In a room on the upper floors of the somewhat decrepit Dayuan building, marked with the sign “E-commerce and live streaming base”In the north of Guangzhou, in southern China, Huang Yuepei takes stock of his affairs. We might have expected frenetic activity during this period of Singles’ Day, the big Chinese sales on November 11. But at his tea table he analyzes the decline in online furniture sales: Chinese consumers have certainly not disappeared, the market is deep, but everything is moving more slowly than before.
While listening to it, it is impossible not to look at the imposing speaker behind it, equipped with an integrated video projector, two microphones and a tablet to choose songs. “Since we had nothing to do, we bought a karaoke machine to pass the time”he laughs, also pulling poker chips out of a drawer. The man observes that consumer demand is amorphous: “People are paying much more attention than before, that’s obvious. »
This year, therefore, he refused to participate in Singles’ Day, a demonstration popularized in 2009 by the e-commerce giant Alibaba and which has become, over the years, the Chinese equivalent of Black Friday in the United States. United, or in a more intense version. of January sales in France. It would need to offer attractive discounts to attract consumers, but it feels that margins have already eroded too much: it can’t keep up.
His neighbor from room number 509, Huang Yuanping, came to visit us. He makes the same observation. “Some people still have money, but they prefer to keep it. Of [la crise liée au] Covid-19, consumers are more cautious »he said, taking a cigarette from a red packet illustrated with the Forbidden City.
Walking through the hallways of this building where each office houses an online store is like taking the pulse of the world’s second largest economy. Opposite, M.me Gu, who only gives her last name, sells women’s clothing on several platforms, including Taobao, Alibaba’s site aimed at small merchants, and Pinduoduo, which is known in Europe as Temu. Produces in small workshops in Canton. His best seller is a monkey for just over a hundred yuan (about 13 euros), he explains behind his computer. While processing orders for November 11, he also notes that the economy “is inactive”.
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