Euro 2012 Increases E-commerce Kit Sales In China

Chinese online businesses were "abuzz about Italy's tight defense against Spain" in the Euro 2012 during the early hours of Monday morning "as die-hard football fans stayed up late for the match," according to Wei & Limin of the CHINA DAILY. China's most popular e-commerce site Taobao.com vendor Xie Hui said, "The results might determine which national flag we should keep more of in stock." Online retailers are "embracing the football spirit, doing a roaring trade in colorful national flags, kits and trophies." The term "European Cup" was firmly on Taobao's list of "hot topics" by Monday, with the search term showing up more than 54,000 times. Taobao PR Officer Wang Ying said that the search frequency "rocketed in popularity six times compared with just a month ago." Taobao reported Spanish team kits have been the "biggest seller," with more than 5,000 being sold in the past month. German, Italian, French and Portuguese kit sales all topped 3,000 (CHINA DAILY, 6/12).