(Yicai) Sept. 4 -- The wholesale price of Chinese liquor giant Kweichow Moutai’s flagship spirit continues to fall despite the upcoming peak holiday season because the market expects weak consumption demand.

A Feitian Moutai bottle costs CNY2,365 (USD332) today, down about 3 percent from 15 days ago and 15 percent from a year earlier, according to data from private pricing platform Jinri Jiujia. In a muti-bottle pack, a Feitian Moutai bottle is priced at CNY2,660, down 4 percent and 11 percent, respectively.

The Mid-Autumn Festival holiday will be from Sept. 14 to Sept. 17 this year, while the one-week National Day holiday will start as usual on Oct. 1.

The main reason for the declining Feitian Moutai price is pessimistic market expectations for the upcoming peak season, liquor sellers in Beijing, Jinan, and Nanjing told Yicai. Consumers usually buy high-end spirits for themselves or as gifts during traditional holidays, but such need has contracted notably in recent years, the merchants explained.

Baijiu demand is particularly tepid this year before the Mid-Autumn Festival, likely the softest over the past decade, the sellers pointed out.

As holidays approach, producers usually increase supplies to wholesalers, and wholesalers increase supplies to retailers. But the willingness to restock is weak among retailers on concerns of poor sales and falling prices, so supplies are much more than demand, the merchants noted.

Another reason for the decline in Feitian Moutai’s wholesale price is that the spirit is cheaper on e-commerce platforms. A single bottle of Feitian Moutai is priced at CNY2,309 on Alibaba Group Holding’s main platform Taobao and CNY2,270 per bottle on budget online shopping site Pinduoduo.

Feitian Moutai is a first-class baijiu product. Companies and individual consumers have been hoarding it for investment for many years, which led to Kweichow Moutai’s shares to surge after its listing on the Shanghai Stock Exchange in 2001.

Kweichow Moutai [SHA: 600519] closed 0.7 percent down at CNY1,400 today. The stock hit a record high of CNY2,489.11 on Feb. 26, 2021, but has fallen nearly 44 percent since then.

Editors: Tang Shihua, Futura Costaglione