Impact of the COVID-19 Pandemic on the Consumer Market in Russia and China

For many decades, Russia and China have been major trade and economic partners, whose close and effective cooperation is of particular importance in the context of Western sanctions. New strategic guidelines of Russian-Chinese relations determine the scientific relevance and practical significance of studying the consumer markets of the two countries. It is especially important to study the features and trends of changes in consumer markets in the conditions of the epidemiological crisis. The purpose of this work is to analyze the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on four areas of the consumer market in China and the Russian Federation: e-commerce market, luxury goods market, food delivery market and online education market. Studying the impact of crisis processes on the consumer markets of individual countries seems to be very relevant for the development of effective measures to overcome similar situations in the future. To achieve the research goal, we use methods of analysis and synthesis of statistical data. The research results prove that the COVID-19 pandemic has had a significant negative impact on the consumer market in Russia and China. A large-scale epidemiological crisis has led to deterioration in the material well-being and consumer opportunities of both countries. At the same time, the COVID-19 pandemic has also led to a number of positive changes in certain sectors of the consumer market in Russia and China: further rapid development of distance trading, growth of the goods delivery market, acceleration of the trend of online education development. Such positive trends will contribute to further information and innovation development, economic growth of Russia and China. The scientific novelty of the research is to identify the consumer market areas that have felt the greatest impact of the pandemic in terms of accelerating their development, as well as a comparative analysis of these areas in cross-country comparison.