"Solution Solution": Find 100 ways to play in the new economy and vertical industries
Original | Technology Koala
At the beginning of 2023, many retailers and entrepreneurs smelled new opportunities and outlets.
On February 13, the "Opinions of the CPC Central Committee and the State Council on Comprehensively Promoting the Key Work of Rural Revitalization in 2023" was officially released. In the Central Document No. 1 guiding the work of the three rural areas, instant retail is mentioned for the first time, "comprehensively promoting the construction of the county commercial system, and vigorously developing new models such as joint distribution and instant retail".
In fact, if you look back, the Ministry of Commerce's "China Online Retail Market Development Report for the First Half of 2022" in July last year mentioned the significance of instant retail to connect online and offline.
This means that the new model of instant retail, which emerged in first- and second-tier cities, has begun to extend and replicate to third- and fourth-tier cities and surrounding counties, and in the process of continuous verification, this new format has been recognized by decision-makers and has become an important part of promoting the high-quality development of the county economy.
According to incomplete statistics, in this year's No. 1 document, the word "county" appears a total of 13 times, and the expression related to "county" has reached 35. The combination of "county" + "instant retail" has become a hot proposition at present.
The vast county was once a speechless person in the Internet age. But then, as more small shops in the county "touch the Internet", the local consumption potential will be further released, the quality of employment space will be improved, and the county commercial system will be gradually improved. When the county economy itself enters the fast lane of development, the whole Chinese economy will also accelerate its recovery.
Two characteristics of the "new county economy"
Frankly speaking, in the past, our county business system was difficult to call complete. Compared with Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou, or Changsha, Chengdu and other "consumption cities", most counties still maintain a relatively simple and simple lifestyle, which is one of the reasons why many county youth yearn for big cities.
Taking my hometown in Shanxi as an example, the restaurants are mainly local Shanxi flavors, and it is difficult to eat the cuisine of all parts of the country as in first-tier cities; The main places for leisure and entertainment are concentrated in KTV, and the price of KTV private rooms rises wildly as soon as the New Year arrives.
This also led to the fact that in previous years, the way our classmates reunited was very fixed every time: first meet at the local "landmark" McDonald's, and then move to a small hotel with a mahjong table to continue the stall.
Until these two years, we have a new party map - tea house, secret room, café, the experience may not be all first-class, but at least say goodbye to the noise of bear children, and the effect of brewing tea around the stove is not even inferior to that of big cities; You can also find the latest influencer restaurants in Dianping, which are often trendy and suitable for parties and chats.
This is a feature of the "new county economy" that distinguishes it from the traditional county impression - new consumption scenarios such as "third space" are emerging in large numbers, in addition to providing catering itself, but also additional environmental attributes and social premiums to meet people's needs for lifestyle iteration and emotional value.
Starbucks, which proposed the concept of "third space", is also targeting counties. Starbucks' 2025 China Strategic Vision plans to open a new store every 9 hours on average over the next 3 years. Liu Wenjuan, chief operating officer of Starbucks China, said in an interview, "We value not only more than 300 prefecture-level markets across the country, but also nearly 2,000 county markets." ”
The second characteristic of the "new county economy" is the rapid and continuous growth of just-in-time retail scale based on local supply and intra-city distribution. The logic behind this is simple and clear: with the continuous enrichment of materials, the new consumer pain point is the rapid realization of current needs, farewell to delayed gratification.
Instant retail is a new retail format that expands and connects local retail supply such as physical merchants and warehousing through fulfillment capabilities such as real-time logistics to meet consumers' immediate needs. At present, many county consumers can also meet the immediate demand for fruits and daily necessities in addition to catering without leaving home, just like in first-tier cities, and obtain a convenient lifestyle equivalent to that of first-tier cities.
My friend Wu Jiang just interpreted this change during the Spring Festival this year. On the third day of the Lunar New Year, the family was eating their own breakfast, and Wu Jiang ordered a unique fried food hemp leaf in Meituan. "I just suddenly want to eat this taste", for which he gladly endured the eye knife that flew from his mother.
Wu Jiang is probably not alone. According to data from retail platform Meituan, during the Spring Festival this year, instant retail orders in county supermarkets on the platform increased by 71% year-on-year, orders from mom-and-pop shops increased by 100% year-on-year, and instant retail orders from coffee shops increased by 124%.
In addition, instant retail is no longer the exclusive need of young people. It snowed in my hometown last week, and my mother complained on the phone that she couldn't go out to buy vegetables, but fortunately there was a nearby vegetable store that launched takeaway, but "some dishes are of average quality and the price is not very cheap."
Meituan's capacity distribution system was once called the "capillary of the city." It is foreseeable that in the process of building and upgrading the commercial system of the new county, with the rigid demand for instant retail, it will also become a new infrastructure for the development of the vast number of counties.
"Instant retail" to develop the county demographic dividend
The term "demographic dividend" seems to have suddenly disappeared from the Internet discourse system in the past two years. After all, for pure online formats such as e-commerce, short videos, and communities, the traffic ceiling has been touched at least 2 years ago.
But just-in-time retail faces a completely different situation and opportunity.
In the Ministry of Commerce's "Report on the Development of China's Online Retail Market in the First Half of 2022", the characteristics of instant retail "deep integration of online and offline" are emphasized. In third- and fourth-tier cities and counties, the mining of offline traffic is still in the early stages. The instant retail of the new county economy is likely to be the second development of the demographic dividend.
The logic behind this is that the new county economy and instant retail solve the contradiction between the relative abundance of consumer demand of county residents and the relative lack of new consumption supply.
On the one hand, the information barriers between counties and big cities have been broken by the Internet. Douyin, Kuaishou, Xiaohongshu, Dianping, the people of the county have a variety of ways to enter the lifestyle of the metropolis. On the other hand, compared with the "volume" of Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou 996 and high housing loans, people living in the county may be more "rich and leisure", and the actual purchasing power and willingness to consume to enjoy life are stronger.
According to the "2021 China Urban Convenience Store Index" released by the China Chain Store and Franchise Association, corresponding to first-tier cities, young consumers in second-tier cities and below account for 25%, but consumption growth contributes 60%.
However, in the supply test, whether it is a foreign brand sinking to the county or a local entrepreneur, there is not enough experience in operating county traffic. In this case, the digital capabilities and distribution systems of just-in-time retail will become an important weapon for stores.
First, help lower the threshold for opening stores and promote the birth of more new consumption and new formats. Compared to traditional in-store operations, just-in-time retail can reduce the high dependence on store location and area. Taking coffee and new tea drinks as an example, quick pick-and-shop and shop-in-shop that don't need too large a storefront can be exchanged for a higher entrepreneurial success rate at a lower cost. Meituan's platform advantages and big data capabilities can also integrate the operational experience of "excellent students" to form a standardized methodology that can be exported to merchants.
Second, expand the service radius of merchants. In some counties with small urban areas, Meituan's "30-minute delivery" may even basically achieve full coverage of residents in the main urban area. For merchants, this is equivalent to opening only one store, which is opened at the door of most residents in the county.
Finally, increase the repurchase rate and build private domain traffic. For new consumption formats in counties such as coffee shops, user habits are still in the cultivation period, and whether users can maintain user repurchase after the peak of explosions such as Spring Festival and winter and summer holidays is a matter of survival.
Shanxi Hejin's independent café "Ermao Coffee" once told about this problem. According to an interview with Lieyun.com, Ermao Coffee has reached the sales volume of 1,000 cups per month during the summer vacation, and it can sell an average of 20~30 cups per day on a daily basis. The manager posted a note in Xiaohongshu that after the opening of the check-in fever, the repurchase rate was about 30%.
To solve this problem, the construction of private domain traffic is very important. Some takeaway merchants will establish a fan base and publish new products, preferential information and other content on the follow-up page, which can be understood as Meituan's version of WeChat group and friend circle, building an effective connection between merchants and consumers.
It is very important that instant retail is not a simple and crude offline traffic online, but through the help of Meituan's platform, and ultimately leave the traffic offline and left to merchants. This is also in line with the overall tone of the current "science and technology from virtual to real".
"Instant retail" opens up the imagination of the county
According to the Southern Weekend Urban (Regional) Research Center, in 2020 alone, nearly 200 million county people moved to large cities, especially those in coastal areas. Among them, in counties with high population outflow, the deposit scale is generally higher than the average.
This is in line with our stereotype of the county in the past - going to the big city to work for a living is the fastest and safest way for county residents to create wealth.
Correspondingly, this large-scale employment migration has brought a series of problems to the county. Among them, the concentrated outflow of young people, the large number of vacant real estate, and the resulting aging of business forms, the forced speed limit of county development and other long-term challenges.
One of the reasons why Central Document No. 1 wants to vigorously develop instant retail in the county is also because of the new entrepreneurial opportunities and new jobs it can bring, especially for the younger generation. Most of them were born on the Internet, grew up in the barrage, experienced various new consumption formats, and are more willing to copy their favorite lifestyles from first-tier cities to counties than the simple and simple lives of the older generation.
In the process of building the new county economic system, a large number of jobs will be opened to different groups of people, and there will be an opportunity to change the general lack of high-paying jobs in the county. College students who do not want to go to the north to "roll" in Shanghai, Shanghai, and Guangzhou, middle-aged couples who were originally migrant workers, and young elderly people from rural areas all have the opportunity to catch this express train. Emerging occupations such as fruit sugar testers, melon patters, sorters, and delivery clerks derived from instant retail may become normal positions in the future.
After the problem of young people outflow is solved, it will once again feed back to the local consumption ecology. In the new county business system, "consumption-investment-re-consumption" should be a virtuous circle, and the young generation closely follows the information iteration of first-tier cities, which is also the soft support for the rejuvenation of the county commercial system.
It should be noted that the connecting role of counties in urbanization cannot be ignored, which is one of the important reasons why the Central Document No. 1 focuses on the development of counties. Promoting the return of talents in the county and creating local employment and entrepreneurship opportunities is one of the important indicators for the development of the new county economy, so it is also a guarantee of high-quality urbanization.
Wu Hongyao, full-time deputy director of the Office of the Central Rural Work Leading Group and member of the Party Group of the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs, mentioned in his interpretation of the No. 1 document of the Central Committee that more and more agricultural migrants are finding employment and starting businesses in the county and choosing to settle in the county seat. Of the mainland's 910 million permanent urban residents, nearly one-third live in county towns and county-level cities. The county is the combination of urban and rural areas, and it is necessary to build the county into an important link connecting workers and peasants and integrating urban and rural areas.
According to the data of the Southern Weekend Urban (Regional) Research Center, the urbanization rate in Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou and Shenzhen has exceeded 75%, the national average urbanization rate has exceeded 60%, and the urbanization rate of counties and county-level cities is generally around 40%. This also means that the county economy still has a lot of room for development in the process of urbanization.
Third-party agencies made similar judgments. McKinsey predicts that by 2030, more than 66% of China's personal consumption growth will come from sinking markets, especially county towns.
From this perspective, the imagination of the future of the county economy is opening. "County + instant retail", a hot CP that has just been written into the No. 1 document of the Central Committee, is shallow in commerce and consumption, in the middle in economy and ecology, and deep in population and development.