Author/ Author of "Finance and Economics" Weekly Zeng Guang
Editor / Chen Fang
They're all "hoarding freezers."
In the past week on social media, many people have been discussing that it is time to buy another freezer, and a frenzied rush to buy refrigerators and freezers is playing out across the country.
Xiaomei is a post-90s person who rented a house in Beijing, where six people lived in four rooms, and everyone shared a refrigerator. Although she did not have enough before, she never considered buying a refrigerator herself, mainly for fear of trouble, and buying as little as possible in her daily life. But on April 12, Xiaomei couldn't help but participate in a "10,000-person group purchase" Xiaoice box in Pinduoduo.
The biggest feature of this refrigerator is that it occupies a small area, with a capacity of only 68 liters, which is very suitable for renters, and the price is not expensive, as long as 390 yuan.
Compared with those who do not own a house, those who own a mansion are more generous. In recent days, a business owner in Charge of family necessities procurement in Beijing, when he already has a refrigerator at home, has urgently ordered a double-door refrigerator of Haier Commander in Jingdong, the biggest feature of this refrigerator is its large capacity, 601 liters, which cost the boss nearly four thousand yuan.
Fuyue, who lives in Beijing Yizhuang after 80, the family population is relatively large, a total of six people, five adults and a child and a dog, usually the food consumption is relatively large, so her family bought two double-door large refrigerators a long time ago, nevertheless, she was not used to hoarding things before, she still felt that it was not enough.
In the end, Fuyue placed an online order for a small freezer with a capacity of 143 liters, she originally wanted to buy a larger size, but the home really could not put it, this freezer is specially measured after the size of the purchase.
At present, the freezer as a storage supplement for refrigerators, due to the relatively small footprint, has become a must-have "second refrigerator" for some families.
Mengjie, a post-80s woman living in Beijing, is a full-time housewife who has to worry about the eating and drinking of the family of four every day, and originally she already had a five-door refrigerator at home to meet daily needs. But recently she felt that it was not enough, the freezing area was full, and the limited area of the home could not accommodate a second refrigerator, so she took out her mobile phone and ordered an AUCMA freezer online, with a capacity of 143 liters and cost more than 800 yuan.
After buying it, Mengjie was steadfast in her heart, and she also recommended this freezer to a friend. On April 11, after receiving the goods, a friend told her that the delivery master said that many people had been buying freezers recently, and he had sent 12 freezers of the same style that day. A consumer living in Chaoyang, Beijing, revealed that his community recently placed an order for 400 freezers, and the courier brother delivered the whole truck.
A courier vehicle transporting electric freezers. Figure/Respondents
Thousands of miles away in Hangzhou, there are also many people rushing to buy freezers. On April 11, Junjun came home from work and found that her mother had just spent 500 yuan to buy a 100-liter Xiaoice cabinet, she felt very surprised, immediately sent a circle of friends, unexpectedly, not only her mother, there are three friends who have left a message saying that they have bought a freezer, and there is a reply that they are picking.
Lina in Guangzhou somewhat regretted that she had placed her order late. Her family of three had only a single-door refrigerator. She placed an online order for a 100-liter Xiaoice cabinet online on April 8, and to make room for the freezer, she also made room for the snack rack. Unexpectedly, the next day after the order, Guangzhou began to seal the control, and the freezer was stuck on the road and has not yet been delivered.
Compared with the refrigerator, Lina feels that the practicality of the Xiaoice cabinet is very strong, because she usually goes to the large supermarket to buy more meat, and the original refrigerator freezing area cannot be put down, and a frozen meat place is needed. And after the epidemic in Shanghai, some friends in Shanghai told her that the Xiaoice cabinet is particularly practical, so they specially placed orders.
Rare appearance of "Little Yang Spring"
"Finance and Economics" weekly learned that most people's sense of urgency to buy freezers and refrigerators comes from Shanghai.
Because it is relatively close to Shanghai, there are many people hoarding goods in the supermarket in Hangzhou recently, and junjun's family bought some meat and found that the freezer space was not enough. "I originally thought about it, but my mother felt that I had to have a sense of worry, so I placed an order, and it was not expensive." Junjun told Caijing Weekly.
Mengjie's sister's family is in Shanghai, and she still likes to hoard goods, and there is a large refrigerator at home, "I would like to be twice as big as my family", and it is usually stuffed. "On the day of the lockdown, she took out the frozen things in the refrigerator and set up a table, and took a video of me, and there were so many things." Meng jie said that even so, now that more than ten days have passed, the materials of her sister's family have begun to be scarce.
Seeing the current situation of her sister's family, Mengjie, who never likes to hoard goods, finally bought a freezer and was prepared.
Fuyue buying a freezer is also influenced by Shanghai. "After becoming a parent, there will be more things to consider, and the first layer of Maslow's hierarchy of needs is the need for survival, especially if there are elderly people and children in the family." Fuyue told Caijing Weekly.
Xiaomei bought Xiaoice box was also touched by Shanghai and had to make long-term plans. Xiaomei said, "I am not afraid of ten thousand, I am afraid of what if, now my mentality is completely different from before, I will be very anxious, I must hoard to be practical." ”
The price of small freezers ranges from hundreds of yuan to thousands of yuan. Photo/JD.com
The sudden rush to buy has led to a rapid increase in sales of freezers and refrigerators in the past two weeks.
Suning Tesco told Caijing Tianxia Weekly that since 2022, its sales of high-end refrigerators and freezers have increased by more than 70%, and the refrigerator favored by consumers is in the basic preservation function, and can also achieve intelligent temperature control, partitioned storage, energy saving and power saving, especially "small size, large capacity" is more sought after.
The surge in sales is not unique. Gome revealed that due to the recent surge in consumer demand for food storage, refrigerator products with large capacity and refrigeration functions have received unprecedented attention, and the sales of refrigerator freezers have increased significantly. Take Guangzhou Gome, for example, ice washing sales increased by 133% year-on-year, of which Tianhe, Haizhu and Liwan placed the most orders. The same is true in Beijing, where overall refrigerator freezer sales rose 40 percent in April.
On the JD platform, in the past week, Guangdong, Shandong, Sichuan, Jiangsu, Zhejiang and other places have the largest number of refrigerator orders, and the top five cities are Beijing, Guangzhou, Chengdu, Chongqing and Shenzhen.
Not only at the channel level, major refrigerator freezer manufacturers have also sensed that the market is changing.
Midea Group told Caijing Tianxia Weekly that the demand for refrigerators and freezers has increased significantly recently, and the search popularity of the industry has been the same as that of Tmall Double Eleven. Especially since April, the sales of Midea's refrigerators and freezers have increased by 45% year-on-year, and the demand for refrigerators and freezers has increased significantly.
According to data from Zhongyikang (GfK), the sales volume of offline freezers in the 15th week of 2022 increased by 19.9% year-on-year, and sales increased by 29% year-on-year, of which sales in Shanghai increased by more than 150% year-on-year. At the same time, offline sales of refrigerator categories also increased by 3.7% year-on-year, and sales increased by 17.7% year-on-year.
Photo/ Zhongyikang Mini Program
Haier revealed that due to the surge in demand for fresh food hoarding by users, the demand for large refrigerators and freezers has increased recently, coupled with the impact of the Qingming Festival small and long holiday, the overall retail sales and retail volume of refrigerators in the 15th week of 2022 have increased significantly. Among them, the retail sales of the refrigerator market were 199.11 million yuan, and the retail sales of the freezer market were 10.75 million yuan, and the growth rate was above double digits. Retail volumes of refrigerators were 37,187 units and freezers were 4,675 units, up 6.7% and 24.4% respectively sequentially.
Overall, compared with large refrigerators, small freezers are growing more vigorously, and the main advantage of their products is that they are convenient for storing durable food, and they are cheaper and have a smaller footprint. In this round of the epidemic, most people mainly store frozen food and meat, because vegetables are difficult to store for a long time, so the freezer is more practical.
For the refrigerator and freezer categories that have become saturated in the past few years, this is a typical round of "small Yangchun" market, especially in the context of the continuous decline of the entire home appliance market, this growth achievement is particularly difficult.
There is no way to reverse the decline
But this round of "xiaoyang spring" market does not mean that the spring of the refrigerator industry has really arrived.
From the data level, the overall sales growth of refrigerators and freezers in mainland China in the past few years has been very weak. According to the latest data provided by Zhongyikang, the retail sales volume of refrigerators in mainland China from 2019 to 2021 was 31.65 million, 32.57 million and 32.61 million units respectively, and the sales growth was almost stagnant. In fact, this is already the result of the impact of the demand for hoarding goods since the epidemic in 2020, and in the previous five or six years, the refrigerator market has been in a negative growth state in many cases.
The coldness of the refrigerator market is just a microcosm of the saturation of the entire major appliance market, especially since entering 2022, the growth of the entire home appliance market is not optimistic. According to data provided by Zhongyikang to Caijing Tianxia Weekly, TV sales in domestic offline retail fell by 41%, air conditioners fell by 43%, refrigerators fell by 27%, and freezers fell by 17% in March.
"Now the overall consumption is very weak, horizontally looking at the refrigerator, freezer category is already very good, in March the entire major appliances fell by more than 40%, if there is no demand for food hoarded by the epidemic, refrigerators, freezers are estimated to fall by 40%." Peng Xiandong, general manager of The Major Appliances Division of Zhongyikang, told Caijing Tianxia Weekly.
Experts generally do not believe that this round of "XiaoyangChun" can save the major appliance industry.
Liu Buchen, an analyst in the home appliance industry, told the "Finance and Economics" weekly that the recent driving effect of home isolation on freezer sales is temporary, "the driving effect should not be exaggerated, do not think that there will be a big outbreak in the refrigerator market, this is impossible." ”
Liang Zhenpeng, another home appliance industry analyst, also believes that although the market for freezers and large-capacity refrigerators has a certain role in improving in the short term due to the epidemic factors, the refrigerator market is now seriously saturated as a whole, and it is difficult to continue to grow in the short term.
"The golden age of China's home appliance development has long passed." Liu Buchen believes that the major appliance market and the real estate market are highly correlated, with the real estate market increase peaked, in recent years, major appliances have also entered the stock market, and refrigerators, air conditioners, TVs and washing machines are the traditional four-piece set of major appliances, which have long entered the saturation stage.
In the capital market, the current stock prices of the two giants Haier and Midea are still hovering at a low level, down 27% and 30.8% respectively compared with the peak period, and closed at 23.44 yuan and 57.44 yuan per share at the close of April 12.
But a fact is that after experiencing the shortage of materials in the post-epidemic era, Chinese re-picked up the habit of "wide accumulation of grain", which has reshaped the entire refrigerator and freezer category to a certain extent.
On the one hand, refrigerators are getting bigger and bigger today. Haier Group and Midea Group both told Caijing Tianxia Weekly that the current refrigerator as a whole has shown a large-scale trend, and a refrigerator dealer in Suning said that most families now buy refrigerators with "standard double doors, 500 rising steps".
Peng Xiandong said that the large volume of the refrigerator industry has been obvious since the beginning of the epidemic in 2020, and consumers are buying larger refrigerators.
The large-scale refrigerator has led to the improvement of the unit price and profit margin of the entire industry. Haier Group told Caijing Tianxia Weekly that although the sales volume of domestic refrigerators has declined in 2021, sales are rising, and users' demand for large-capacity refrigerators has directly promoted the hot sales of high-end refrigerators of more than 8,000 yuan.
Photo/Visual China
On the other hand, nowadays, the second refrigerator and freezer have begun to become the standard equipment of many families, which has brought a certain incremental space to the entire refrigerator market to a certain extent.
It's not just needed
However, those who stock up on refrigerators and freezers may not really need them.
After recently purchasing a new freezer, Mengjie's refrigerator did not hoard a lot of fresh vegetables, because the vegetables were not long ago, so they still maintained the habit of buying a meal and eating a meal.
"Now the things sent by Hema and Dingdong are very fresh, and then the delivery is also very fast, and I prefer to eat fresh every day." Meng Jie told Caijing Weekly.
However, due to the impact of the epidemic, Mengjie filled the freezer area of the refrigerator and the newly purchased freezer at home, and froze a lot of meat and instant food products, including pork belly, ribs, meat filling, beef and mutton slices, lamb chops, shrimp, fish balls, quick-frozen dumplings, wontons, tangyuan and so on.
"I even froze vegetables, like hearts and toons, which I boiled in hot water and dried and frozen, slices of lettuce and the like froze, and I even bought ice cream." Meng Jie told Caijing Weekly.
Xiaoice cabinet stuffed with Mengjie. Figure/Respondents
However, at present, Mengjie has no intention of further hoarding goods, because relatives and friends in Shanghai have sent her a hoarding list before, and she has "exceeded the task", and even canned and snacks have been hoarded.
Compared with meat that is easy to freeze, leafy vegetables are more difficult to preserve, and even buying another refrigerator is difficult to solve the problem.
In order to solve the problem of vegetable shortage that may occur in an emergency, Mengjie specially bought a multivitamin, but also prepared to grow vegetables on the balcony of the home, and recently ordered the soil for planting vegetables. The seeds that Mengjie bought are coriander and cabbage, and because the space for planting vegetables on the balcony is relatively small, she plans to mainly plant cabbage, because the growth cycle of cabbage is relatively short.
Like Mengjie, Fuyue's family did not hoard too many vegetables for the time being, mainly storing some products that were convenient for freezing, and also felt that vegetables were easier to spoil.
The Fuyue family's house is in Yizhuang, Beijing, and has its own yard where you can grow your own vegetables. After the outbreak of the epidemic in 2020, Fuyue family has maintained the habit of growing vegetables, and has planted tomatoes, potatoes, cucumbers, etc. before, and this year's list of vegetables is still under consideration.
Xiaomei, who has just placed an order for Xiaoice box, has recently stockpiled encapsulated corn, soba noodles, convenience foods, sausages, and quick-frozen green bean corn kernels. But she also mentioned that she actually does not like to eat dry products, not only unhealthy, but also not delicious, prefer to eat fresh food.
In fact, for most consumers, the extra refrigerator may not be just needed.
Mengjie told Caijing That if it were not for the shanghai epidemic and the presence of family members in Shanghai, she might not have thought of buying a new freezer, "in fact, it is completely unnecessary."
Fu Yue also mentioned that the two double-door refrigerators in his home were actually completely enough, although the freezing area was a little smaller, but it was basically enough. After the newly purchased freezer arrived, FuYue did not know what to put inside for a while, it was still empty for the time being, and he was ready to communicate with colleagues about what to put inside later.
Xiaomei feels that there is basically no epidemic in Beijing now, and under the premise of having a certain ability to resist risks, there is no need to grievance yourself to eat some dry goods and frozen food, or you should prepare for a better life, "Don't fight the battle of being unprepared."
Compared with Beijing, which has not yet been controlled, Lina, who lives in Guangzhou, has more confidence in the local area, and only puts a few days of vegetables at home, and then dynamically updates, and the 33-liter refrigerator cold storage area is even partially empty.
After guangzhou was sealed, Lina found that she could still easily buy vegetables, and the nearby supermarket could also deliver it. Although the newly purchased freezer could not be delivered, the refrigerator at home seemed to be enough, and now she was not only not ready to continue to stock up, but wanted to consume the inventory in the freezer area.
"I feel that this supply is doing better, and I am more confident in Guangzhou, so I am not in a hurry to hoard." Lina told Caijing Weekly.
(The consumers in this article are pseudonyms)
This article is originally produced by AI Finance and Economics, an account of Caijing Tianxia Weekly, without permission, please do not reprint it on any channel or platform. Violators will be prosecuted.