No More Revenge Spending: How China's Gen Z Is Changing How They Shop | Money Mind | China Economy

foreign belongs to China's post-2000s generation this group of about 300 million youth grew up during the pandemic years and are now a key part of China's consumption engine but there's just one problem the Young Young Generation Chinese are spending less and this trend to start uh in 2020 and after cover 90 the main reason obviously is that because people got less and less money income a sluggish post-covered economic recovery a property Market meltdown and a youth unemployment crisis has sent consumer confidence levels tracking downwards in the past year the government stopped publishing official data in April on the other hand savings have gone up total household deposits were up by 12 trillion yen in the first half of 2023 the biggest increase in a decade it's not that they do they do not have the money but it's just the confidence you know of spending that money so young Chinese like Solitaire are getting creative about how they stretch their budget as a graduate student gets a monthly allowance of 2 000 Yen from her parents that's just over 270 US Dollars she spends the vast majority of this on food add clothing and shoes as well as her passion Sports and her budget is busted every month she makes up for the shortfall by earning from part-time jobs working as an office assistant and at a Publishing Company she's not alone more than 50 percent of gen Z say they have side gigs to earn and save extra income to stretch their budgets further many are heading online [Music] social media in China has exploded with content like this on how to save money searchier uses social media to compare prices and get recommendations before deciding whether to buy she also makes use of super apps to buy vouchers for food and drinks as well as second-hand books for school in many cases her search for cost-effective products leads her to domestic brand names foreign experts say this is markedly different from previous generations gen Z tends to focus more on value for money and quality instead of looking at brand names and partially it was also because of the rise of the social media platform that would allow consumers to make these comparisons right the influencers that were you know explaining telling the the younger generation consumers you know what you know what's good what's bad and you know you know recommendations this and that right [Music] foreign but others are more cynical they say China's youth have little other choice in this current economic environment they do not have a relatively stable wealth accumulation like their elders and their Diversified source of income also limits the actual amount of money they can spend this could be a long-term Trend where people opt for more intentional spending habits yet still safe to purchase quality products and services within their budget in China you know there's what we call a show-off effects in the sense that when getting rich you tend to buy a top brand and sell or drive the best cars and buy the best most expensive bags French made bags but our next generation is not so lucky they're going to change the consumption parties because they don't have money let's let's assume that let's say hypothetic today I think five years time she honestly come to recover I'm pretty sure that this generation is well will start show up again [Music] thinking about money in a different way foreign foreign

Channel: CNA Insider

Views: 610,166

Keywords:

Id: Z-qX4cdM68Y

Length: 6min 44sec (404 seconds)

Published: Mon Oct 02 2023