A female visitor tries on clothes in front of a virtual fitting dressing mirror at the 2018 China International Big Data Industry Expo. (Photo: Ou Dongqu/Xinhua News Agency)

The number of clothes sold in China dropped to 54 billion items last year, down 24.8 percent year-on-year, data released by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) revealed.

The data also indicated that sales of clothes and cloth saw a substantial decrease from the fourth quarter of 2017.

Renting clothes has become a trendier alternative in China. With emerging second-hand clothing rental platforms, buying clothes outright is no longer the only choice.

A Beijing-based white-collar worker surnamed Wang told People’s Daily Overseas Edition that an item of clothing commonly costs a few hundred or even over 1,000 yuan, but is often not worn enough to make it worth the money. Rather than buying new items, renting is less costly, especially when it comes to outfits for special occasions.

In 2018, the per capita expenditure on clothes across the country was about 1,289 yuan, up 4.1 percent year-on-year. Over the same period, residents’ per capita consumption expenditure increased by 6.2 percent, faster than the growth of clothes expenditure. Meanwhile, the growth rates of Chinese consumers’ expense in other sectors such as transportation, communications, education and healthcare were far higher than that of the spending on clothes.

The dropping consumer spending on clothes can be mainly attributed to the rise in prices. Data from the China National Commercial Information Center indicated that clothing prices sharply increased by 1.4 percent in 2018. Per unit prices of men’s, women’s and children’s clothing all witnessed an increase of 4.6, 7.1 and 10.5 percent over the previous year, respectively.

Chinese enterprises are facing high costs in regards to labor, raw materials, taxes and electricity, noted the China National Garment Association. On top of that, manufacturers have to put more money into design to cater to the ever-changing market, which explains why clothes are more expensive than they used to be.