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With Spring Festival just around the corner, it`s time to fire up the kitchens for that all-important reunion meal. And now, this annual ritual is getting a little digital help.

He Fan, a 26-year-old Beijing-based English teacher, may not know her way around the kitchen, but she`s hardly worried after volunteering to prepare this year`s new year eve dinner. She knows she can manage with the click of her computer mouse.

She began her preparations weeks ahead of the Spring Festival by surfing on Taobao.com, China`s largest e-commerce site, and ffxiv gil ordering partially prepared or ready-to-eat dishes from online stores and restaurants from different provinces across China, and even abroad.

"In the past, my parents and relatives would get together and cook for the more than 30 members of my family. The new year eve dinner was more like a suffering, than an ff14 gil enjoyment for them," she says.

Her lengthy shopping list includes roasted whole lamb and mutton skewers from Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region, seafood packages from Guangdong province, sauced beef from Shanxi province, liquor-marinated fish from Zhejiang province, and marinated duck necks, wings and feet from Hubei province.

"I`ve also bought imported foods for my FF14 Power leveling cousins since young people like to taste something new, such as Haagen-Dazs ice cream from the US, chocolate muffins from Czechoslovakia and deep-fried glutinous rice cake stuffed with bean paste from Taiwan."

The self-confessed shopaholic says that during Spring Festival, the stores and supermarkets are always crowded and complaints of FFXIV Power leveling high prices are common. But "you can get 20- to 50-percent discounts if you buy online", she says.

Dong Xiaohua, manager of the site`s food sector says, "We are encouraging more vendors to sell their products directly online, and the lower prices this results in is a big draw for customers."

For example, jade dates from Hotan, Xinjiang, which have emerged as a star festival purchase on line, are selling at 100 to 120 yuan ($15-$18) per kilogram, 60 yuan cheaper than in the supermarkets.

Crabs from Yangchenghu Lake in Jiangsu province are another cheap ffxiv gil online favorite, with 100 to 200 stores on line selling them for 30 percent less than the markets.

Su Dan, an online vendor in Urumqi, capital of Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region, sells lamb on line and has been aggressively expanding his business to include more Xinjiang specialties.

"When customers make orders, my chefs will cook and vacuum seal them immediately," Su says. "The dishes can retain their freshness for up to a week. And you only need to cook them in the microwave for a minutes to have them ready to eat.”

Dong says that the most popular specialties on his site are those from Sichuan, Xinjiang and Zhejiang. Biscuits from the US, candies from Japan and pastries from South Korea are the most popular.