SHANGHAI, China — JD.com, China’s No. 2 e-retailer, saw an unexpected pattern among its record 343.8 billion yuan ($53.1 billion) in sales during the 618 shopping festival last month. Over 70% of the 236 brands that sold more than 100 million yuan during the midyear event were Chinese, according to the business. Affluent buyers shopping for local items gave a boost to luxury goods in particular. The support for indigenous enterprises exemplifies a trend known as guochao, which translates to “China chic” in English. Guochao refers to a trend in which consumers flock back to local brands they may have previously scorned. The movement has picked up momentum in the last year or so, especially among individuals in their late teens and early twenties. Alibaba Group Holding, the world’s largest e-commerce company, took notice as well, launching a page dedicated to Chinese brands for the first time this year during the 618 holiday. JD.com’s June 18 event, which commemorates the company’s founding day, has grown to become China’s second-largest annual shopping festival, trailing only Singles Day in November. A 23-year-old Shanghai lady claimed to have placed a large order with up-and-coming cosmetics firm Perfect Diary for lipstick and other goods. “It’s cheap, and the quality isn’t bad either. “It’s fashionable enough,” she said, before adding, “I’m not interested.” “in high-priced international goods During the sale, Alibaba’s ranking of top-selling products by category reveals a broader preference for local businesses. In sports, Anta Sports Products and Li-Ning shoes ranked in the top ten, posing a threat to Nike. More than 1,100 enterprises in China have been designated as “time-honored brands” by the government, with around 700 of them having a presence on Alibaba’s online mall. The present passion for Chinese companies is a stark contrast to the not-so-distant past, when quality crises spurred Chinese consumers’ disdain of homegrown products. The success of smartphones from firms like Huawei Technologies and Xiaomi, both in China and abroad, signaled the beginning of a shift in the 2010s. Buyers were drawn in by the high level of quality and performance offered by these phones at a low price, a trend that is now expanding to food and other necessities. Generation Z, or those born after the late 1990s, grew up with local brands and do not hold major international companies in the same regard as previous generations. Members of the “lay flat” movement, which represents an increasing number of young people who are opting out of China’s high-stress rat race, are extremely pragmatic, preferring to strike a balance between quality and price. With the attractiveness of global brands fading, the firms behind them are faced with the task of figuring out how to appeal to this new generation of customers./n
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