Metaphysics 2023: Lottery tickets sold for 500 billion, and the stock market defended 3,000 points

Contributing Author/Sun Xuanyun

Judging from several consumption phenomena in 2023, it is destined to be called the "Year of Metaphysics". According to the trend of some consumption in the past year, Yicai Business School has summarized three major metaphysical indexes -

Incense index: In addition to going to work and school, people do not forget to incense. In the 2023 new travel trends released by Qunar and Xiaohongshu, the number one is "Shangxiang Youth", with related ticket bookings increasing by more than 11 times.

Lottery index: In the first 11 months of 2023, people across the country spent 500 billion on the lottery, and it is predicted that it will break 580 billion for the whole year. This is a new high in the history of Chinese lotteries. The last time lottery sales broke 500 billion, it was in 2018.

Rubbing the metaphysics index: luxury jewelry, coffee and tea are the two pioneers of "rubbing metaphysics", such as the Bulgari snake series and the Cartier cheetah series, all of which are using mysterious animal totems to portray the metaphysical temperament; Starbucks's "Brown Quick Password" accidentally broke into the door of metaphysics and played the "password lottery" for 4 years; however, the "Bodhisattva Collaboration" of Heytea fell down at the entrance of the Xuanmen.

In 2023, have you paid for metaphysics?

Essentially, metaphysics is a psychological placebo. Regardless of whether there are gods or not, after worshipping and making a wish, there will always be some good changes in life.

But metaphysics has much more to say about business than just "comfort". It not only bets on consumer sentiment, but also "addictive consumption" like cigarettes, alcohol, tea and coffee - the repurchase cycle is short, the repurchase rate is high, and the consumption investment will continue to increase - metaphysical consumption is also addictive: the more you think, the more you worship, and the cycle continues. We will focus on the three major indices of metaphysics and look at the new business enlightenment brought by the doubts of "mystery and mystery".

Metaphysics is low-cost marketing

Starbucks will, temples too

Starbucks doesn't know how to tell fortunes.

But it didn't prevent customers from believing that Starbucks' "American-style happening" password gave great comfort, and it must have been that Daddy Star heard my heart of "praying for a smooth operation".

He also knows how to answer, and responded on the official Weibo: Thank you, believe in the little superstition of a cup of coffee, and wish you "American-style happening" and "always happy" every day.

There are more than 5,000 notes on Xiaohongshu about the "Starbucks Coffee Quick Password". One of the most popular ones has 25,000 likes and more than 7,000 messages.

In the summer of 2019, when the café passphrase was first introduced, people thought it was "a bit of a shame" to shout it when picking up food. At that time, the password style was still "blue sea" and "water park", which obviously did not serve the emotional value of consumers.

After more than 4 years, Starbucks has finally mastered the metaphysics of passwords just right. The passwords posted by netizens on Weibo, Xiaohongshu, and Moments have become easy for Starbucks. Some netizens said that they asked for a visa at Starbucks before going to work every day. Every time, it just fits the mood - if you want to resign, "don't worry about the road ahead without knowing yourself", and when you go on a business trip, "traveling far away is to get closer to yourself".

What people post is not a password, but an "exclusive" blessing and response from the metaphysical universe.

There is a theory in psychology called the "Barnum effect", and people tend to think of vague, general, and applicable descriptions that apply to the vast majority of people as tailor-made, unique descriptions of themselves.

Sometimes, blessings also require a subject—the "bodhisattva" who descends to earth.

People invite "bodhisattvas" into the world of migrant workers on the Internet, trying to make the bodhisattvas understand us better and let us understand the bodhisattvas better.

For example, in the Lama Temple, the side hall is the Bodhisattva in some subdivided fields, so when offering incense, it is generally worshiped in the main hall to worship O, and in the side hall to worship KR.

The general direction of blessing is to find the main god in charge of the temple, and find the right Bodhisattva in the specific details, there are masters and times, and the blessing network composed of many Bodhisattvas can be realized to achieve marriage, career and other business indicators of the blessing value soared simultaneously.

Moreover, Shangxiang also pays attention to the "whole domain":

Don't be limited to a single platform, focus on the whole platform, make use of the characteristics of temples and bodhisattvas in different regions, and pray for blessings in a targeted manner, so as to maximize blessings at the lowest cost. Multi-regional linkage forms a matrix to play a set of combination punches, and at the same time deepen the impression of the Bodhisattva, which can further obtain resource tilt.

Some people also gave specific "digital" suggestions to the temple: the number of temples, the number of wishes, the number of wishes, the number of wishes, to track the conversion rate every week, and then increase the frequency of repurchase and customer unit price, it is best to do the operation of VIP customers, and do salon activities on the fifteenth day of each month.

There are two temples that are really persuaded:

There are two major stores on Taobao, Hangzhou Lingyin Temple opened a Taobao store called "Lingyin Hangzhou Law Logistics Office", which attracts 20,000 repeat customers every year, with monthly sales of more than 100,000 treasures and 97% customer service satisfaction. The most popular is the Lingyin eighteen-seed bracelet, priced at 69 yuan, more than 50,000 pieces have been sold, followed by the Lingyin dragon rope, priced at 68 yuan, selling more than 20,000 pieces.

The other is Putuo Temple in Zhoushan, Zhejiang, which opened the "Putuo Mountain Gift Supplies Flagship Store", which is also the official flagship store of Tmall. This store has 40,000 repeat customers a year, and the same monthly sales exceed 100,000 treasures, and the customer service replies in an average of 36 seconds.

In the Putuo Mountain gift store, the hottest selling at the moment is also the "dragon rope", but it is 20 yuan cheaper than Lingyin's house, and the sales volume is close to Lingyin, and it is not sold more because of the price advantage, it seems that the price power does not work on the "dragon rope". This store also has a regular sales model, 45 yuan of the eight guardian gods mobile phone stickers sales of 20,000 pieces, 68 yuan of milk bean Bodhi sales of 10,000 pieces, 48 yuan of five-color God of wealth red rope bracelet sales of more than 9,000 pieces.

Judging from the overall performance of the store, the Tmall store in Putuoshan is better than Lingyin in terms of product richness and pricing strategy. Even the introduction details page of the product has more emotional values attached, such as "It's good to come, it's good to come again, it's getting better and better", "If you want it, you should come to protect it", "One year old is happy, one thought is safe", and Lingyin's Taobao store is a bit stupid - "I'm the genuine product", "Miracle", "Natal year", ......

Whether it is with metaphysics or metaphysics itself, this year the Internet has gathered bracelets, incense, co-branding, password and other lifestyles. The flow of these lifestyles is nothing but a blessing, an auspicious thought.

Metaphysical indices of stocks and lotteries

Uncertain hedges: Stocks move lower and lotteries go higher

Get rich overnight, and make money every day. Metaphysics itself carries a "financial" attribute. In the stock market, there are also metaphysical indices.

Born in 1992 in the Year of the Monkey, it was originally just a Chinese New Year greeting card, which briefly summarized the clever calculations of many Feng Shui masters, but it accurately hit all seven major turning points of the Hang Seng Index that year. Today, it is well-known in the global investment community.

CLSA uses the image. For example, in the Year of the Monkey, the monkey is more active, and the stock market will naturally move more. After implanting such thoughts, the ups and downs of stocks and indices are naturally linked to the master's point of view.

There are nonsense, there are coincidences. CLSA relied on feng shui to bet on the stock trend in 1992, and we found that the uncertain lottery and uncertain stocks are like a pair of hedging and speculative combinations, and the trend in the past 10 years has been like a shadowy coincidence:

In 2023, stocks are still defending 3,000 points, and the lottery is riding the dust: Since February 16, 2007, when it first stood above 3,000 points, A-shares have experienced nearly 50 "3,000-point defense battles" in the past 17 years. On January 9, 2024, the closing price of A-shares was still hovering at 2,900 points. On the other hand, as of November 2023, the national lottery sales revenue hit a record, exceeding the sales peak of 511.472 billion yuan in 2018, and it is expected that lottery sales will reach 580 billion yuan in 2023.

2018,Stock trough,Lottery peak:2018 and 2023,It is the only two years in the past 10 years when lottery sales broke 500 billion,In these two years,Stock trends are not optimistic - 2018 is the worst year in the past decade,The market value of the global stock market plummeted by nearly $12 trillion in a year.

In 2015, the stock market went on a roller coaster, and the lottery ushered in the first drop in 11 years: in 2015, the stock market was full of ups and downs, and at the beginning of the year, the Shanghai Composite Index climbed all the way from around 3,000 points, and it took only three months to hit a seven-year high of 5,178 points on June 12. In just 17 trading days after June 15, the market value of the two cities evaporated by 24.5 trillion yuan. That year, lottery sales were -3.8%, the first decline in 11 years. Under the ups and downs, the sweetness and comfort of the lottery are also tasteless.

To put it bluntly,Stocks are large funds frequently invested,The pursuit of a large probability of events,And the lottery is a small scale of investment,The pursuit of a small probability of events,When most people believe,There is a high probability of making money in the market,Lottery brings a small probability of sweetness,It's boring.

In addition, we also found that on the road of metaphysics, the closer to the sea, the more faithful the luck. Guangdong, Jiangsu, Zhejiang and Shandong bought nearly 1/3 of the country's lottery tickets, Shanghai people buy lottery tickets this year with the highest growth rate.

Jewelry is a treasure of metaphysics

Luxury goods can't be sold, but jewelry can

In 2023, price power will become the main theme of the business war; Under the two slip lines, luxury jewelry is rising.

According to the National Bureau of Statistics, from January to November 2023, the retail sales of gold, silver and jewellery above designated size reached 302.4 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 11.9%, the largest increase in the type of commodity retail, much higher than the average of 5.9% in commodity retail sales.

There is even more powerful, according to the comprehensive statistics of the China Treasure Association on the whole category of the jewelry industry, in terms of sales, the scale of the jewelry and jade jewelry industry in the mainland in the past two years has remained around 700 billion yuan.

We found several "metaphysical events" in the world of luxury jewelry:

1. In 2023, the three giants of luxury goods will not be able to sell, but Richemont, which is dominated by jewelry, will still rise.

Judging from the financial report for the same period in the third quarter of 2023, the sales of LVMH Group (LV, Dior, FENDI, and Bulgari) increased by 1% year-on-year to 19.96 billion euros, while the sales of Hermès Group fell to 3.37 billion yuan in the same period, an increase of 15.6% from 32.5% in 2022, and the sales of Kering Group (the parent company of GUCCI, Yves Saint Laurent and Balenciaga) fell to 4.464 billion euros, a decrease of 13%, and a cumulative decrease of 2% in the first nine months of 2023.

It is worth mentioning that in the six months from April to September 2023, Richemont (the parent company of Cartier and Van Cleef & Arpels), which focuses on jewelry/watches, achieved 14% growth in the Asia-Pacific market, of which the jewelry division increased by 10% to 6.95 billion euros (24% in the first quarter of fiscal 2024), making it one of the few divisions to maintain double-digit growth.

This has to mention the top metaphysics of its luxury industry - Van Cleef & Arpels. Jacques Arpels, a member of the Van Cleef & Arpels family, said that "if you are lucky, you can be lucky", and created a number of classic jewels around the four-leaf lucky motif. Today's most sought-after Van Cleef & Arpels five-color bracelet, with 5 colors of gemstones, weaves the popularity, health, fortune, career, luck and so on that people want to be blessed the most.

Another brand of Richemont, Cartier's cheetah series also sells the metaphysical value of luxury, with the cheetah totem of freedom and wildness, with the meaning of a hunter who captures all living beings.

2. LVMH Group is also actively "rubbing the mystery", the snake is defeated by the clover, and the butterfly moves to the rescue.

LV, which sells bags, is inferior to the jewelry department in terms of metaphysical power. Compared with the face of the bag's "social status", it is not as good as the lining of jewelry's "prosperous me". In a survey of 30 consumers under the age of 35, Yicai Business School found that more than 56% of consumers are willing to buy jewelry under the same budget.

However, the returns of "rubbing" are not the same. For example, LVMH's jewelry brand Bulgari loves to use the snake as a totem.

However, metaphysical totems pay attention to the principle of first impression, and the totem of the snake, which comes from Greek mythology, on the one hand, means wisdom, prophecy, and revelation, and on the other side may be the embodiment of evil, insidiousness, and cold-bloodedness. In terms of acceptance, the spirit snake is not as universal as the four-leaf clover.

Dior, which is also owned by LVMH, understands much more that Dior's killer feature is a butterfly - it has the meaning of breaking out of the cocoon into a butterfly. In the eyes of metaphysical bloggers, the butterfly, as a symbol of metamorphosis, dances the wings of freedom and is believed to bring good luck. According to the Five Elements Theory, butterflies belong to the wood fire attribute, and wood in turn represents growth and change.

The founder, Christian Dior, was obsessed with divination, horoscopes, tarot and other fatalistic metaphysics, and it is said that a lucky day should be accounted for before each press conference. He once wrote in his autobiography: "I am a man who believes in fate, and as long as there is the slightest sign of good luck, I will hold it firmly." ”

People who believe in fate will always pay more attention to those "good signs".

3. Metaphysical marketing is also subject to price power.

Linked to a good omen, there is also a price. For example, a Bulgari snake necklace costs more than 40,000 yuan, enough to buy 3 Van Cleef & Arpels four-leaf clovers, and in terms of cost performance, the latter is a real fragrance.

The higher the luxury, the more realistic the metaphysical picture depicted. But wallets never lie, and the metaphysics of luxury is also flat.

The British designer brand Vivienne Westwood (Queen Mother Westwood) is sought after by young people under the dual blessing of metaphysical fever and more affordable prices, and has become the "replacement" of metaphysical jewelry. With the element of Saturn (symbolizing transit and fortune), the price of less than 2,000 yuan, and the legend of "the harder you work, the luckier you get", it has become a talisman for young people to break into the world.

On the Little Red Book, the holy land of metaphysics, 420,000 notes related to Saturn necklaces have also been converted into orders on Taobao, and 50,000 people have visited the store authorized by the so-called "Queen Mother of the West" within a week, and the sales of many necklaces and earrings containing Saturn elements range from 100 to 800 pieces.

In addition to paying for aesthetics and value preservation, when consumers buy gold, silver, jewelry and jade, a layer of metaphysical clothing is enough to become a kick in the door. The picture is auspicious, and the heart is steady.

End

Bohr, the Nobel laureate in physics, once told his friend Heisenberg a joke:

His neighbor hung a horseshoe on the door of his house. Legend has it that this brings good luck.

A friend asked, "Are you so superstitious? Do you really believe that this thing brings good luck?"

The neighbor replied, "Of course I don't believe it." But people say that whether you believe it or not, it brings good luck. ”

Metaphysics, this kind of incredible thing, has never been defined by everyone, each has its own mystery, and the same is strong and ignorant. However, metaphysics, which you don't understand and I don't understand, is the driving force of consumption.