First coined in the 1980s, revenge buying was used to describe all of the “pent up demand for foreign products that had been denied [to China’s] citizens when the nation was closed off to the outside world”*.
Today it has gained a new utilization within the Chinese social media communities to describe how ordinary citizens are currently treating themselves once quarantine was lifted into shopping retail stores and online platforms to catch on what has been prohibited from government regulations aiming to coll down the covid19 crisis and, as result, grounding festive sales to a halt just as the key Lunar New Year vacation period was getting started.Chinese officials have long highlighted consumption as the most important driver for economic growth, as the country continues to try to shift away from an export- and infrastructure-driven economy. Consumer spending made up about 58% of the country’s GDP growth in 2019, and so they hope today will help to lift up the Chinese economy once again.
As of today, China seems to have turned the corner and bigger cities are generally showing cautious optimism however, considering that in the whole country many people are unemployed or have no income since the outbreak. Yet the cost of living is getting higher. Middle-class is getting more conservative. And many are still not sure when this will end and when the economy will be back to normal.