Reporter | Wu Rong
Edited by | Ya Han Xiang
Guangzhou Dongshankou Vegetable Market has become a regular visitor to the Little Red Book. First of all, Chen Xiaochun and other brothers in the Greater Bay Area appeared here to record the program to attract onlookers, and then Nescafe came to quickly open a limited-time shop with a retro atmosphere called "Five Flavor Coffee Shop", which attracted many young people to "punch in" and post pictures.
Image source: Little Red Book
The last time the wet market was so glamorous and frequent in public presence was the collaboration between luxury brand Prada and Shanghai Wuzhong Bazaar – it also attracted a group of urban beauties to come and look at the concave shapes of fruits and vegetables. In addition, the most out-of-the-loop vegetable market is the Beijing Sanyuanli Vegetable Market, which often has celebrities, many brands and curators with marketing needs, coupled with the frequent exposure of the media and variety shows, so that this vegetable market is often ridiculed as "More Internet celebrities and advertisers than buy vegetables". The launch of the new book "Xue Zhaofeng's Economics Lecture Notes", the marketing of BMW and Tencent News's "Three Sources calling the board Sanlitun", the brand pop-up activity of Libai dishwashing detergent... They are all cases of Sanyuanli Vegetable Market on the way to the level of Internet celebrities.
Wet Market Meets Economics (Source: Digital.com)
In recent years, the vegetable market has become a place for many brands to market, to a large extent, it is a contrast effect created by a brand cross-border; and with the disappearance of the traditional vegetable market, a scene full of fireworks has begun to become a punch card for many urban young people to pursue a lifestyle.
In addition to the pursuit of contrast, the wet market itself has a natural advantage that is conducive to dissemination.
As the fresh industry with the largest traffic and high repurchase rate in retail, it is known as the "industry where the sun never sets", and the vegetable market is the carrier of it. The concept of "people taking food as the sky" is deeply rooted in the hearts of the people in China, and the vegetable market, as the soul of Chinese food culture, has been an indispensable "punch card" point for people's daily life for a long time.
At the same time, the wet market is a symbol that no one needs to explain and that everyone knows.
Hu Wen, the head of the market, once operated the release of the new book "Vegetable Market Meets Economics", and she once gave an example, such as living in Beijing, she must know that Sanlitun is a fashion landmark. But when you leave Beijing, even if you can search for "Sanlitun" on the navigation map, you still have to explain it to your friends, but the explanation limits the number of people who understand it, and the spread of power immediately decays. The wet market is naturally a symbol that does not need to be explained, taking advantage of the signal strength.
Bringing its own traffic is not enough, a wet market wants to go out of the circle, and its location, positioning and sales customers are closely related.
Taking Sanyuanli Vegetable Market as an example, compared with Xinfadi, a wholesale market with huge traffic in Beijing, the richness of the dishes it sells, the hidden "high-end" attributes, and the relatively high-end consumer groups are also the reasons for its cooperation with major brands.
The same is true of Dongshankou Vegetable Market, which is located in Dongshankou, an old business district with strong characteristics in Guangzhou, and used to be said to be a "vegetable market in a rich area". As the area around Shuqian Road in Dongshankou Neighborhood has become a gathering place for "net red shops" in recent years, the development of this neighborhood has once again ushered in new vitality. The proximity to the punch card place where young people gather is conducive to the dissemination and exposure of social platforms, so that the Dongshankou Vegetable Market has the potential to go out of the circle.
More importantly, as an important carrier of community commerce and urban renewal, most of these markets have been transformed and upgraded.
The renovation of the wet market in Dongshankou introduced Shenggao Investment, which focuses on urban renewal and other businesses, and appointed shanghai jiao tong university O'Mo studio to design.
A set of arcade-shaped arcade spaces have been added to the façade of this vegetable market, which can enhance the image of the building façade and shelter pedestrians from the wind and rain; after the renovation of the entrance space, an enlarged space has been formed, which can be used as a rest area, and it is also convenient to reserve a community art co-creation space to create conditions for the introduction of more business in the future; the interior is divided into corridors of different colors, and the moving line and space intention are also clearer.
Image source: Shanghai Jiao Tong University O'Mor Studio
The Wuzhong Bazaar, which cooperates with Prada, also underwent a renovation at the end of 2019. Dark green wooden doors, gold market signs, pale yellow walls, green and white mosaic tiles... After the renovation was completed, the appearance of the Wuzhong Market has been greatly improved. In addition, Wuzhong Market has also upgraded its hardware facilities, including the introduction of "cloud scale" big data intelligent management system, intelligent information traceability system and other modern equipment.
Image source: Figureworm
Over the past decade, the story of the disappearance of wet markets has been played out in big cities.
The rise and development of Internet grocery shopping, the grand blueprint of urban planning and the dirty and bad market itself have gradually limited the living space of the vegetable market. According to the Guangzhou Daily, there are about 620 wet markets in Guangzhou, and about 5 of them disappear every year. Behind the transformation and transformation, there is more or less implied self-help in the vegetable market.
In addition to working hard from the environment and decoration style, the transformation direction of the vegetable market can actually be more flexible. Professor Wu Wenjie, a professor at the School of Economics of Jinan University, said in an interview with the media that the transformation of the vegetable market can retain and enlarge the original differentiated functions of the market, such as urban culture, social places, and leisure, and can also attract young people to join and introduce more modern elements into traditional industries.
How to surpass the market itself and upgrade to a new form of more dynamic community commerce, testing the ability of the government and city managers, is also the high hope of the citizens. Cases such as Beijing Sanyuanli Vegetable Market, which have undergone transformation and become internet celebrity vegetable markets, can largely become a sample of them, providing reference experience for the renewal of more vegetable markets and learning from them.