30 minutes to prepare New Year goods Instant retail has become a new trend of Spring Festival consumption

In order to meet the dual requirements of consumers for "goods + services" and "quality + speed", since January this year, Meituan Flash Sale, Preferred and other businesses have jointly launched the "New Year Goods Festival" and "Spring Festival Does Not Close" activities, providing consumers with a wealth of New Year goods and the fastest 30-minute delivery service. It is reported that the Meituan New Year Festival covers leisure snacks, digital 3C, agricultural and sideline products and other categories, including Brands such as Mars, Mondelëz, Yili, brand chain dealers such as Apple, Huawei, and Xiaomi, and nearly 600 supermarkets and convenience store brands such as China Resources Vanguard and Carrefour, all of which joined the large-scale event.

Fastest 30 minutes everything to home Instant retail into the mainstream

"As a company that provides both retail and service retail, Meituan always pays attention to the changes in consumer demand." The relevant person in charge of the Meituan New Year Goods Festival said, "During the 'New Year Goods Festival', we are committed to keeping up with the development trend of consumption habits and consumer culture, and creating a new New Year goods experience for consumers through the combination of massive affordable goods and the fastest 30-minute delivery." ”

In recent years, with the continuous enrichment of consumer goods, the focus of the retail system has gradually changed from commodities as the core to both goods and services. The popularity of digitalization and the integration of online and offline have made consumers more and more demanding for "placing orders online at any time and performing offline immediately", and it is difficult for many consumers to wait for a certain product for 3 days or more.

Meituan's data also confirms this consumption trend. Taking digital 3C as an example, since the "New Year Festival", the search volume of mobile phones on the platform has increased by more than 10 times compared with last year, and the number of mobile phone orders delivered by Meituan Flash Sale has increased by more than 15 times year-on-year. In addition to high-priced products such as digital 3C, consumers' demand for immediate performance has also been rapidly transmitted to daily necessities such as mother and baby, beauty, etc., as well as all categories of products such as agricultural and sideline foods.

In this regard, the relevant person in charge of meituan said that during the entire New Year festival, the platform will provide 24-hour online and fastest 30-minute delivery retail services for 2800 urban counties across the country through flash purchases, covering a variety of categories such as wine and snacks, daily 100 hardware, fresh fruits and vegetables, flowers and plants, pet mothers and babies, digital books and other categories.

"National annual circulation" has become a new trend

Although the form of New Year consumption has changed, "homecoming", "New Year's taste" and "Chinese New Year's Eve meal" are still the three keywords of Spring Festival consumption.

Meituan data shows that in early January, the search volume related to "New Year goods" on the platform grew the most rapidly, with a year-on-year increase of more than 12 times. Among them, the search volume of electronic firecrackers and electronic fireworks increased by more than 500% month-on-month, and the search volume of standard New Year goods such as Spring League, Fuzi and Gift Boxes exceeded 200% month-on-month.

While inheriting the customs of the New Year, young consumer groups are also innovating in the diversity of consumption during the Spring Festival. Meituan data shows that this year's Spring Festival consumption shows two obvious trends, one is the circulation of New Year goods, consumers have higher and higher requirements for the quality and diversification of New Year goods. Second, the market size of the lazy economy has further expanded, such as hiring in-depth cleaning a few years ago, choosing to eat out as a family on the day of Chinese New Year's Eve or buying prepared dishes to easily prepare Chinese New Year's Eve meals.

As of early January, the number of orders for "national Chinese New Year's Eve rice ball purchase packages" doubled compared with the same period last year, and the number of catering merchants that supply Chinese New Year's Eve meal packages online also increased by 118% year-on-year. At present, more than 600,000 catering and local life service businesses across the country have signed up to participate in Meituan's "Spring Festival No Closing" activity to meet the consumption needs of citizens during the Spring Festival. Judging from the "reservation" information, Shanghai, Beijing, Chengdu, Hangzhou, Guangzhou, Suzhou, Shenzhen, Wuhan, Nanjing, and Wuxi are the top ten cities that are keen to book Chinese New Year's EveChinese New Year's Eve meals in advance.

Even when preparing Chinese New Year's Eve meals at home, more and more consumers are choosing time-saving and labor-saving practices, and pre-made dishes have become a shortcut for young people to move towards "five-star chefs".

According to the "2021-2022 China Prepared Vegetable Industry Development Report" released by the NCBD, the size of China's prepared vegetable market will exceed 300 billion yuan in 2021 and is expected to exceed 830 billion yuan by 2025.

Meituan's data confirms the rapid development of related markets: in 2021, the sales scale of prefabricated dishes on the platform increased by 4 times compared with 2020, and since entering the Annual Goods Festival cycle, the growth rate of related orders has continued to maintain rapid growth. Among them, coconut chicken, pepper pork belly chicken, sauerkraut fish, etc. have become hot commodities before the Spring Festival.

In terms of new year goods procurement, consumers no longer focus only on the "taste of hometown", but bring home the good taste of the whole country and even the world. Data from Meituan Preferred shows that since entering the New Year goods festival cycle, the circulation scale and frequency of specialties in the north and south of the country have increased rapidly. Since January, more than 100,000 Korla pears have been sent from Xinjiang to Guangxi Baise, and more than 100,000 hairy crabs and turtles have been sent from the city to the countryside.

"Off-site orders mainly come from young people, who hope to share the good taste they found with their parents at this special time of the Spring Festival." The relevant person in charge of the US group said. Driven by this, the monthly scale of "filial piety single" by Meituan Preferred alone exceeded 3.5 million, a record high. Among them, Beijing, Guangzhou, Shenzhen, Dongguan and Shanghai are the top five places to place orders in different places, and Baoding, Zhoukou, Anqing, Huizhou and Shangqiu are the cities that receive the most filial piety orders.

"With the Spring Festival approaching, the frequency of platform users placing orders in different places continues to increase. The Meituan Preferred Team has made sufficient preparations for this and will continue to send the good taste of the whole country to more than 2,600 cities and counties at the fastest speed through the 'agricultural fresh direct procurement' system. The relevant person in charge of the US group said.

Service retail may become a new engine of economic growth

Whether it is the fastest 30 minutes to complete all the New Year goods, or the most time-saving and labor-saving way to enjoy Chinese New Year's Eve meals, many data and trends show that the proportion of consumer spending on service retail continues to increase.

According to the National Bureau of Statistics, in the past two years, the growth rate of the national service industry production index has been significantly higher than the zero growth rate of the society. In 2021, the total retail sales of consumer goods in the country increased by 12.5% year-on-year, and the average growth rate of 3.9% in two years. During the same period, the national service industry production index increased by 13.1% year-on-year, and the average growth rate of 6% in two years.

In this regard, Liu Xiangdong, deputy director of the Economic Research Department of the China Center for International Economic Exchanges, said in an interview with the Central Broadcasting Network: China's total consumption of goods is more than 40 trillion yuan, and the service consumption is about 20 trillion yuan, only half of the commodity consumption; and according to the data of 2020, the US service consumption is about 10 trillion US dollars, close to 2 times the scale of commodity consumption. That is to say, a small part of the disposable income of Americans is spent on the consumption of goods, and most of it is spent on the consumption of services.

Wen Bin, chief researcher of Minsheng Bank, believes that China's Engel coefficient is 29.8, close to the level of developed countries, which means that China's consumption structure is also improving and optimizing with the increase of residents' income level. In fact, the proportion of food in our total income has dropped from nearly 70% in the early days of reform and opening up to 29.8%. From the perspective of the new direction of consumption development, the proportion of services in consumption will become higher and higher.

According to the research report of the research group of the China (Hainan) Reform and Development Research Institute, the general trend of China's consumption is to upgrade from material consumption to service-oriented consumption, and it is expected that during the "14th Five-Year Plan" period, the mainland will cross the material-based consumer society and enter the service-oriented consumption society, and the proportion of urban and rural residents' service-oriented consumption will reach more than 50%.

As a vane of the annual consumption trend, the consumption trend of new year goods, including Meituan, shows that consumers are increasingly pursuing the perfect combination of commodity retail and service retail, both good goods and good services. This universal demand may become a new engine of economic growth.

In this regard, the relevant person in charge of the Meituan New Year Goods Festival said: "Affordable + instant" is the theme of Spring Festival consumption throughout the platform. In terms of goods, on the basis of the profits of co-brand owners, Meituan has launched "59 minus 15/109 minus 30" and other money-saving coupons to help consumers formulate different combinations of money-saving plans. In terms of services, Meituan will provide 550 million yuan of distribution subsidies during the Spring Festival to ensure consumers' demand for 24-hour instant consumption.

Upstream journalist Gu Li