As the new year draws to a close, a wave of consumption driven by traditional festivals has once again swept the country, and consumers across the country have ushered in a new year in the liveliness and celebration of purchasing New Year goods.
"In previous years, the Spring Festival home, for the parents to buy things, large bags and small bags carrying hard, these two years began to buy new year goods online, people light on the road, they have not yet arrived home, the new year goods may have arrived", a Mr. Li who has worked in Suzhou for many years lamented the convenience brought by e-commerce. In particular, e-commerce and express delivery "spring festival does not close", but also completely liberated his days of picking and choosing in the supermarket crowd.
Xiaomei, who has just worked for a long time, recently took over the "New Year procurement right" at home, she is no longer like her parents, choosing to buy the ingredients needed for the New Year at one time years ago, and then bothering to pick vegetables, wash vegetables and cook them one by one, but buys a lot of pre-made dishes of local time-honored brands early, and waits until Chinese New Year's Eve night to prepare ten minutes in advance.
She told her family, "I will never have to be tired and tired to prepare Chinese New Year's Eve meals in the future."
In ancient times, materials were poor, and the people would start buying poultry meat and fruits, new clothes and shoes and other items a few days in advance, which was the origin of new year goods, and now the definition, form, channels and so on of new year goods have changed. In the change of new year consumption, there are hidden changes in people's demand for life and commercial development.
From "set" to "festival", new year goods out of a township and a city
The Qing Dynasty's "Kyoto Customs" records: "Those who sell New Year goods in the city, chess pieces ... People make books, then sell spring leagues ... Buy hemp straw, oak branches, rice noodles, vegetables, fruits, wine, meat, chicken and fish, and everything that is eaten, and buy a new one to prepare for the New Year."
This lively scene of doing New Year goods, that is, the ancient annual "annual collection". The annual collection, gradually derived in the Ming and Qing dynasties, the description in the "Kyoto Customs" has been quite detailed, in addition, from Ding Guanpeng's custom painting "Taiping Spring City Map", we can also more intuitively see the scene of the New Year market at that time, there are firecrackers, there are acting, there are crafts, toys, very lively.
The earliest history of purchasing New Year goods can be traced back to the Han Dynasty, to the Song Dynasty, the development of shipping, frequent trade and commerce, the new year goods trading became active, but until the Ming and Qing dynasties, the emergence of the prototype of the annual set, so that the New Year goods have a fixed scene and a more intense New Year flavor, which is why the annual set can be retained to this day.
Many people are impressed by the scene of the childhood new year's market, in groups, shoulder to shoulder, candy, tobacco, alcohol, meat and seafood, clothes, shoes and hats, cloth grain and oil are placed in front of the stalls, adults hold their children tightly, in case they are attracted by sugar gourds, sugar blowers, toy guns, small firecrackers and other things, accidentally lost. At that time, the New Year goods were called the lords by scattered, such as Xu Fuji, Ma Dajie, Golden Snub-nosed Monkey, Great White Rabbit... They form the New Year's sugar "luxury group", which is almost a must-have candy for every household.
However, the changes in the mainland's annual goods transactions in the past thousand years are far less than the changes brought about by the economic changes in the past few decades, from the collection to the supermarket to the e-commerce New Year goods festival, people's places to buy New Year goods are more convenient, fast and efficient, and the richness of the New Year goods is also unimaginable to people in the era of material poverty.
In 1996, the first Wal-Mart shopping mall in the mainland was opened in Shenzhen, and almost at the same time, the government began to lead the urban areas and urban areas of major cities to create large-scale New Year goods markets such as New Year goods streets and agricultural exhibition halls. In less than a decade, the city's "annual market" and many small traders gradually disappeared, and department stores and supermarkets took their place.
From the collection to the supermarket, consumers can buy more and more exquisite, advanced, pay attention to quality, its scope has begun to cover cultural entertainment and other fields, and from the supermarket to the online New Year festival, the New Year goods are no longer limited by the region, the world, the south sea, the north, the Chinese and Western goods can be sent to consumers through the online platform.
Ms. Xie from Liaoning is a cherry "lover" and every winter she buys some fresh cherry as a must-have fruit for Chinese New Year's Eve meals. This year, the ruddy, plump, sweet and juicy Chilean cherry has become a "top fruit" in one fell swoop, and Ms. Xie is eager to move. At first, she had doubts about the freshness of the fresh fruit on Pinduoduo, but she did not expect that the speed of delivery was very fast, and the cherries were neither damaged nor tasted fresh.
Pistachios from the United States, cherries from Chile, kiwifruit from New Zealand, Dandong strawberries, Shouguang vegetables and fruits, Hubei lotus root, Hengzhou corn... The top goods in different regions have enriched the New Year's table of domestic consumers with the help of e-commerce platforms.
Going to the city and going to the countryside, the new year goods of the whole people are upgraded
In 2006, there was a survey of New Year goods in the media, which showed that fruits/candies, nutraceuticals, tobacco and alcohol, etc. became the "best-selling gifts", especially the first two, accounting for more than 70%. At the same time, flowers have also become a popular gift for people to give to relatives and friends in the New Year, and 15.7% of people choose to buy flowers.
The new year goods from bulk to gift boxes are an obvious upgrade of new year goods brought about by the acceleration of the level of economic development and the rapid growth of residents' income after the mainland enters the new millennium. Another change is that the sales of 3C electronic products, flowers, health care products and other products have soared around the New Year, which means that the New Year goods are no longer concentrated in the survival consumption of eating and wearing, but have begun to shift to higher consumer demand, such as health, education and even enjoyment consumption.
However, we can clearly see that the hierarchical differentiation of mass economic ability and consumption capacity in this period has made the gap between the annual goods of every household larger and larger, and the upgrading of new year goods driven by the consumption structure is actually more in the first- and second-tier cities.
However, the emergence of e-commerce, while completely changing the way of purchasing New Year goods, has gradually weakened the impact of the difference in consumption levels on consumers' purchase of New Year goods with richer New Year products and more favorable prices, so that the upgrade of New Year goods has truly become a national New Year upgrade. This upgrade is also reflected in the great improvement of the shopping experience, no need to queue up for checkout, no need to carry large bags back, you can buy New Year goods.
In the process of e-commerce driving the upgrading of the national New Year goods, it is necessary to mention pinduoduo, which has risen from outside the fifth ring road and penetrated into first- and second-tier cities. In the past, the e-commerce platform has not succeeded in leveraging the rural consumer market for many years, and Pinduoduo has successfully stepped out of a route where the countryside surrounds the city, and it has truly upgraded the New Year goods into cities and townships and thousands of households through the annual New Year goods festival .
Dandong Donggang, the largest strawberry production base in mainland China, is ushering in a new round of the strongest sales season. Open Douyin and Kuaishou, everywhere you can see the anchors who are pushing 99 strawberries, but more consumers are flocking to the e-commerce platform, especially Pinduoduo.
In 2020, the local strawberry growers in Dandong almost suffered from the disaster of "extinction", in February and March, affected by the epidemic, the supermarket closed its doors, strawberries fell to 3 yuan can not be sold, a large number of rotten in the ground. At this time, Pinduoduo launched an anti-epidemic to help farmers, and many growers held the attitude of trying to supply the platform, and found that "the sales volume was too large, and they packed and dried for 20 hours a day", which instantly ignited their hope. Since then, Dandong growers who supply supermarkets are now more willing to supply Pinduoduo.
In the past, 99 strawberries could only be sold to Shenyang supermarkets as far as possible, but now they can be sold directly to consumers across the country in 8 hours, and the fame of 99 strawberries is also growing.
In addition to Dandong strawberries, lotus roots in Honghu Lake, corn in Hengzhou, bamboo shoots in Fujian... These fresh goods from the place of origin are transported to the tables of urban and rural consumers thousands of miles away through Pinduoduo's direct consumer end.
Shaanxi girl Liu Ru, in the short video brushed many times 99 strawberries, she found that the price of strawberries in the live broadcast room is really too expensive, even if there is a preferential activity, a box of strawberries also have to be two or three hundred, and pinduoduo directly transported strawberries from Dandong, the price is much more preferential than other platforms. It's the New Year's Festival, and she plans to give her relatives back home a box of 99 strawberries each.
With the help of the resource tilt of "tens of billions of subsidies" and "10,000 people's groups", Pinduoduo's annual goods can continue to maintain stable prices and affordability, which allows the majority of rural consumers to achieve "new year goods freedom" on Pinduoduo. At the same time, the efficient supply chain allows top agricultural and sideline products to enter first- and second-tier cities, ensuring that they can buy new year goods at one stop. Therefore, a national new year goods upgrade quietly occurred in the lively wave of consumption.
Domestic goods re-occupy the consumer's list of new year goods
In the history of the change of New Year goods, foreign goods that have crossed the ocean have once attracted domestic consumers to rush to buy.
In 1990, McDonald's opened its first fast-food restaurant in Shenzhen, and by this time, KFC, which had come in three years before it, had already made a lot of money. At that time, going to a fast food restaurant with my family to order a fried chicken or burger during the New Year was almost a child's annual luxury. To this day, products of overseas brands such as Estée Lauder small brown bottles, SK-II fairy water, coach bags and bags are still the first choice for Chinese people to chop hands for the New Year.
In the economy of new year goods, the competition between foreign goods and domestic goods has been running through the entire development of new year goods, and in the past two years, the absolute advantage of domestic goods occupying the list of consumers' new year goods has become more and more obvious.
According to the "New Year Festival Hot List" released by Pinduoduo in 2020, in terms of fresh fruits, domestic agricultural products represented by Sichuan Meishan ugly oranges, Gansu Tianshui apples, and Xinjiang Korla fragrant pears occupy most of the fresh fruit list; in terms of food and health care, the best sellers are Panpan, Zhenxin, Xu Fuji, Wangwang, etc.; on alcoholic beverages, Maotai and Wuliangye rank in the top two of the hot list.
From this list, it can be seen that consumers are still the most patriotic brands when buying New Year goods. In fact, this is also benefiting from the platform, some cost-effective, grounded traditional domestic brands, after moving their main battlefield to Pinduoduo, regained the sales explosion.
Of course, the greater value of e-commerce platforms lies in supporting and cultivating domestic brands and expanding the potential of domestic brands. Especially the necessary agricultural and sideline products in the New Year goods, for a long time, one of the biggest disadvantages of agricultural and sideline products in the mainland is the lack of well-known brands, which makes it difficult for agricultural and sideline products to obtain higher sales even if the quality is good, let alone go abroad.
The new farmers on Pinduoduo want to change this situation.
Hengzhou, Guangxi, is known as the "hometown of Sweet Corn in China", and in January, busy farmers are rushing to harvest the "New Year goods" that will be sent to all parts of the country through Pinduoduo - sweet corn. According to data, from January to August 2021, the number of online merchants in Hengzhou was 5257, and the e-commerce transaction volume was 3.5 billion yuan, an increase of 17.6% year-on-year, of which the online retail sales of agricultural products were 596 million yuan, an increase of 34.54% year-on-year.
As one of the young people returning to their hometowns to start a business, Qin Zongnuan is not too optimistic about the growth of sales data. After returning to his hometown, he led the establishment of Xinyuan Fruits and Vegetables, and established a whole chain of industries including bases, deep processing, silage processing, etc. in the mode of "cooperative + company + base + farmer", with an order volume of nearly 100,000 singles / month. But he knows that strong farmers need strong brands.
On the one hand, he firmly grasped the opportunities such as the many-year goods festival to do the sales volume, and on the other hand, he began to try the boutique development of individual varieties of corn, and through the creation of explosive models, he was committed to making the fame of Hengzhou corn in the country. On the Pinduoduo platform, there are more than 126,000 post-95s "new farmers", who have high academic qualifications, know how to operate and manage, and will become a new force to promote the branding and standardization of agricultural products.
Chinese people prefer patriotic goods, especially when buying New Year goods, the help of e-commerce will inevitably continue to help entrepreneurs export new brands, and these new brands may also become a new choice for Chinese people to buy New Year goods in the future.
With the approaching of the New Year, a traditional and lively consumption of New Year goods has begun.
The Tao is always reasonable, and has used the name Crooked Dao, the Internet and the new media in the science and technology circle. This article is an original article, and any form of reproduction without retaining the author's relevant information is not retained.