As China’s spring festival shopping season gathers pace, Feitian Moutai — the country’s most coveted baijiu — has returned to headline the market with frenetic price swings and persistent shortages. Field visits to chain liquor stores, supermarkets and mom-and-pop tobacconists in several provinces found terminal prices clustered around ¥1,750–1,800 a bottle, while some dealers report intraday adjustments as many as five times. Retailers and distributors describe a market that is tight on supply, fickle on price, and reminiscent of trading in gold or equities rather than a consumer staple.
The bifurcation across the premium spirits segment is stark. While Moutai’s secondary-market quotations have staged a mini “over‑the‑month” rally, other top-tier brands such as Wuliangye’s eighth-series and Luzhou Laojiao 1573 have largely stabilized after last year’s corrections. Leading houses have pivoted their promotional tactics from blunt price cuts to “open-bottle” engagement campaigns — QR-code prize draws and guaranteed small cash rewards for scanning bottle caps — designed to boost household penetration and reduce channel inventory without sacrificing perceived brand value.
Online and offline channels are operating as distinct ecosystems. iMoutai’s ¥1,499 listings remain virtually impossible to secure: the platform reported more than 15.3 million monthly active users and over 2.12 million orders in a recent month, with Feitian accounting for roughly 1.43 million of those orders. Yet retailers on the ground say the online rhythm has had little dampening effect on their local sales, where allocation limits, delivery uncertainty and festival demand keep demand strong and stock sparse.
For smaller retailers, the margin math is unforgiving. Shop owners recount that selling high volumes of Moutai often yields modest profits, and rapid price swings can wipe out weeks of margin in a single move. Several distributors said January–February quotas were already sold out and some were taking March allocations; many say they are reluctant to hold inventory because volatility raises the risk of heavy losses if prices soften.
Market intelligence and third‑party price trackers confirm elevated short‑term volatility. Wholesale reference prices show slight day‑to‑day moves in boxed and loose bottles of recent‑vintage Feitian, while certain collectible SKUs have jumped more sharply. Brokerage notes from recent channel checks point to double‑digit year‑on‑year declines in pre‑festival off‑premise shipments in some regions, even as Moutai’s volume and price performance have surprised to the upside, leaving traditional channels with near‑zero inventory in some cases.
The capital markets have taken heed: major listed baijiu firms have seen generally positive performance in recent sessions, with Kweichow Moutai’s share price up materially over the past week. Analysts and independent commentators describe the current market as one of structural divergence rather than a broad-based recovery — a landscape where dominant incumbents consolidate their edge while mid‑ and high‑end peers pursue targeted activation to restore bottle‑opening and household usage rates ahead of sustained demand revival.