Mid-Autumn Festival Blues: China’s Mooncake Sales Plummet as Gift-Giving Tradition Loses Luster

[The Epoch Times, 18 settembre 2024](Epoch Times reporter Fang Xiao reports) Against the backdrop of China’s economic downturn and the downgrading of domestic consumption, the mooncake market has suffered a “cold wave” this year, and business gifts have increased and have almost been “annihilated” this year. Even the liquor and Maotai cigarettes that accompany mooncakes generally do not sell well, which is one of the reasons why people have stopped giving mooncakes as gifts. A small vendor who has been selling mooncakes for ten years said that this year is the worst year.

“The Coldest Mid-Autumn Festival Ever” Corporate Gifts Almost “Annihilated”

Before the Mid-Autumn Festival, many mooncake factories were in a semi-stop state due to insufficient orders. Supermarkets, restaurants and online platforms were especially deserted.

This year, discussions about “Mooncakes cannot be sold” have repeatedly been the focus of research. According to mainland media such as China Business News, The Paper and Upstream News, major brands such as Starbucks and Haagen-Dazs set up scaffolding at the entrances of shopping malls to redeem or sell mooncakes every year on the eve of the Mid-Autumn Festival. “Mooncake scalpers” will line up and gather, but this year, supermarkets have also increased discounts and started discounting and promoting mooncakes half a month in advance.

According to the report, the mooncake markets in Beijing, Shanghai, Sichuan and other places are lackluster. Except for Beijing Daoxiangcun and other brand mooncakes, which are also sold in bulk, almost all of the others are sold sporadically. Some store employees said: In previous years, there were many group purchase orders of mooncakes, with more than 400 boxes of mooncakes sold after only two orders a week, but so far this year there has not been a single group. purchase order.

The Mid-Autumn Festival is originally a peak season for gift exchange, but this year the mooncake market in mainland China has been particularly deserted. Some OEMs are closed 3 days a week, some supermarkets are slow to remove inventory, and no one is interested in price reduction. Mooncake sales in a five-star hotel in Hangzhou are seriously stagnant.

According to the China Bakery and Confectionery Products Industry Association, China’s mooncake production in 2023 will be 320,000 tons, with a turnover of 22 billion (RMB, same as below). This year’s Mid-Autumn Festival mooncake production is estimated to be around 300,000 tons, with expected sales of 20 billion yuan, equivalent to a decrease of 2 billion compared to last year.

Some market insiders have called it “the coldest Mid-Autumn Festival in history.”

Brother Hong, a blogger from Shanxi, said that no one buys houses now, no one buys gold and jade, no one buys mahogany furniture, and no one can sell high-end tobacco and alcohol. What I never expected was that even Mid-Autumn Festival mooncakes could no longer be sold. What happened to this world?

Liaoning blogger “Pure Self-Media” said on September 17 that she has been selling mooncakes for more than ten years, and this year is the worst year.

“So far, the number of people buying mooncakes is still small, not many people have bought them. The sales on the 16th were 3,600 yuan, and on the 15th were 5,700 yuan. I bought a total of 120,000 yuan of mooncakes. So far I have only sold 68,000 yuan, almost half of the goods have not been sold. I really didn’t expect the sales to be so poor this year!

He went on to say that he could not return the unsold mooncakes to the manufacturer because he had paid the manufacturer in cash. “Who should I give these goods to? I really don’t understand. Don’t people eat mooncakes anymore? Don’t people give gifts anymore? Don’t they have relationships anymore?”

With the economic downturn in the mainland, it is reported that this year the business gift giving has almost been “annihilated”, especially in the four major “gift industries” such as real estate, construction, building materials and finance. everyone has realized that “you can’t do business just by sending mooncakes”. Some relevant companies purchased up to 20,000 boxes last year to donate to upstream and downstream partners, but this year the purchase amount has dropped to zero and they simply stopped sending. mooncakes.

In addition to the business gift market, the relatives’ gift market has also declined significantly this year. People in the mainland generally realize that due to the lack of consumption power of ordinary people, consumers have higher demands for cost efficiency due to the consumption downgrade, and will prefer some low-cost and cheaper homemade mooncakes.

In some supermarkets in mainland China, it was found that most of the brand mooncake gift boxes this year are priced between 100 and 300 yuan, with a quantity of 4 to 8 mooncakes. This year, there has been a significant increase in mooncake styles under 100 yuan, making the sales of high-priced mooncakes even more difficult.

Government spending declines, liquor sales decline, mooncakes lose motivation to give gifts

The collapse of the gift industry has another underlying reason for its impact on mooncakes. According to the interpretation of the gift culture in the workplace and bureaucracy in the mainland, mooncakes have never been the “main course”, and must be offered with Moutai and Chinese cigarettes, or mooncakes should be offered with gift cards. Liquor sales during this year’s Mid-Autumn Festival are generally poor. “Gelonghui” quoted wine merchants as saying that the business of the stores has dropped by 30% this year, greatly affected by the decline in consumption.

Recently, various brands such as Moutai and Wuliangye have cut their prices. Feitian Moutai has dropped to 2,350 yuan a bottle, reflecting that China’s liquor market has fallen into the “coldest” Mid-Autumn Festival in 10 years, and mooncakes have. naturally lost the motivation to give gifts.

Affordable and one-yuan mooncakes are popular

In addition to “unsellable”, the key word for the Chinese mooncake market this year is that convenient and discounted purchasing conditions have also become the main factors that attract consumers. The China Baked Food and Sugar Products Industry Association pointed out, after a survey, the highest this year Mooncake gift boxes cost more than 500 yuan. They have basically withdrawn from the market, but mini mooncakes priced at only one yuan have unexpectedly gained popularity.

A user from mainland China posted on Weibo that the company distributed mooncakes to everyone this year: “So small, it can’t be a mooncake worth one yuan, right?” Some netizens also said that this year’s Mid-Autumn Festival Welfare Company distributed mooncakes worth one yuan each to each person, and after eating them, they found that “the taste was not so bad.”

Lu media reported that when you enter “mooncake” on an e-commerce site, you can find that the best-selling ones are various “one yuan mooncakes” with an average of about 50g each. Many of the mooncake styles are marked as “. liuxin” or “liuxin”. “Peach mountain skin”. A salesman from a Jiangsu food factory admitted that the sales volume of “one yuan mooncakes” is indeed relatively good. Many of them are purchased in large quantities by the company and distributed as employee benefits do not mean poor quality. They attach great importance to food safety.”

Editor in Charge: Li Muen#