Zhang Jianbin (right), a farmer in Wujiazhuang village, Shaanxi province, places orders for foreign-made goods on Taobao with the help of an employee from the website's customer service section. Provided to China Daily

Chinese consumers reached across the globe via e-commerce more than ever this year to stock up on traditional Lunar New Year's feasts and gifts

Every Spring Festival, Xu Xiaoding, 55, of Ningbo, in East China's Zhejiang province, lovingly and painstakingly cooks a fantastic banquet consisting of more than 10 courses for his extended family.

Typically, Xu's preparations would start weeks in advance. The best of vegetables, meat, spices, fruit, drinks and dairy are sourced from numerous local markets.

This year, however, Xu's efforts took a radically different turn. Without stepping out of his home, he went global, thanks to e-commerce.

The result was an exotic meal for his children, grandchildren and relatives. It included not only traditional Chinese food, but also seafood from New Zealand, cherries from Chile and wine from Australia.

"I started to look online because I couldn't find the special kind of rice cake my pregnant daughter really loves," he says. "Then I couldn't stop clicking on the pictures of other products. There turned out to be so many options online with even better deals compared with what regular shops offer."

Xu is among the growing number of Chinese consumers who are embracing online shopping. In doing so, they spawned sales worth hundreds of billions of yuan from mid-January to mid-February for the Chinese New Year.

That's glad tidings for China's e-commerce players, who are flush with the record-breaking success of the so-called Singles Day online shopping festival on Nov 11.

"Chinese New Year is the most celebrated festival and holiday in China, and is traditionally a time to go shopping," says Frank Zhang, general manager of SAP Hybris Greater China, an e-commerce software company. "This is a great opportunity for e-commerce companies to increase business, and for low-profile major rural brands to win exposure in smaller cities."

E-commerce companies are selling foreign goods in the hope of enticing Chinese consumers who wish to add an exotic twist to their shopping.

Leading the charge was Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. Multinational brands and retailers on its Tmall Global, an online platform dedicated to selling imported products to Chinese shoppers, began preparations for this year's Spring Festival sales offensive as early as November. On offer were 5,000 brands from 25 countries.

Lest the offerings be interpreted as an invasion by foreign brands, Daniel Zhang, Alibaba Group's chief executive, said at this year's sales launch that the aim is "to enable rural customers to access an extensive range of new year's goods from home and abroad, while making products from rural China more available among urban customers".

The overseas goods Zhang talked of include 150 tons of chocolates made in Italy, 20,000 Canadian deep-sea lobsters, 50 tons of Australian beef and 500,000 bottles of wine from France.

Alibaba says its best-selling imported goods are maternity and baby products, accounting for nearly 30 percent of total sales, and imported food, accounting for about 25 percent.

JD.com Inc, Alibaba's main rival, began a monthlong Spring Festival sales drive on Jan 4, offering consumers a host of products including food, beverages, baby and maternity products, and cosmetics.

Amazon.cn, the China unit of the US e-commerce giant, launched a Chinese New Year sales festival on Jan 11 with more than 9 million overseas products. It worked out its logistics four months before Spring Festival.

Laura Xiong, vice-president and marketing head of JD.com, says market research shows many shoppers, especially those in the largest, first-tier cities, were keen on buying imported goods to celebrate the festival.

"Young people love to take imported foods to their hometowns as gifts," she says, adding even those in rural areas have shown great interest in vodka, French wine and imported foods, as they are eager to try something unusual, in keeping with the festival mood.

She says a growing number of people shop online and choose to have their shopping delivered directly to their parents through couriers, so they can travel home light. "It just takes a little bit more time to deliver imported goods in interior areas," Xiong says.

Niu Yinghua, vice-president of Amazon China, says big data technology helps predict products with high demand before Spring Festival. "Our US center can send out packages within one hour of receiving an order. It takes only six to eight days for Chinese shoppers to get their Spring Festival purchases."

Not everyone is impressed. Critics of online shopping festivals think consumers have already spent a lot of money during the Nov 11 event and subsequent events like Black Friday and 12-12 (Dec 12). The concern is that frequent online sales could over-exploit the consumption power of Chinese shoppers.

But Niu disagrees. "Nov 11 was about bargain-hunting. The Black Friday event was more about high-end overseas products. But Spring Festival shopping can be for everything, from clothes, toys and food to something related to home decoration."

The market is big enough for e-commerce players to tap, she says.

Lu Zhenwang, an independent Internet expert and chief executive of Shanghai-based Wanqing Consultancy, says: "Spring Festival can be another big online shopping event if e-commerce players handle it properly."

But Xiong at JD.com, believes the convenience of e-commerce will persuade more consumers to go online to shop sooner or later. "People tend to finish shopping one week ahead of Spring Festival because many brick-and-mortar stores close as the Chinese New Year nears.

"So, starting this year, we will offer nonstop delivery services during Spring Festival. Shoppers will get the same fast delivery during the holiday. In the long run, we hope the service will change customers' shopping habits."

mengjing@chinadaily.com.cn

Sun Caiyu in Luochuan, Shaanxi province, shows off the New Zealand fish bought online for this year's Spring Festival banquet.