Chinese New Year is the most important holiday for all Chinese people. This year it will be held a bit earlier than usual, it will start on 25th of January. The tradition is that all family members will go back to their hometown to reunite with their family for the celebration of starting a new year.
During Chinese New Year, Chinese people enjoy sharing and sending premium fruits to relatives and friends as gifts for good fortune and good health. Penny Chang from Carrefour Taiwan mentioned: “Normally the demand for premium quality fruits is high during this time. About 15 days in advance people will start buying fruits and this will peak during the holidays. Consumers always consider imported fruits as high quality fruits. For example, imported cherries and apples, which are not able to be grown locally in Taiwan due to the weather conditions, those fruits are doing well in the market.”
As Penny has many years’ experience of importing fruits for Carrefour Taiwan, she knows which fruits are most popular during this big festive holiday. “According to historical sales data, the top 5 imported fruits contribute to 25 percent of the total sales of imported fruits. The top 5 list is: Chilean cherries, Japanese Sun Fuji apples, New Zealand cherries, blueberries and US Fuji apples. These fruits are all considered to be healthy and beneficial. They are perfect as treats or gifts for customers to give away to friends and families during Chinese New Year.”
The Chinese New Year is thus a very important time for the fruit industry in Taiwan, much more sales are made than at any other time. “The challenge for all Taiwan's retailers in this coming Chinese New Year will be the presidential elections this year, which are close to Chinese New Year. The customers purchasing behavior will be affected as conditions will be different than normal, they now need to divide their attention between these two important activities. The important presidential election will be held on the 11th of January 2020. Citizens all focus on the election and take part in the presidential campaigns and activities during the weekend. Therefore customers might spend less time shopping in the retailer stores.”
In order to not lose customers during this important retail period, Penny mentioned that they have planned different activities to make sure it is still attractive to come to the store. “Retailers such as Carrefour Taiwan will conduct more attractive and interesting national big promotion activities and complementary, in store, samplings on premium fruits. We will start with these activities in the beginning of January, in order to draw everyone’s attention to our store and to boost and drive the customers’ purchases for Chinese New Year.”
“One of the activities we will conduct is to provide our premium fruit gift box online. In this way, through e-commerce, people can buy their fruits, which is much more convenient for a lot of people when they are busy with the elections. This year we also work together with Foodpanda, which is an uber-eat and local food ordering and delivery platform. In this way, the customers can focus on the presidential elections and at the same time prepare their gifts for Chinese New Year.” Concluded Penny Chang.
More information:
Penny Chang
Carrefour Taiwan
penny_chang@carrefour.com