The author | wonderful
"After the lockdown of Shanghai, the neighbors were buying vegetables at high prices, but the vegetables I planted by mistake were just in a hurry." Tang Yuan bought Wang Yuan's new album a few months ago, the album sent the seeds of flowers, in order to plant flowers, Tang Yuan bought soil, fertilizer and various flower planting tools, "When buying fertilizer, the merchant also sent vegetable seeds, I took it with me on the balcony to plant vegetables together, I did not expect to come in handy at a critical time." ”
Vegetable blogger "Tiantian" also clearly feels that after the outbreak of the epidemic in Shanghai, the number of Shanghai fans who come to consult their own methods of growing vegetables has increased significantly.
In recent years, more and more people have grown vegetables on urban balconies. In 2021, Tmall created a new seed category and recently released the Balcony Vegetable Growing Report. The report shows that in the past five years, online seed sales have been rising, and the most popular vegetable planting place in the product review area is no longer a vegetable field, but a balcony.
In the first quarter of this year, the sales of various vegetable seeds on the Taobao Tmall platform soared year-on-year, and the number of seed buyers increased by more than 100% for three consecutive years. Lu Zhipeng, head of the Tmall Taobao flower industry, said that in April 2022, the entire industry grew by more than 300% year-on-year.
Catalyzed by the epidemic, growing vegetables on the city balcony has become a new way of life, and this group of "urban farmers" have also felt different social experiences because of growing vegetables.
On Tmall Taobao, this market that is biased towards the economy of interest has formed a new 10 billion market, covering the whole life cycle of vegetable growth, including fruit and vegetable seeds, flower pots, nutrient soil, fertilizers, gardening tools, etc., and even prepared intelligent vegetable growers, electric watering cans, automatic irrigation tools, etc. for novices.
For "urban farmers", in addition to harvesting fruits and vegetables themselves, it is more important to bring relaxation to the body and mind. "Standing in this small world on the balcony, the tense urban life seems to have been pressed the pause button, which is also a new way of decompression in the post-epidemic era." Tang Yuan said.
In the post-2001 epidemic era, growing vegetables has become a new social channel
On Taobao, 250,000 people posted a buyer show for the peripheral supplies of "planting vegetables on the balcony", and also spawned more than 240 "vegetable bloggers", and these new farmers in the city are leading a new way of life.
"Taco Urban Peasant Women" is one of the first bloggers to grow vegetables on social platforms. She has loved to grow flowers since she was a child, and 15 years ago, by chance, Taco ate the vegetables grown by her classmate's mother, "My classmate said that the secret of this dish is fresh, just picked, even if it is boiled in water, it is delicious." ”
So Taco plunged into the pit of planting vegetables on the balcony, and she came from a science background, at first she would go to the library to borrow various planting books to understand the principles, and then she was not satisfied with this, she began to learn organic cultivation knowledge on foreign websites.
Now taco is almost a balcony vegetable growing expert, last February, taco began to share his balcony on the social platform, many fans private messages said that inspired by her also to start growing vegetables, make good use of the balcony, which also strengthens taco's determination to continue to share.
In addition to sharing planting techniques, Taco will also teach everyone how to prevent insects, choose fertilizer, plant vegetable pots and so on. Now taco has to go to the balcony every day to inspect the vegetables grown, and he also gets a "pot owner" from fans.
Over the years, Taco has clearly felt that everyone's attitude towards growing vegetables has changed a lot. "When my classmates heard that I was growing vegetables 10 years ago, they also ridiculed me for entering the pension mode in advance. Now at the class reunion, I will bring my own vegetables and seedlings as souvenirs to everyone, and everyone likes such gifts. ”
For taco, growing vegetables brings you, in addition to the joy of harvesting, is more important than physical and mental relaxation. "I'm a professional woman, I'm very busy at work, and it's really decompressing to take a little time out of my garden every day. For me, growing vegetables is like fishing, climbing a mountain, playing ball, it's a way of life. ”
After the outbreak of the epidemic in Shanghai, the speed of the taco account has also doubled several times, from 3,000 powders per month in the past to 5,000 in a week.
Blogger "Tiantian" also feels the same way, although she has only officially operated the account since April, and now she has more than 3,000 fans.
From the beginning of entering the pit, every day is the "technical flow". In October last year, she just started to contact planting vegetables, when shopping websites found that there is a smart hydroponic vegetable machine, thinking that there are children at home, although the output is not large, but it is also good to do science for children.
Not long after, when I went on a business trip every day, I found a vegetable grower, and the merchant said that it was used for aerospace, "I didn't resist the impulse to consume." With 4 layers and 157 holes, the planter matures in less than a month with hydroponic technology.
"I received the vegetable growing machine in November, almost the vegetables just grew, in December Xi'an was locked down because of the epidemic, during the lockdown period, our family ate almost all the leafy greens rely on this machine." Say it every day. Recently, a large number of Shanghai users have poured into her account, and in the fan base, everyone will often exchange problems and experiences in growing their own vegetables and share their own vegetable planting results.
Every day, I feel that growing vegetables has become a new way of life in the post-epidemic era. When it is difficult to socialize offline, growing vegetables opens a new social channel for strangers in the south and north of the Sea these days.
02 kinds of vegetables bring a new social ecology
Chopped Pepper TMT noted that growing vegetables has become one of the hottest topics on various social platforms today. The topic of "planting vegetables on the balcony" on Kuaishou has been played 1 billion times, and the topic on Douyin has reached 3 billion plays. Xiaohongshu also launched the topic of hydroponic vegetables to provide traffic support for users who participated in the topic.
Although the traffic mechanism of each platform is different, based on the tonality of each platform, its own vegetable ecology has been formed. The "exquisite" vegetables of the Little Red Book are higher in terms of picture beauty and knowledge output density, "On the Little Red Book, there is more feeling of sharing life with friends, more pure." "Say it every day.
New bloggers are also more willing to operate accounts on Little Red Book. Tang Yuan has only been running Xiaohongshu since April, and usually she will send some dress evaluations and update her flower progress from time to time. "Some of my hottest shares are related to planting flowers and vegetables, and there is a post that shares the pot, and the number of likes is almost 3,000."
The content distribution mechanism on Douyin is more centralized. Most of the more popular vegetable videos on Douyin are celebrities or Internet celebrities. Huang Ling, Miao Miao, Yan Yikuan Du Ruoxi and his wife have posted their own vegetable planting videos in the home vlog.
In March, when Shanghai was not yet sealed, Miao Miao bought seeds and soil and began to plant vegetables, and shared in detail the whole process of planting, soil distribution and seed sowing, from germination to maturity, from soil to hydroponics, from seeds to tables. However, most of the comments in the video, either evaluating the appearance value, or guessing whether Miao Miao is pregnant with a second child, or lamenting the large area of the star's home, almost all have nothing to do with growing vegetables.
Growing vegetables on Kuaishou is more grounded. Unlike the delicacy on the Little Red Book, on Kuaishou, the most common vegetable container is a plastic bottle.
Waste utilization, simple vegetable planting, lazy people growing vegetables, saving money, etc. are the hottest keywords for growing vegetables on the Kuaishou platform, and the Kuaishou old irons also weave the vegetable planting method into a catchy smooth mouth.
"Grow vegetables quickly, just plant." Some users have commented on this.
No matter which social platform you are on and how you grow vegetables, growing vegetables has become a new trend and has led to the development of a number of related industries.
03 Will vegetables be the next "potential stock" industry?
Xiao Qin, store manager of Taobao's marseed flagship store, clearly felt that the social platform had brought huge traffic growth to his store.
Xiao Qin looked at the data analysis in the background and found that one-third of customers come in every day by searching for brand words. "It shows that they found it after they knew our store, and later I communicated with some customers, most of whom were planted on xiaohongshu, douyin, weibo, and zhihu social platforms."
Marseed flagship store mainly for imported seed sales, the price is slightly more expensive than domestic seeds, but there is no shortage of customers, three years of practice, the number of fans in the store has been 116,000.
According to Xiao Qin, his customers are mainly enthusiasts, most of whom are urban white-collar workers or mothers in first- and second-tier cities, and their ages are not large. Taobao Tmall's recently released "2022 Balcony Vegetable Growing Report" report also shows that Shanghai, Dongguan, Beijing, Suzhou and Guangzhou are among the top 5 favorites to grow vegetables on the balcony (TOP5), and they are mainly post-85 to post-95.
In fact, at the beginning, Xiao Qin did not plan to do vegetable and fruit seeds, before more than ten years of foreign trade, cross-border e-commerce experience, he, when he first opened a store three years ago, he mainly sold the seeds of imported flowers, "Later, many customers came to consult some fruits and vegetables, saying that the tomatoes planted by neighbors are very delicious, and I feel that this is a better market, after all, the flower planting crowd is still small, and I began to do the business of imported fruit and vegetable seeds." ”
At the beginning, Xiao Qin's seeds were basically imported from abroad, and a third party with import and export qualifications was found to help purchase, but the cycle was very long, and it took nearly a year to receive seeds. After the outbreak of the new crown epidemic, the cycle has been longer, the procedures that customs need to provide have become more complicated, and this channel has almost come to a standstill.
After that, Xiao Qin began to cooperate with some domestic scientific colleges, "Their seed resources are also imported from abroad, and after decades of variety improvement, the variety is more abundant and the selectivity is also more." ”
According to the sales of seeds, Xiao Qin found that the choice of urban residents to grow vegetables on the balcony is very different from that of vegetables grown in vegetable gardens.
In Xiao Qin's shop, the best selling is small tomato seeds, he analyzed that the reason for this difference, may be because of the limited balcony area, urban farmers are more inclined to choose tomatoes, which can grow vertically, lettuce, spinach and other green leafy vegetables in the balcony Utilization rate is relatively low, not very popular. When choosing varieties, everyone also prefers to deal with more convenient, tomatoes, fruit cucumbers, which can be directly picked and eaten. "And we all like red Chinese, and this color is more festive."
Little Red Book blogger "Wang Da Hoe's Balcony" is an avid tomato eater. Although she does not post frequently, only updating three or four articles a month, as a "tomato expert", Wang Da hoe has done the best to grow tomatoes, which has also attracted many brands to come to her to promote. "There have been some gardening and fertilizer brands that come to me for evaluation, which I may pick up, but there is no charge, and once the fee is charged, it loses its impartiality and deviates from my original intention."
However, after seeing the dividends of social platforms, Xiao qin is forming his own team to promote on various social platforms.
"As a first-generation e-commerce businessman, I've always been a little afraid to leave my comfort zone, but there are now a lot of similar merchants doing it." So I think it's important to make your brand known first. ”
Nowadays, growing vegetables has become a major new trend in the post-epidemic era, and even brought about the development of the entire industrial chain. "Every Chinese has an idyllic dream, and when they are isolated at home, the pace of life also slows down, which is a good opportunity to realize their idyllic dream." Tang Yuan said.