Reflexology, a utopia for young people

Author|Deep Krypton New Consumption Mu Jiujiu

In recent years, consumer preferences have changed rapidly, and even the market trend has changed again and again.

The exquisite outfits that were once regarded as the standard for middle-class women have become the "disgusting outfits at work" that drive the boss crazy, and the popular "morning C and evening A" (especially referring to morning coffee and evening alcohol) have unconsciously turned to "morning eight and evening party", and even the "crazy literature" that young people once regarded as their hearts has also shown signs of passing away and began to move closer to the light.

In the pursuit of indifference, comfort and health in this group of post-wave circles, new business potential has also been tapped little by little.

Judging from the "eight in the morning and eight in the evening", young people who are keen to go out in the morning and stay up for eight hours of work, and where to get off work at night, have led to batches of massage parlors, physiotherapy shops and massage parlors.

Tianyancha data shows that in the past year, there have been 18,868 newly established enterprises with "Tuina" in their business scope and enterprise name (the status is in business, existing, moving in, and moving out), which is more than half higher than the number of new enterprises last year.

In other words, massage and pedicure are taking over from KTV and becoming a spiritual harbor for young people after work.

01

Pleasing oneself: Young people flock to massage parlors

At the end of last year, "the night clinic of Tuina Department is crowded with young people" rushed to the hot search, causing heated discussions on the whole network.

Taking Zhejiang Provincial Hospital of Traditional Chinese Medicine as an example, according to media reports, since the opening of the Tuina night clinic in November 2022, the vast majority of the outpatient patients in Zhejiang Provincial Hospital of Traditional Chinese Medicine in the past Chinese New Year's Eve are young people, and in the month near the end of the year, young people account for about 90% of the night outpatient patients, most of whom are office workers in the age group of 20-40 years old.

Not only in Hangzhou, but also in Beijing massage hospitals, there are not a few young people who are waiting in line for massage.

From wolfberry to orthopedics, from pedicure to massage, the preference for massage among migrant workers and "crispy college students" who are plagued by occupational diseases continues unabated.

The "China Better Life Survey" released by the National Bureau of Statistics found that health care has ranked in the top three consumption lists of young people aged 18-35.

It is not surprising that contemporary young people are in a fast-paced and high-pressure living environment, with little exercise, and long-term sedentary and long-term standing, which is prone to problems such as lumbar strain, lumbar disc herniation and cervical spondylosis. Taking cervical spondylosis as an example, the current incidence of cervical spondylosis in mainland China is about 15%, and there is a trend of increasing year by year and gradually getting younger. Previously, the relevant person in charge of the Department of Traditional Chinese Medicine in Zhejiang mentioned that the proportion of young people in cervical spondylosis patients has accounted for 70%-80%.

At the age of twenty or thirty, the body of seventy or eighty years old, it is said that this group of young people is like this. So, in order to pursue the greatest relaxation of body and mind, the young man who shouted "thinking of the mouse" squeezed into the massage parlor after work, and found the utopia of his spiritual world in the push and pinch click.

Photo source/Pixabay

Of course, in addition to hospital massage such as Zhejiang Traditional Chinese Medicine and Shenzhen Traditional Chinese Medicine, there are more foot massages, physiotherapy and massage shops on the street.

As early as 2018, the number of merchants in the mainland foot massage industry reached 200,000, the market volume reached 500 billion yuan, and the number of employees was nearly 10 million, with an average of 1 in 130 people. By comparison, only one in every 1,000 people is a professional barber.

However, there are also differences between pedicure and pedicure therapy, such as the old-school pedicure focuses on healing and is proficient in various knives, the new pedicure focuses on experience and makes people want to refuse and welcome, the south is humid, Yangzhou pays attention to scraping and pinch to remove moisture, and the northern pedicure focuses on Hebei and Beijing, focusing on the treatment of foot diseases. In terms of massage techniques and styles, there are also various types of massage such as Chinese, Japanese, Thai and blind massage.

But in general, these large and small foot massage shops have woven the domestic foot massage industry into a big net and shrouded in the land of China, even the extremely cold Mohe and Jiamusi are no exception.

02

Delight: The reinvention of massage parlors

From the perspective of consumption purposes, the sudden influx of young people into foot massage parlors is a "self-pleasing" behavior. But looking at the massage market as a whole, the reason why massage parlors can attract young people is that the former's "pleasing service" service is in agreement with the latter's "pleasing oneself" mentality.

In the past, due to the ambiguous connection between foot massage and "big health care", many people were full of prejudice against foot massage shops, but at present, all kinds of foot massage shops have been transformed and upgraded, becoming a leisure place integrating entertainment activities such as cinemas and KTVs.

Taking Chongqing, where the mountains and roads are uneven and the competition for foot massage is the most fierce, as the saying goes, "one Chongqing has two cities, a hot pot city and a foot washing city". According to the self-media Liangjiang Business Review, there are more than 10,000 foot bath health stores in Chongqing, employing more than 100,000 people.

In such a fierce market competition, in order to make a living, foot massage shops have to come up with their own housekeeping skills and show their abilities.

Looking at the foot massage shops in Chongqing, it has long been not only covering basic services such as foot therapy, massage, moxibustion, etc., but also equipped with large high-definition screens to play popular movies, TV series and variety shows, as well as KTV, mahjong tables and other entertainment activities, as well as rich and delicious buffets.

Here, you can eat Chongqing noodles, hot and sour noodles, mash rice balls, rose glutinous ice noodles and other Chongqing specialties, of course, there is no shortage of seafood and Japanese buffet provided by the owner of the foot spa shop for the roll-up peers, as well as a variety of Thai snacks. When you're full of food and drink, and your whole body is light, you only need to pay for a pedicure massage to pat your ass and leave.

Compared with the massage of three or four hundred yuan in Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou, the foot massage in Sichuan and Chongqing is cost-effective and touching, only 100~300 yuan can be used to eat, massage, watch a complete set of movies, occasionally massage to the top, on a whim want to stay overnight to experience it, but also only need to add 20~30 yuan to get it.

Photo source/Pixabay

However, after food has become the standard configuration of Chongqing foot massage shops, the volume of foot therapy merchants has disdained to make efforts to food, but has launched an attack on the decoration style and even foot therapy medicinal materials.

First of all, the decoration style, in Chongqing's foot spa shop, the ocean hall style, the forest room style, the cave style, the monument valley style and other styles abound, ensuring that you have never heard of it, never seen it.

Secondly, on the foot therapy medicine package, there are always some merchant stores rolling out flowers. For example, near the Liberation Monument, there is a foot massage shop that combines the characteristics of Chongqing hot pot with Chongqing foot massage in view of the characteristics of Chongqing's humid climate, and launches the "Hot Pot Foot Road". It is understood that the hot pot foot soak is made of selected red soup ingredients based on the best pepper and sea pepper, and is supplemented by Chinese massage and foot pinching techniques, combining essential oils with kneading, pinching, pushing, pressing, pointing, and patting to achieve the effect of thinning tendons and activating the nerves, removing moisture and driving away cold, beautifying the face and reducing fat, and relieving the cold hands and feet.

Not only in Chongqing, but also in Changsha, where the foot therapy industry is also relatively developed, the competition between major foot massage shops in food and decoration is also a routine operation. In Changsha, there is no shortage of "the most authentic snacks, all hidden in the foot washing shop".

03

Vision: The future of foot massage parlors

At present, the pursuit of massage by young people has regained the attention of the "stigmatized" massage parlors, and also gave them the possibility of discovering innovations, which led to new growth. However, from the perspective of the development of the entire pedicure industry, there has always been a problem of being big but not strong.

Although the Guo family once led Chongqing Fuqiao to become the "first stock of foot washing", the result of Waterloo three years after listing also made the capital market lose confidence in the huge foot massage industry. To this day, there has never been a capital giant in the 500 billion foot therapy industry. According to a 2021 report by China Commercial Towers, even the two largest market players, Chongqing Fuqiao and Huaxia Liangzi, have a market share of only 1%.

The high degree of dispersion is the most prominent feature of the foot massage parlor, and it is also the inescapable weakness of the foot spa massage parlor.

This is related to the status and business model of the foot massage parlor itself. Generally speaking, the foot massage industry has a low threshold for entrepreneurship, the quality of employees is uneven, and many entrepreneurs belong to "grassroots" entrepreneurship, lack of basic management ability, and it is difficult to drive enterprises to become bigger and stronger.

On the other hand, due to the prejudice of the outside world against the foot massage industry, many people are unwilling to do it, and it is difficult for the foot therapy company itself to recruit outstanding management talents, and many employees within the enterprise have a low sense of professional identity, so they naturally do not have the corporate culture spirit of making the company bigger and stronger.

In addition, the problem of difficulty in recruiting talents is also limiting the expansion speed of pedicure companies. It is understood that a qualified technician from recruitment to training to post, there is a not short cycle, and the number of technicians required by each store is 40~60 people, if easy expansion may cause a lot of talent and business pressure.

However, at the moment when massage is all the rage, after young people's stereotype of massage parlors is reversed, pedicure massage parlors may not usher in new opportunities. However, the premise is that the enterprise itself must be strong enough, which may come from many aspects such as innovative management and high-quality service, and the most important thing is to find its own differentiated advantages in homogeneous competition.

*The above pictures are indicated as the source, and the accompanying pictures are for reference only, and are not directed to commercial use. If there is any infringement, please contact us to delete.

Resources:

"In the city of washing feet, I ate the most authentic Sichuan cuisine"

"Young people crowding the night clinic of the massage department, will it make the Chinese medicine massage popular?"

"Why can't a big company wash up foot massage shops everywhere?"

"Where is the best foot-washing city in China?"