Chinese New Year – It’s that time of the year again. We’re all excited to be raking in red packets and stuffing our bellies full with specialty goodies that are traditionally made once a year. It’s the Year of the Tiger, which once again brings plenty of opportunities for merchants to incorporate its themes into their marketing strategies. The year of the tiger will be about making big changes, taking risks and being bold. We hope our merchants will continue to be bold with their marketing strategies and achieve greater results in 2022. 

Here are some of our top tips curated just for Chinese New Year marketing, including data from our Carousell marketplace.

Typically, we find that consumers start browsing and making purchases for Chinese New Year-related products 1-2 months before. Furthermore, Filipino Chinese in general prefer to start preparing as early as possible. Sales volume tends to peak 1-2 weeks before the start of the Spring festival.

Here are the top trending Chinese New Year-related search queries on the Carousell marketplace from Dec 2021 to now. 

With that being said, while we know products that fall into these categories will no doubt be popular with the e-commerce crowd, the keywords ‘Chinese New Year’ and ‘CNY’ on its own are highly searched for as well. This means anything related to it will be in consumers’ interests as well.

To leverage on the popularity of the season, it is important to incorporate Chinese New Year traditions into your service or product offerings as well. There are many traditions that are practiced prior to the new year, but one of the most well-known ones are spring cleaning, wearing of newly-purchased clothes, sporting fresh haircuts and the giving of gifts to families. 

Spring cleaning

Home services merchants stand to gain due to the annual spring cleaning ritual that prepares the house for visitations before the start of the new year. This might even extend to vehicles, as many travel around in their vehicles for visitations and may want to have them cleaned before the new year as well. 

Wearing new clothes and fresh hairstyles

Evidently, one of the most in-demand clothing amongst consumers around this period would be the traditional Cheongsam and Qipao. However, modern-day consumers no longer stick to wearing one type of clothing for Chinese New Year anymore. As long as clothes are new and fashion a design that relates to the festival, it is suitable to wear. Demand for hair services is also guaranteed to spike during this period as people get ready for a fresh new year. 

Snacks and gifts

Popular traditional snacks and gifts like tikoy, love letters, pineapple tarts and even canned abalone are also a must to have at home for visitors to indulge in, or to give friends and family in the form of gifts. These affordable, fattening but delectable goodies are highly sought after this season as well.

Merchants that offer cleaning services, do business in the fashion category, provide hair services or sell snacks and products that make good gifts over the Chinese New Year period would want to consider running marketing campaigns during this period to take advantage of the seasonal spike in demand. 

What’s a Chinese New Year marketing strategy without boosting the idea of wealth and prosperity? Price your listings with the auspicious number 8! For example, PHP8, PHP88, PHP188 or if just end the digits with 8. Remember that 4 is an inauspicious number during this period, so try to avoid that. While most of society has pretty much grown out of this superstition, there are few who can be quite superstitious. 

Aside from that, merchants can also give out freebies like tiger-printed stickers, masks or red packets to customers who have purchased a fair amount of products from you. Consider bundling items together and creating Chinese New Year promotional packages so consumers feel like they’re getting a good deal this season as well. 

With COVID-19 restrictions in place and the end not yet in sight anytime soon, this new year will no doubt be less lively. While we may not get to see family members altogether in the same household like pre-pandemic times, let’s not let the spirit of the lunar new year die and face the year ahead with the vigour of a tiger. 

Wishing all our merchants in Philippines a Happy Lunar New Year of the Tiger from us at Carousell!