Taiyuan city, capital of Shanxi province, stepped on the gas to develop a new type of online consumption business during the novel coronavirus prevention and control period. 

The city's businesses and merchants have launched product discount applets, recorded videos about shops and staged online livestreaming events and other forms of online marketing to stimulate consumption. 

Local convenience store chain Tangjiu Convenience Store recently launched a product discount applet where hundreds of products are marked at low discount prices, attracting many customers.

According to Shen Minzhe, store manager of one Tangjiu Convenience Store, the sales volumes rocketed threefold and fourfold after the applet was launched. Taking one trading day of May 20 as an example, there were over 80,000 orders before 22:00 in one store where there were at most 3,000 orders daily before.

Officials said online livestreaming has also become another favorite of the businesses and merchants in Taiyuan city to attract the attention of customers. 

During a two-hour livestreaming event jointly organized by Tangjiu Convenience Store, restaurant Shanxi Guild Hall and Chinese edible oil brand Jinlongyu, 26,000 people tuned in to view the livestreaming and products worth more than 50,000 yuan ($6,985) were sold.

Lee's Living Mall, a plaza in the city, also saw the obvious effects after having its first try at online livestreaming marketing this month. During its livestreaming event, shopping guides from over 30 shops in the Lee's Living Mall, distributors and producers, promoted products on social networking and video sharing platforms such as WeChat, Tiktok and Tencent, with the majority of shops receiving 40 to 50 orders in around half an hour.

Zhang Hongwei, executive deputy general manager of Lee's Living Mall, said that though the sales of offline shops in the mall declined sharply in the first half of 2020 due to the coronavirus epidemic, online sales rocketed with the online turnover increasing over 200 percent year on year.

Officials said the sudden epidemic pushed traditional companies to accelerate their digital transformation, as the trend to online consumption turned more obvious in the wake of the outbreak.

Businesses and merchants in Taiyuan said they will pool their resources and cooperate with other businesses in holding more online marketing events to increase sales and promote consumer spending.