Shanghai shoppers are back in stores for the first time in two months as struggling city retailers prepare for a rebound in demand after easing blockade measures.
Customers queuing at malls and pedestrians took to the streets that had been deserted for months after officials relaxed some of the most widespread blockade measures in China since the start of the coronavirus pandemic.
In a post on the Weibo microblogging site, Shanghai Hot Information user, who has more than 1 million followers, shared pictures of customers queuing in front of Hermès, Céline and Dior stores in the Plaza 66 high-end mall. from the city.
Another user, Yilian Fengyue Xian, said she had bought four cups of bubble tea in what she called “drinking revenge bubble tea.”
The closure of Shanghai, which formally began on March 28 and confined most of the city’s 25 million residents to their homes for weeks, reaffirmed the government’s commitment to a zero-Covid strategy aimed at eliminate cases through blockades, mass trials and quarantine.
But the severity of measures in Shanghai and other Chinese cities to combat an outbreak of the highly infectious variant of Omicron has caused a sharp economic slowdown. Beijing is now under pressure to address declining consumer spending, rising unemployment and growing pressure on small businesses.
Retail sales, the main measure of consumer activity in the country, fell 11 percent in April from the previous year, the sharpest fall in more than two years, and the impact of Shanghai’s reopening measures on confidence is uncertain given the prospect of new infections.
Adam Cochrane, an analyst at Deutsche Bank Research, said the rise in Chinese consumption would not be as strong as it had been in 2020. , it can make consumers more nervous. “He said.
Shops will reopen to 75% capacity while other shops, including some restaurants, will remain closed. Residents living in areas that have recently registered cases will also remain closed and will have to take PCR tests every 72 hours to use public transportation.
“Traffic is slowly returning … [but] people are worried [about] “That’s why they’re limiting their visits to public places,” said Luca Solca, an analyst at Bernstein.
The owner of a cafe in Shanghai’s Huangpu District, named Pei, told the Financial Times that she had not stopped making coffee since it reopened at 9 a.m. after receiving a warning from local officials in Shanghai. business Tuesday evening. “It’s too sudden,” he said. “I haven’t set my body clock yet.”
Recommended
Chinese social media users have pledged to continue spending after the confinement, with a list of restaurants, labeled “Shanghai’s Revenge Food and Drink Game Book,” which went viral.
While many physical stores have reopened, the recent emphasis on online shopping has shown signs of persistence, with the start of the country’s second largest e-commerce shopping festival, known as “618”. JD.com, a Chinese e-commerce company, said sales of technology brands such as Xiaomi, Lenovo, Apple and Huawei had surpassed Rmb 100 million ($ 15 million) in 10 minutes after opening on Tuesday.
Additional report by Wang Xueqiao in Shanghai