Epidemic changes daily lives of people who now cook their own meals

AVC said the sales of small kitchen appliances will increase 5.7 percent this year, compared with the same period last year, and related sales revenue will total 55.2 billion yuan ($7.94 billion), a fall of 2.8 percent year-on-year.

In addition, electric lunch boxes will see a surge in demand as more and more enterprises resume production. Employees may reduce the frequency of eating at canteens and ordering takeouts, and tend to have a meal brought from home, Li said.

"In the past, they could use the public microwave ovens to heat the meal before eating, but the use of the electric lunch box is more convenient, and solves the concerns about hygiene."

Joyoung, one of China's leading private home appliance manufacturers and soybean milk machine makers, said the online sales of its soybean milk machines, high-speed blenders, automatic cookers and dish-washing machines increased in February.

The Shenzhen-listed company has developed a variety of kitchen products. Apart from soybean milk machines, they include juicers, electric furnaces, rice cookers, steamed bun cookers and noodle makers.

It has also increased the frequency of making livestreaming at e-commerce platforms and let users upload funny short videos through Douyin, a Chinese video-sharing platform, during the epidemic.

In 2019, it cooperated with top-tier influencers such as Justin Li Jiaqi or Viya Huang for brand endorsements, with online sales reaching 700 million yuan during last year's Singles Day shopping carnival on Nov 11.

Chinese e-commerce giant JD announced special supportive measures for merchants, key opinion leaders and multi-channel networks doing livestreaming ecommerce to better support the rising demand for online shopping.

In order to meet the needs of merchants for new product releases, JD Live has upgraded its "online product launch conference", which leverages 5G technology to broadcast at low latency. The upgraded function will allow merchants to gain access to JD's massive marketing resources and tools.