China Business Journal reporter Guo Jingting reports from Beijing. The "scorecard" for this year's Mid-Autumn Festival consumption has recently been released.
Data from the Ministry of Commerce show that during the Mid-Autumn holiday, average daily sales of key national retail and catering enterprises grew 6.1% compared with the same period of last year's lunar calendar. Foot traffic and turnover at 78 pedestrian streets and commercial districts monitored by the ministry rose 6.4% and 5.1%, respectively.
Sales of smart, green and health-related goods were robust. On key platforms, sales of smart wearable devices increased 1.2-fold, sales of embodied intelligent robots rose 93.1%, sales of organic food climbed 36.3%, and sales of outdoor sports equipment grew 30.2%.
Notably, in the first two days of the Mid-Autumn holiday, the consumer goods trade-in program benefited 1.907 million person-times and drove 11.53 billion yuan in sales. In addition, supplies of daily necessities were ample across regions during the holiday, with prices generally stable. Ministry of Commerce big data show that during the holiday, inventories at 200 large agricultural by-product wholesale markets nationwide were sufficient, and prices of mutton and fruit were basically flat compared with before the holiday on September 24.
Smart, green and health-related goods sell briskly
Against the backdrop of a moderate consumption recovery, how solid is the 6.1% growth rate during the Mid-Autumn holiday? Fu Yifu, a special researcher at Suzhou Bank, told the China Business Journal that this growth rate is at a steady level, but what deserves more attention are the structural signals within it. Foot traffic growth was slightly faster than turnover growth, indicating that growth was mainly driven by a recovery in customer traffic, while the increase in average spending per customer was relatively limited. This is consistent with current changes in consumer behavior: consumers are returning to offline scenarios, but the amount spent per transaction tends to be more cautious, high-end gift consumption has contracted noticeably, and the share of affordable and practical consumption has risen. Growth in services consumption continues to outpace goods consumption, and the growth momentum is shifting from "what was bought" to "what was experienced." Therefore, this round of growth is more a return in "volume" brought by scenario recovery rather than a significant rise in "price," and the industry needs to shift from pursuing traffic to enhancing customer value and repurchase rates.
An Guangyong, an expert at the Credit Management Committee of the All-China Mergers and Acquisitions Association, holds a similar view. He believes the 6.1% growth rate reflects the moderate recovery resilience of holiday consumption, but structurally it shows a clear "traffic-driven" characteristic: foot traffic in commercial districts grew 6.4%, higher than the 5.1% growth in turnover, indicating strong willingness among the public to travel and engage in social experiences, while average spending per customer remained stable or even edged down. Against the backdrop of a shifting macroeconomic growth model and cautious expectations for household income and employment, mass consumption has become more rational and pragmatic. High-end gifting and high-premium consumption are under pressure, and growth momentum is shifting from "price increases" to "scenario experiences and high cost-performance consumption."
The reporter noted that beyond stable overall figures, structural highlights are more prominent. Sales of smart, green and health-related goods were robust, with smart wearable device sales on key platforms rising 1.2-fold and embodied intelligent robot sales up 93.1%. In response, Fu Yifu said the 1.2-fold increase in smart wearable sales is essentially the intersection of "technological attributes" and "health needs." Consumers are no longer buying a single piece of hardware, but a set of close-to-body data services. Functions such as exercise tracking, sleep monitoring and heart rate alerts give these products both personal-use value and gift value, and holiday scenarios amplify this effect. The nearly doubled growth of embodied intelligent robots is at a much earlier stage of market education. A low base, a concentration of new product launches and novelty-seeking demand together pushed up the growth rate. "For products to truly enter daily family life, they still need to overcome multiple thresholds such as stability, interaction experience and after-sales costs," Fu Yifu further pointed out. Consumption growth is concentrating from traditional categories toward "technology-driven experiences," but whether short-term high growth can translate into long-term penetration depends on whether products can continuously provide verified use value.
Per capita 6,046 yuan drives "upgrade-oriented trade-ins"
Alongside the release of new products is the policy activation of the stock market. In the first two days of the Mid-Autumn holiday, consumer goods trade-ins benefited 1.907 million person-times and drove 11.53 billion yuan in sales, or about 6,046 yuan per capita.
What does a per capita driving scale of about 6,046 yuan mean? Fu Yifu said this magnitude shows that what the policy leverages is not low-price substitute consumption, but mid-to-high-end trade-in demand with genuine upgrade intent. The policy mechanism has shifted from fixed-amount subsidies to subsidies calculated as a proportion of the selling price, giving consumers more significant benefits when choosing higher energy-efficiency and smarter products, allowing fiscal funds to precisely reach upgrading demand rather than merely maintaining the basic market. The key to the leverage effect is that subsidies lower consumers' decision-making threshold but do not replace their own spending; household consumption remains the main lever.
An Guangyong also believes that the precise leverage of proportional subsidies effectively lowers the purchase threshold for high-priced mid-to-high-end durable consumer goods and activates existing replacement demand that had been in a wait-and-see state. In an environment where residents' willingness to take on leverage is relatively weak, this mechanism of "the policy subsidizes a little, enterprises concede a little, and individuals pay the bulk" leverages genuine improvement demand.
The policy focus is expanding from the central level to local levels. Taking Henan as an example, in August this year Henan expanded the categories for consumer goods trade-ins, including seven types of goods such as household stoves, range hoods and smart cleaning robots in the subsidy scope. During the Mid-Autumn holiday, key monitored retail and catering enterprises in the province achieved cumulative sales of 1.296 billion yuan. According to data from the Henan Provincial Department of Commerce, since the launch of local independently selected category subsidy activities, cumulative sales orders for independently expanded categories reached 131,900, with sales of 466 million yuan and subsidies of 68.61 million yuan.
Industry observers believe trade-ins are transitioning from a phased stimulus tool to a normalized consumption promotion mechanism. Fu Yifu said its effectiveness depends on how well the pace of funding aligns with peak consumption seasons, and whether back-end services such as recycling and installation can keep up simultaneously. An Guangyong cautioned that in the long run, it still needs to be accompanied by steady improvement in macroeconomic fundamentals and household income.
This Mid-Autumn Festival, what "trade-ins" brought was not only a rebound in consumption data, but also a reflection of a new balance forming between policy tools and upgrading demand. Hong Tao, director of the Sustainable Business and Innovation Working Committee of the China Association of Trade in Services and a professor at Beijing Technology and Business University, said the Mid-Autumn consumption data show the characteristics of the current consumer market: the "excellence" of structure, with services consumption significantly faster than goods consumption; the "newness" of momentum, with active health, smart and green consumption; the "novelty" of models, with online-offline integration and business format innovation; the "strength" of the pattern, with urban-rural coordination and a solid basic market; and the "green" of renewal, in goods sold and residents benefited.