With women driving increasingly significant sales across almost all channels of consumption in China, more online and offline promotions have been designed to target female consumers, Guangzhou Daily reported on March 8.

Major Chinese e-commerce platforms including Tmall, JD.com and Kaola.com started International Women’s Day (IWD) promotions early this year, with many offers starting at the end of February.

Offline promotions marking the IWD also kicked off before the festival. In Guangzhou, capital of south China’s Guangdong Province, a variety of promotions were launched in a number of shopping malls and supermarkets, with the most significant discounts offered on personal care products, underwear, and cosmetics.

To attract more consumers, many shopping malls in Guangzhou even held art exhibitions and shows to help advertise deals. TEEMALL, a large shopping mall in Guangzhou, also held a flower show.

Nearly 40 percent of Chinese families depend on the woman of the house for daily expenses, and over 20 percent of the women in Chinese families earn more than 50 percent of their family’s total income, according to a recent report on consumption jointly released by Rong360.com, a Chinese mobile financing platform, and qian.qq.com, Tencent’s wealth management platform.

Female consumers attribute a significant amount towards China's current consumption upgrading, an analyst from Rong360.com pointed out.

It’s worth noting that besides expenditures on clothing, accessories, and cosmetics, in which areas women spend far more than men, the number of Chinese women spending money on education and training for themselves is twice that of their male counterparts.