Stuck at home, consumers are ramping up sales of cooking, pet-related items

Cooking-related goods sold like hotcakes online due to the recent novel coronavirus outbreak as hundreds of millions of home-bound Chinese are finding ways to live and entertain themselves.

According to a report by Meituan-Dianping, the country's leading on-demand service platform, a rising number of people are searching for baking-related goods on its online take-out and vegetable delivery platforms during the epidemic.

Sales of yeast, a necessity for making bread and pastries, soared by nearly 40 times while dumpling wrappers were sold seven times more than before. Seasonings were in great demand, with over 3.93 million onions, pieces of ginger and heads of garlic sold during the outbreak.

Among the groups of people buying food on Meituan's online platforms, post-90s are still the major force, which accounted for 53 percent of the total.

Notably, it is uncommon for older age groups to buy things online. Consumers born after the 1980s also grew 7 percent to make up 36 percent of the total.

The unexpected outbreak has changed people's habit of buying food online. More than 60 percent of orders were placed before 12 am, while over 30 percent of residents from Shanghai place orders early, between 7 to 8 am.

In addition, washing dishes has become a must, given that the sales of steel wire balls has increased by 108 percent compared to before.

Since more consumers are stuck at home alone, pets have become good company. More than 40,000 bags of cat litter and 50,000 bags of cat food have been sold during the epidemic.