SHOPPING FOR DELICACY AND QUALITY

While making special purchases for the holiday, more Chinese favored imported food such as cranberries from North America, avocados from Myanmar, codfish from New Zealand, lobster from Boston and cherries from Chile.

A customer surnamed Zhang in Qingdao of East China's Shandong province said half of the food stored in her freezer for the Spring Festival were imported products.

"There is a wide range of foreign food to choose from, and the prices are affordable," she said, which allows her family to slow down and relax during the holiday and enjoy delicacies.

Apart from exotic foreign food, Chinese consumers also paid more attention to product quality during the festival shopping spree, with the sales of organic food, smart home appliances and new electronic devices seeing fast growth, the ministry said.

Chinese e-commerce giant JD.com said its sales from Feb 3 to Feb 8 rose by 42.7 percent year on year, with smartphones, computers and home appliances being the top three items in terms of sales value.

Cooking utensils posted the most substantial growth at 399 percent year on year, with people tending to prefer higher-end products in this category, the company said.

Online shopping in lower-tier cities is booming thanks to an expanding e-commerce network. Sales growth in fourth-tier and sixth-tier cities exceeded 60 percent.

South China's Guangdong province is the biggest consumer on JD.com, followed by Beijing, Jiangsu and Sichuan, according to the report.