China’s e-commerce giant Taobao announces the top 10 hottest products on the online shopping site for the year 2023 in Beijing, on December 25, 2023. Photo: Chi Jingyi/GT

China's e-commerce giant Taobao announced the top 10 hottest products on the online shopping site in 2023 on Monday, with virtual products making the list for the first time, reflecting changing consumer tastes.

The "Einstein's brain," a virtual product, featured on the top 10 hottest product on Taobao for 2023.

Sellers put pictures of Einstein's brain on their Taobao shops, which can be purchased for less than 1 yuan ($0.14). Young people buy the product to cheer themselves up or have fun with friends, according to a statement sent from Taobao to the Global Times on Monday.

After discovering the popularity of "Einstein's brain" on Taobao, Zhang Jianxi, a 23-year-old resident of in Xingtai village, North China's Hebei Province, put product up for sale on her Taobao store, and sold 70,000 orders in a year.

Zhang told the Global Times that sales of "Einstein's brain" would surge on her Taobao store every exam season, as students sought good luck.

More and more products, or services, that can provide "emotional value" have sprung up on Taobao in recent years. Emotional value is when a customer experiences positive feelings like joy and happiness from the services offered by a business.

Taobao's top 10 products of the year are the representatives of popular hot memes and social spotlights that have been made into products, Hong Yong, an expert at the Digital Real Economies Integration Forum 50, told the Global Times on Monday.

"With the improvement of e-commerce infrastructure and supply chains, more small and medium-sized entrepreneurs can 'chase' social trends at a lower threshold, and turn trends into real businesses," Hong said.

On Monday, Taobao released the list of top 10 hottest products for the year 2023, including The Art of War by Sun Tzu, "sauce-flavored latte" (Moutai alcohol-infused latte), "Einstein's brain," customized light products for concerts, Coenzyme Q10 and Linglong One.

China’s e-commerce giant Taobao announces the top 10 hottest products on the online shopping site for the year 2023 in Beijing, on December 25, 2023. Photo: courtesy of Taobao

Linglong One is the world's first onshore commercial modular pressurized water reactor, dubbed as a "portable nuclear-generated power bank. The product, along with other hardcore products such as domestically-developed Z-20 utility helicopter, China's space station and 5G chip appeared in a live broadcast sales room on Taobao during the Double 11 shopping festival, in a bid to introduce the latest, most advanced China-made products to netizens.

According to Taobao, sales related to concerts jumped 300-fold during the Double 11 shopping festival on a yearly basis, as live entertainment raced to the forefront of China's post-COVID economic recovery.

A Taobao store owner who sells concert glow sticks told the Global Times that this year has been his best year in a decade.

"We have sold more than 200,000 glow sticks in 2023," the shop owner said on Monday.

In 2023, with the gradual slowdown in the increase of unemployment rate and lowering inflation, hot products are no longer simply physical goods, but those that can provide emotional value, Wei Xiang, a research fellow of the National Academy of Economic Strategy under the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, told the Global Times on Monday.

"In the future, consumer trends will shift from physical goods to service consumption, and from cost-effective purchase to emotional value consumption," Wei commented.

Thus, online retail will enter a new phase. Accordingly, e-commerce platforms will also shift from "platforms offering good prices" to "platforms that provide products and services of emotional value," Wei noted.