Kunpeng Project The new market has become a platform that can meet the social needs of young people today, and a new landmark in the community that carries retail, catering, pop-ups, and various cultural and artistic activities. Author丨Wang Zhen Editor丨Yin Yadan Boya.
Produced by丨Retail Business Finance ID: Retail-Finance
Anthropologist Xiang Biao said that in the vegetable market, the color, shape and smell of vegetables and fruits, as well as the noise of the environment itself, make people feel a sense of texture. This sense of texture makes people have a real connection with their surroundings and the world, and they can stop and feel the simplicity of life in the huge sense of immediacy and convenience brought by the Internet.
Beijing Sanyuanli, Shanghai Wuzhong Market, Hangzhou Hongshi Slab, Wuhan Shahubian Market ......Fast-paced young people are plunging headlong into the new vegetable market with a sense of community and relaxation, which is not only full of fireworks, but also exquisite, fashionable and interesting.
Source: Wuhan Shahu Market.
In first- and second-tier cities, wet markets are becoming a popular place to check in on City Walk. On Dianping, young people who flock to the vegetable market either write "Treasure Hunt in the Vegetable Market" in the evaluation area, or share "Walking Guide to the Vegetable Market" in the strategy notes.
In recent years, the vegetable market, which is a "dirty, messy and poor" market in the traditional concept, has gradually transitioned from economic function to cultural function after continuous transformation and upgrading, and has become an "urban countryside" that soothes people's body and mind in the bustling city.
Connecting big fresh brands upwards and small restaurants downward, the "hub of the urban food distribution system" was once used to describe the wet market.
In the 80s of the last century, the "vegetable basket project" quickly pushed the vegetable market to the standardization construction, and the basic consumption function of residents formed a consensus in the country, and the vegetable market that survived the "supermarket revolution" in the 90s ushered in explosive growth.
This traditional retail model, in a specific historical context, has become an important and almost the only retail means to ensure people's livelihood.
Consumption drives supply. For a time, the supply and marketing were booming, the logistics system that dominated the market circulation was established, and the fresh retail model dominated by the vegetable market became the ruler of the food retail industry. A large number of consumers are coming.
Producers, buyers, middlemen, wholesalers, retailers, the long chain model from production to consumption has been stable in China, and has once become the most traditional sales model in the retail industry. Today, however, this retail model has been abandoned as a conservative force rather than a consumer force.
Source: Retail Business Finance.
Farmhouse manure pumpkin 15 yuan, sweet edamame 6 yuan" The foam board is handwritten with a black marker pen on the prices of various dishes, the oil pan of the fried stall at the door gushes out of the hot air, and the old customers and stall owners carrying environmental protection bags greet each other in recent days.
After visiting the Xiaodongmen vegetable market in Wuhan, the author found that the proportion of young adults in the new generation is very small, and most of the people who walk back and forth are the elderly who live in simple homes nearby.
Young people don't have time to come, and young people don't want to come, which has become a new "iron law" known to everyone in the traditional vegetable market, and it is an indisputable fact that the twilight of the vegetable market is fully revealed.
Under the impact of urbanization and the Internet economy, traditional vegetable markets that are "stubborn" in the primitive and rustic have to face the fact that the customer flow is declining.
For office workers with a fast pace of life, ordering takeout is almost commonplace, and fresh e-commerce and communities** that go directly to their doorstep are even more sought after.
In the context of modernization, the shortcomings of the traditional retail model, the vegetable market, which is fragmented and bloated, have been put under the microscope.
Observing the weekend passenger flow of Xiaodongmen Vegetable Market, it can also be found that the vast majority of vegetable buyers are middle-aged and elderly, and the stall owners also said that there are relatively few young people who come to buy vegetables.
Source: Retail Business Finance.
Why are wet markets no longer appealing to young people?
The business model of the current wet market is still not much different from that of ten years ago. Merchants rent market stalls, rush to the suburban wholesale market in the early hours of the morning to buy goods, and then transport the goods back to the vegetable market where they are located to sort out the shelves. Dishes are inevitably subject to the restrictions and influences of wholesale purchase prices, transportation costs and booth rentals, and the limited profit space makes it difficult for self-employed people to join the battlefield.
All kinds of "unspoken rules" have also become the first threshold for young people to be reluctant to "visit" the vegetable market.
False ** grid, unfamiliar vegetable types, opaque **, stall owners who watch people cook, fraudulent "ghost names", and the law of buying vegetables in a hurry, it is difficult for young people to enter the traditional market.
Source: Weibo.
Behind the eclipsing of the traditional wet market is the strong impact of the emerging retail model and the pain of difficult transformation.
According to Euromonitor, from 2009 to 2020, the proportion of the traditional vegetable market in various fresh sales channels increased from 753% down to 649%, still dominant, while e-commerce accounted for from 03% jumped to 69%, and the proportion of supermarkets increased from 242% to 279%。
The data hits the nail on the head, and fresh e-commerce and fresh supermarkets, which take intensification as their core competitiveness, are gradually eating away at the market share that originally belonged to the vegetable market, while fresh e-commerce and fresh supermarkets are a different picture.
* The strong entry of fresh e-commerce companies such as Maicai, Meituan, and Dingdong has abandoned the traditional retail model and gradually formed a short consumption chain of "platform-consumer" relying on the accuracy and efficiency of Internet big data.
Picture: Community**.
With the blessing of the Internet, the "red ocean" of retail has become a "blue ocean".
Timely and diversified, these advantages that originally belonged to the vegetable market have been pocketed by the "granular" point-to-point service of fresh e-commerce. The wet market had to accept the fact that it was abandoned by consumers, and gradually moved from the front of the stage to the backstage.
At the same time, the "gentrification" and middleization of offline community chains such as Qian Dama, Baiguoyuan, and Dili Fresh have directly dismembered the attractiveness of the wet market to the gradually expanding middle class. With style, it has become the "dragon slaying knife" of the supermarket to suppress the vegetable market.
Source: Internet.
The compression of costs, the improvement of style, and the "granular-level" refined service have made the traditional extensive vegetable market "incomplete".
At the same time, the battle between fresh e-commerce and supermarkets, the limited profit space makes it difficult for self-employed households to compete on the same stage, and they are finally "swept away".
In domestic and foreign difficulties, the traditional vegetable market is gradually forgotten by the new generation of young people, and the vendors who stay in the vegetable market also have to face the current situation of being hunted by "** war" and "information war".
The vegetable market, which was once "one dominant", now survives in the cracks and has to save itself.
The smart vegetable market is a kind of transformation direction that is not as good as the surface. The model is still the traditional model, the first chain is still the first chain, a large number of new technologies are piled up in the vegetable market, and the traceability of dishes, face payment, and online orders have become the first step of the traditional fresh retail model "Dong Shi Xiaofeng".
Improving the attractiveness of the middle class is the beginning of industrial upgrading.
Agglomeration and middle class are the underlying logic of the rebirth of the vegetable market into a "high-end vegetable market".
The original independent stall vendors have gradually replaced them with brands, and the end of the brand has increased the differentiation of goods and the richness of goods, which can really increase the competitiveness of the vegetable market.
Source: Internet.
The two-way rush between brands and consumers can also occur in the vegetable market.
In addition, the diversification of functional formats and the creation of a market-ready "neighborhood center" is an outlet for the vegetable market to seek change. Community-based transformation may be the ultimate appearance of the wet market.
The comprehensive one-stop design is increasingly favored by young people, and the "15-minute life circle" is becoming a new consensus under the community transformation model.
The vegetable market is endowed with a new function of sharing and co-building a social space to achieve a breakthrough in the customer base.
Meituan data shows that in 2023, the number of searches and strategy notes for "wet market" will more than double. According to Dianping data, more than 70% of users searching for "wet market" are young users aged 20-35. Under the tide of youth, some trendy consumers have begun to return to the neighborhood to show their lifestyle, which is the best opportunity to "overturn the negotiation table".
Photo: Suzhou Twin Towers Market.
The "earthy" flavor has become a characteristic of the "explosive" attribute under the Internet wave, and what the vegetable market has to do is to detonate it.
The introduction of brands, the creation of younger, diversified, and avant-garde content and formats, and the expansion of consumer experience scenarios are becoming opportunities for the wet market to embrace young people.
In recent years, more and more interesting business people have re-understood and operated community business content, presenting a fresh lifestyle that is close to the love of contemporary young people. Community business is no longer just a simple place for consumption, but a platform that can meet the social needs of young people today, carrying the role of retail, catering, pop-ups, and various cultural and artistic activities.
Photo: Shanghai Wuzhong Market.
"Playing" in the vegetable market, Shanghai Wuzhong Market focuses on "contrast", so that the market and fashion, tradition and youth collide and blend here, and the sense of scene design, surplus service brings a sense of contrast, node events detonate, and continuous hot spots maintain the heat is the secret of Wuzhong Market's popularity. As a representative of the Internet celebrity vegetable market, it has also attracted countless young people and photographers to check in and take pictures.
The success of the vegetable market is not only to bring forth the new in the direction of the traditional vegetable market, but also to be bold and innovative. If you want to attract young people, in addition to the change of the environment, the overall design should also be innovative and accurateA sense of relaxation and community.
In fact, the new vegetable market (market) hits the pain point of urban life that "seems to live in a group, but is actually an isolated island".
Photo: Shanghai Yongnian Vegetable Farm.
Through orderly display, transparent lighting, and clean, bright and hygienic browsing scenes, men, women and children can walk in naturallyThe sense of relaxation in the scene can bring consumers the pleasure of "staying for a long time even if they don't consume".And this is the new landmark that can relieve anxiety and break down individual silos.
Let the young people who are far away from the kitchen have a reason to walk in, and the new vegetable market will win.
The vegetable market, which ushered in the purchase and delivery, has become an economic form and cultural window that is anti-online supermarket by relying on the original and simple way of communication. The fireworks in the market have marked the vegetable market with the label of "feelings".
But feelings will eventually give way to "convenience", and under the banner of consumerism, the fresh retail territory of the traditional vegetable market is shaky.
There are supermarkets in the front, e-commerce in the back, and the new business formats are constantly attacked, and the outdated vegetable market is experiencing pains again and again in today's rapid development and change of the industry. Whether the vegetable basket can catch up with the pace of the times is a question of survival that the vegetable market has to answer.
Whether it is a one-stop vegetable market, a smart vegetable market or a variety of online celebrity markets, the core meaning of the vegetable market is not to sell vegetables and buy vegetables, but to connect people and people, people and nature.
The business logic of "Internet + everything" is being verified over and over again. No matter how the layout of the vegetable market changes and upgrades, what really touches people's hearts is the fireworks and the original taste of life in the bustling market.