Yang Xiaolin
The COVID-19 epidemic has had a major impact on the world economy, global industrial chain and supply chain, and has also brought continuous impact on the global consumer market.
The World Bank's latest "Global Economic Outlook" report shows that the global economic growth rate will rise to 5.5% in 2021, and global trade will also rebound simultaneously; however, the ongoing outbreak of the current epidemic, reduced policy support and continued supply chain pressure will likely As a result, global economic growth will continue to slow down and consumer demand will decline in the next two years.
Under the influence of multiple factors such as the still large global macroeconomic uncertainty, the global consumer market in the post-epidemic era may show new characteristics.
From the perspective of demand trends, the epidemic has led to the vigorous rise of new technologies, new formats, and new platforms such as artificial intelligence and smart cities. Online office, online shopping, telemedicine and other "contactless economies" have gained a broad market. Digital content consumption and physical consumption are closely related. The integration between them is further enhanced.
At the same time, consumers are paying more and more attention to green and healthy lifestyles. They are more inclined to choose natural, safe and organic products, and are more willing to choose outdoor parks and open shopping places for leisure and entertainment. Short-distance travel such as vacations replaces medium and long-distance travel.
From the perspective of supply trends, the main body of market supply is actively responding, turning crises into opportunities, and is gradually adapting to new consumption trends.
In the face of consumers' higher requirements for convenience and real-time consumption under the epidemic, digitalization, intelligence, and efficiency have become the direction of transformation and upgrading of the entire retail ecosystem. Create more opportunities.
New business formats are injecting new vitality into the recovery of the global economy.
Taking digital trade as an example, under the circumstance of severe impact on global trade, global digital trade exports will increase by 3.8% against the trend in 2020, and the contribution rate to the growth of service exports will be as high as 98.3%.
According to Salesforce, global e-commerce sales in the third quarter of 2021 increased by 13% year-on-year.
Relying on the new retail model established by cross-border platforms, relying on big data and algorithm technology to accurately connect with the international consumer market, it has played an important role in reducing international trade costs, optimizing supply chain management and brand building.
However, it should also be noted that the huge market spawned by new business formats faces a series of problems that need to be solved urgently.
In the face of the surge in demand for digital consumption, the global digital consumption infrastructure is still incomplete, there are few development carriers, the technical support is not strong, the supply of high-quality digital products and services is insufficient, and new digital consumption scenarios are relatively few. There are also many problems in the protection of consumer rights and interests.
In addition, "new consumption" scams under the guise of the epidemic have also appeared in many countries, ranging from "new" medical care products with false names to fake vaccines, which dampened people's enthusiasm for consumption.
In the short term, the global spread of the new crown pneumonia epidemic will continue to spread, and economic globalization is still facing great uncertainty. New consumption will support the formation of new growth in the world economy, which is an important driving force for promoting high-quality supply and demand balance and smooth economic circulation.
While complying with the new trends and requirements of consumption upgrading and creating new economic dividends, countries still need to encourage market supply entities to carry out key technological breakthroughs, effectively improve their innovation capabilities, establish a high-quality production system that matches supply and demand, remove obstacles to digital consumption networks, and comprehensively improve Optimize the consumption environment, innovate consumption supervision methods, and intensify penalties for violations of laws and regulations in the consumption field, and transform the new format of the global consumer market into a new consumption system that is more scientific, complete and targeted, so as to fully stimulate new consumption potential and provide The recovery of the world economy brings lasting impetus.