The best dealers in any industry directly perceive the warmth and coldness of the industry, and the second-hand piano dealers are different, they are not only the business, but also the life interests of the general public.
Text丨Song Chunguang.
Edit丨Zhang Muzhi.
The piano presented in front of Zhang Junfeng's eyes is no longer elegant, most of them are crowded and embarrassed, like the living situation of the original owner of the piano. Some pianos had rotten, swarthy wood inside, and rat droppings were accumulating on the baseplate.
As a second-hand piano manufacturer, compared with the topic of "piano ** cliff reduction" that caused heated discussions in mid-January, Zhang Junfeng felt the changes in the industry earlier and more directly: in recent years, the speed of the closure of the piano store has intensified, and its own business has become more and more difficult, and the second-hand piano has fallen into low-price competition, and the profits are getting lower and lower.
When life changes, people first give up non-necessities. But second-hand piano dealers have found that the fragile ones are always low-end pianos. Those high-end pianos that represent quality and luxury have been strong, and even their performance is rising year by year.
Today, the turbulent changes in the piano industry are a microcosm of socio-economic life. Click on Zhang Junfeng's social platform, and the content with the highest likes was posted in November 2022, with more than 9,000 likes.
*, Zhang Junfeng pointed to the black pianos piled up in the warehouse: "The piano store has closed down, and a batch of pianos has just been pulled," he stressed, "Two thousand eight, two thousand eight." He is 43 years old and a second-hand piano dealer living in Suzhou.
Different from the public's imagination of expensive pianos, there is a specific market for second-hand pianos of 1,000 yuan. Parents who want their children to become Jackie Chan are gradually becoming rational and buy an old piano first to see if their children can stick to it. Middle-aged and elderly people who have just started to learn the piano should first buy a second-hand piano to practice. Of course, there are also many imported brand-name second-hand pianos, which are quite sought after because of their excellent and stable performance and timbre.
For second-hand piano dealers, the piano is mainly foreign and domestic channels. Among them, the highest proportion is imported second-hand pianos from Japan and South Korea, and domestic channels are divided into piano shops, schools and individuals.
*A personal piano is not a cost-effective thing. When many people resell pianos, they are hesitant to express their hesitation about the thousand-yuan level of second-hand piano dealers, and there is a huge psychological gap between ** and ** thousand yuan when buying. The communication time is long, and the transaction rate is not high. Only those brand pianos with better quality and recent years are not considered to be a big loss.
*More of a piano shop. According to the statistics of the China Musical Instrument Association, according to the "Qin Business News", from 2019 to 2021, the piano industry closed down at an average rate of more than 20,000 per year.
This is in line with the perception of second-hand piano dealers. Zhang Junfeng has the impression that 2023 will be the year with the largest number of centralized closures of Suzhou piano stores in the past ten years. On social platforms, Zhang Junfeng uploaded the content of more than a dozen piano shops and piano factories when he went to the piano. These pianos, which were previously used by students, eventually passed to him at a low price.
There are various reasons for the closure of the piano store, and the common ones are that they do not understand the **, which leads to unsustainable business and difficulties in recruiting students. The piano teacher Xiaotong's piano shop couldn't hold on, and the boss decided to sell the piano shop. She discussed with her family that she would simply take down the piano shop and run it herself.
The former owner of the piano store was located in the center of Wenzhou, and in order to expand the number of students, the former owner adopted a strategy of low tuition fees, which eventually led to cash flow problems. At the beginning of 2023, the boss will teach at a rate far lower than the market class fee, and also launched a gift package of 10,000 yuan and 2,000 yuan. As a result, more than 30 students were added, but the teacher in charge of admissions suddenly resigned and took these students away to stand on their own. Under the double blow, the owner of the music store decided to sell the music store.
In 2017, 14 Star Music Stores in Shanghai closed their stores. Source: Visual China.
Schools represented by kindergartens are also one of the most important. In 2023, Zhang Junfeng received ** orders for the closure of 5 kindergartens.
In September last year, he came to a kindergarten of more than 6,000 square meters. The director is a woman in her fifties and is very capable. This year, only more than 100 children were recruited, which could not cover the rent and the salaries of kindergarten teachers. So he applied to the Education Bureau for closure, and the principal has been unemployed since then.
The kindergarten campus has three floors, one classroom and one piano, a total of more than 30 pianos. Except for a few rats, the rest can only play five pianos at a time according to a 2,000-yuan *** truck, and Zhang Junfeng and the masters ran back and forth for nearly a day.
Some individual traders have found that many piano factories that import second-hand pianos in large quantities have also closed down. Most of these second-hand piano factories are mainly engaged in offline retail and wholesale business.
In 2023, Yu Wei received the news of the closure of several second-hand piano factories in Shanghai, and the other party's piano was suitable, so he brought over dozens of pianos. He is 34 years old and a second-hand piano dealer in Zhejiang, running a second-hand piano factory with more than 200 pianos in stock.
Shanghai is a port, and many second-hand piano factories are located here, which is convenient for receiving second-hand pianos from Japan and South Korea. "Most of the second-hand piano factories there are purely wholesale or offline," Yu Wei said, "and the piano shops in the middle and lower reaches have closed down, and the sales of the piano factories will naturally deteriorate, so they have to close their doors." ”
Despite the fact that *** is stable and even increasing, the good days of the second-hand piano business are over.
*For a second-hand piano, piano dealers mainly consider the brand of the piano, the age of the piano and the state of maintenance. In 2013, Zhang Junfeng had just entered the industry, and the profit margin of second-hand pianos was large. The profit of a low-end piano is 5,000 yuan, and the profit of a high-end piano can reach tens of thousands of yuan. His business grew rapidly, and he quickly amassed wealth, buying several houses in Suzhou.
But in the past two years, Zhang Junfeng has found that the middle and low-end second-hand pianos are getting lower and lower. Selling one, you can only make a "money for handling and tuning".
Yu Wei also feels that business is getting more and more difficult. He entered the second-hand piano business by accident. Because he liked the piano since he was a child, he entered the Hangzhou Piano Factory to learn piano tuning and maintenance. In 2014, Yu Wei spent more than 2,000 yuan to buy a second-hand piano, repaired the piano and gave it to his girlfriend to practice. Later, he was about to move, and his girlfriend also lost interest in learning the piano. So he sold the piano for 4,000 yuan** and earned some maintenance fees.
He decided to get into the industry. At that time, there were not many people making second-hand pianos on the market. Ultra-low price** second-hand piano, repaired, and then sold at a higher price, this is the simple logic of second-hand piano sales. In recent years, the piano industry as a whole has been cold, and the second-hand piano market has become more and more transparent, difficult to raise, and profit margins have also been compressed.
In addition to the reduction in profits, sales are also a problem for second-hand piano dealers. In 2021, the monthly sales of pianos in Yuwei Factory were almost halved, and the sales of 40 or 50 pianos in a month could be sold in the past, but the sales dropped to 10 to 20 pianos at that time. Since then, Yu Wei has expanded his business from local retail to online.
Yu Wei was one of the first second-hand piano dealers to switch to online sales. He is young, familiar with the Internet, and wants to take advantage of the live broadcast to bring goods. At first, his account was mainly based on popular science piano knowledge, and he took a lot of short videos about piano use, and at the same time operated ** to sell pianos.
At that time, Yu Wei did not put the piano at the "floor price"** Gradually, he noticed that there were many people who came to consult, but the number of orders did not improve for a long time. "The customer knows about it as well as you, and if you quote the highest price, he will go to someone else's side to buy a cheaper one. He found that in the online piano market, there are always people who are lower.
In Yu Wei's view, the second-hand piano market is low for its peers. Peers have found that offline pianos are not easy to sell, and online pianos have to rely on traffic, and the most effective and fastest way to find traffic is to low prices.
Yu Wei is showing off the second-hand piano sound. Source: Interviewee.
Starting in the second half of 2022, Yu Wei compromised, and he lowered the price of the piano by a few thousand yuan to attract traffic.
Duan Lin, a second-hand piano sales in Xi'an, also joined the low-price competition. She is 26 years old and has been teaching a piano teacher for 7 years. In addition to working as a teacher in a piano shop, Duan Lin also spends her spare time selling second-hand pianos. She uses "piano wholesale" as a selling point and operates 8 accounts across the network.
Duan Lin remembered that when she was working part-time in a piano shop, she also helped her boss sell pianos, and a piano with a price of 12,000 yuan could be sold for 30,000 yuan. At that time, there was a saying in the industry: selling one piano is enough to eat for a year. Nowadays, this method no longer works, and low prices have become a major trend in the second-hand piano market.
In Duan Lin's view, the piano that costs 10,000 yuan in common sense is sold in a low-cost, large-volume wholesale form, which is eye-catching enough and conforms to the current consumer psychology. "What have you been pursuing in the past two years? Duan Lin asked herself, "It's cost-effective, everyone used to care about face, but now it seems that they have put down this thing." ”
In January this year, Duan Lin was able to sell a second-hand piano almost every day. If the performance is good, the ** she gets from the upstream will be low, and the price will be reduced. For example, a 2021 Pearl River piano will be bought at a new original price of nearly 30,000 yuan, and Duan Lin will pay 8,000 to 9,000 yuan
Zhang Junfeng disdains the behavior of "excessively low prices to attract attention". In mid-January, he and his colleagues spotted a second-hand piano dealer who claimed to sell pianos for 900 yuan, believing that such behavior was disrupting the market order. "There must be something wrong with the 900 yuan piano, and even the cost and freight are not enough, which can be regarded as deceiving consumers to do traffic. ”
Yu Wei is also skeptical about the quality of the 900 yuan piano, but believes that "everyone has their own way of doing business, and you can also get one for 9 yuan 9, as long as you can get traffic." ”
His piano factory has more than 200 pianos in stock, most of which he has allocated to low-price competition. Looking at these tuned pianos, Yu Wei had mixed feelings. When he was a child, he felt that the piano was very noble, "Now when I see these pianos, it has been reduced to one word, Yu Wei said, "It is the feeling of 'cheap'." ”
The coldness of the piano industry can be traced along some traces, but it is difficult to argue from which step it started, like a chicken or an egg.
Zhang Junfeng feels the impact of the smaller number of children on the industry. "There are fewer children, and the kindergarten is gone, and there will definitely be fewer and fewer children learning piano in the future. Zhang Junfeng said. For him, the industry has been sluggish for three years due to the epidemic, after all, piano children are no longer allowed to attend classes, and there are fewer people who buy pianos. And now the kindergartens are closing one after another, which makes him really aware of the risk of the decline of the industry.
According to statistics, the most recent peak in the number of newborns in China occurred in 2016. After the country liberalized the two-child policy, the number of newborns reached 18.89 million, and has been decreasing year by year since then. By 2022, the number of births in the country fell to 9.56 million.
Piano teacher Xu Yu is 27 years old and lives in Tianjin. In her opinion, the number of students in the piano store began to decrease after the "double reduction". In July 2021, the state introduced the "double reduction" policy, and students' time was occupied in another way. "For example, we have a lot of students who come to practice after school at 4:20. But now there is an after-school service, self-study at school, and school can only be dismissed at 6 o'clock. The time to practice is gone. ”
Her piano shop has the qualification of a private school and does piano training. In December 2023, the music store had cash flow problems and needed to find a venue with lower rents. The boss's anxiety is visible to the naked eye, and both eyes are swollen "like sad frogs". The original site of the piano store was in a shopping mall, renting 400 square meters of space, with a monthly rent of nearly 20,000 yuan. Many parents value the location, and if they can't find a low-rent space nearby, they may lose their students.
There are fewer and fewer children learning piano, and another reason is that the Ministry of Education has canceled the policy of adding points to art candidates in the high school entrance examination. In 1987, the "Interim Regulations on the Enrollment of Ordinary Colleges and Universities" stipulated that students with artistic talents could add extra points in the high school entrance examination, and those who obtained amateur grade 9 or above in instrumental music could add 10 points to the high school entrance examination. This extra point initiative has promoted the craze for learning piano. It was not until 2018 that the Ministry of Education completely canceled the bonus point program for students with artistic talents, and the piano fever gradually subsided. 
Children who take advantage of the summer to participate in piano training. Source: Visual China.
For a long time, the piano was regarded as a symbol of "nobility". The piano, which originated in the early 18th century, was first intended to provide the best enjoyment for European princes and nobles. It wasn't until the sixties and seventies of the 20th century that Japan made the most inexpensive piano, and this instrument entered more homes.
It's just that the burden of a piano that costs 10,000 yuan at every turn, plus training and maintenance is a lot of expense. Gradually, the piano became a symbol of the middle class. Learning the piano is seen as a sign of class ascension, and it has also become an expectation of a better life in the hearts of many people.
At a time when rational consumption has become a trend, in order to reduce unnecessary expenses, some consumption tracks that reflect high-quality life tend to cool down. For example, motorcycles, which are popular among young people in cities. According to the statistics of the China Motorcycle Chamber of Commerce, from January to September last year, the production and sales of large-displacement recreational motorcycles in China were 39620,000 and 40860,000 units, down 106% and 1055%。Major motorcycle brands have also begun to reduce prices and discounts, such as the BMW R1250GS water bird series store price dropped by 60,000 yuan.
Photo source movie "Piano Teacher".
However, it is always the low-end piano business that is fragile, and the high-end pianos that represent quality and luxury have always been strong. According to public information, high-end piano Steinway & Sons sales from 2016 to 2021 increased from 3$8.6 billion increased to $5$3.8 billion, net income increased from $3 million to $59 million. In 2022, Steinway & Sons restarted its IPO on the New York Stock Exchange, and the prospectus mentioned that it was optimistic about the Chinese market, and from 2012 to 2021, the number of ** halls with Steinway pianos in China has increased from 11 to 134. ** and sales are increasing.
Yu Wei does not plan to compete in low-cost pianos, and he plans to switch to high-end pianos in the coming year. In his opinion, low-end piano customers are sensitive and have low budgets, while high-end piano customers have sufficient budgets and greater profit margins.
Zhang Junfeng is ready to continue to stick to the field of low-cost second-hand pianos.
His social media platform continues to upload information about the handling of low-priced pianos. The situation of the piano is similar, either the piano shop closes down, or the school closes down; The scene is similar, with black pianos crowded together. Some netizens thought that he was still selling pianos from the same bankrupt school after selling them for a few months, and suggested that he reduce them by another 1,000 yuan. Zhang Junfeng replied that it was not the same batch of pianos, it was "another school". (At the request of the interviewee, Zhang Junfeng, Yu Wei, Duan Lin, and Xu Yu are pseudonyms in the article).
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