Shipments of festive goods from Yiwu are still going strong in October, weeks after the traditional summer peak, as overseas buyers place supplementary orders and flock to the city's newly opened global digital trade center, China Central Television's finance channel reported.
Yiwu is the world's largest Christmas goods distribution hub, selling to more than 170 countries and regions with over 20,000 product categories. Unlike previous years, when the order peak concentrated in the summer, festive products continued shipping at high volume through October, with successive rounds of overseas restock orders landing.
Smart products are a major draw for visiting buyers. At the new Yiwu Global Digital Trade Center, AI glasses, AI voice recorders, bionic butterflies and dancing robots have become popular stops for foreign purchasing delegations. AI glasses in particular have seen surging demand, with single-day shipments exceeding 100 units at their peak and the client base growing more than 30 percent in the first three quarters.
Yiwu customs data cited in the report show the city's foreign trade exports reached 548.85 billion yuan in the first eight months of the year, up 12.8 percent year on year, with Christmas product exports to Latin America, the EU and ASEAN totaling 3.23 billion yuan, or 67.9 percent of the category's total.
Merchants say the combination of novel designs, upgraded quality and intelligent features is helping Yiwu's small commodities stay competitive as global buyers consolidate their sourcing for the year-end shopping season.
Source: CCTV Finance (CCTV-2), October 20, 2026.
