinfection measures. Stores in the mall now conduct disinfection twice a day, and every product sold at stores here is disinfected first."