This "Dragon Boat Festival" business is booming, a handful of "grass" costs hundreds of yuan, and some merchants earn millions a month

During the Dragon Boat Festival, sales of mugwort-related products were hot due to product innovation by merchants, especially the new Chinese-style "mugwort door hangings" and mugwort hammers, which were loved by young people and became a symbol of fashion. It also promoted the development of a series of related industries.

Innovation in traditional festival products has captured the aesthetic tastes and wallets of young people.

"Green wormwood and cattails are everywhere, whose sons and daughters are celebrating the Dragon Boat Festival", "During the Dragon Boat Festival, the grass is thick and the wild wormwood is fluffy and light."...

During the Dragon Boat Festival, in addition to eating rice dumplings and the "five yellows", every household cleans the yard, hangs mugwort in the room or at the door, and wears mugwort sachets around the body, which is also an indispensable traditional custom.

The unique aroma of mugwort can repel mosquitoes. The Chinese character "艾" (Ai) of mugwort is composed of the radical "草" (grass) plus the character "乂", which also has the meaning of "warding off evil and attracting fortune" and "peaceful and healthy". Therefore, the Dragon Boat Festival every year is the peak sales season for mugwort products.

This traditional plant with a mysterious and romantic color has been played with "new tricks" this year. With the background of the rise of "new Chinese style" and national fashion, some merchants have found the code to make money, and their business has doubled. The monthly sales of a single product alone are close to one million...

Mugwort, a seasonal delicacy that embodies ancient China's natural philosophy and cultural aesthetics, is being transformed by the younger generation of consumers, creating new business opportunities.

1. Mugwort becomes a "bouquet", and its value increases 50 times

During the Dragon Boat Festival this year, a new Chinese-style "mugwort door hanging" became popular. The mugwort, which originally cost two or three yuan a bunch, was decorated by florists and matched with auspicious Chinese accessories such as five-color tassels, small gourds, blessing cards, sachets, and other auspicious accessories. It was suddenly sold for hundreds of yuan or even nearly two hundred yuan per piece, and was in short supply as the Dragon Boat Festival approached.

"It sold out as soon as it was released. We have rushed to make more than 420 door hangings in the past three days. The charm of traditional Chinese festivals is greatly underestimated!" Xiao Ping, the owner of a flower shop in Wuhan, told "Tianxia E-Commerce" recently.

At first, Xiaoping used mugwort, golden hammer flower and purple eryngium to make a wreath-shaped Dragon Boat Festival door hanging as a gift for guests, and posted photos on social platforms. Unexpectedly, this high-value wreath received hundreds of orders on the same day.

She struck while the iron was hot and launched two themed "Chinese element" mugwort door hangings - "Ai Jin" and "Fu Die", which respectively symbolize "the scenery is infinitely beautiful" and "butterflies bring good luck". She added accessories such as small brooms that symbolize "sweeping away worries", embroidered butterfly sachets, small bells, and small bamboo Cuju balls, which are decorated with wooden bracelets and handwritten cards. A bunch is priced at 139 yuan, and the product was very popular after its launch.

Design and meaning of the mugwort door hanging Image source: screenshot of Xiaohongshu

"For this batch of new Chinese-style door hangings, I asked people from all over to help make them. Five of us worked for two consecutive nights. There are still hundreds of orders waiting to be shipped. The orders have been scheduled until the Dragon Boat Festival. There is no stock even if we place an order now." Xiaoping said.

Cong Yiyi, the owner of a flower shop in Ningbo, told The World Online Merchant that this year, her shop launched two styles of mugwort door hangings, "Tiger to Suppress the Five Poisons" and "Calligraphy Zongzi", with a unit price of 108 yuan per bunch. More than 5,000 pieces were sold in less than a month this year. Although a similar mugwort bouquet door hanging was launched last year, with shipments of more than 1,000 pieces, this year's sales have directly quadrupled.

"In order to make the product more beautiful, we added six kinds of leaf materials on the basis of mugwort, including calamus, camphor fruit leaves, fountain grass, kangaroo claws, etc. The accessories include gourds with the symbol of fortune and luck, handwritten Dragon Boat Festival health cards, Dragon Boat Festival five-color ropes, tiger copper bells, etc. The overall shape is fuller. The cost and labor are indeed much higher, but this can attract young people to buy more." Cong Yiyi introduced that since mid-May, she has been working continuously with the store staff for more than 20 days, and every day the store is filled with a large number of fragrant mugwort.

New Chinese style Dragon Boat Festival door hanging is very popular Xiaohongshu screenshot

"Tianxia Online Merchants" visited several offline flower shops in Hangzhou and found that the prices of mugwort door hanging bouquets are basically over 100 yuan, especially some products with accessories and styling designs, which have to be booked in advance.

A shop owner said that this wave of popularity mainly came from the "planting of grass" by bloggers on social e-commerce. The good-looking new door hangings became social currency for posting pictures during the holidays. 80% of the store's mugwort bouquet orders came from online.

On Taobao, many stores have also launched a variety of new-style mugwort door hangings, with relatively affordable prices ranging from 15.8 yuan to 42.8 yuan. Some stores show that more than 10,000 pieces have been sold in the past 30 days. Users can choose up to 41 sets of accessories (such as sachets, meaning cards and other decorations) and DIY freely.

Rather than saying that this consumption trend comes from the "awakening of the national trend" among young people, it is better to say that product innovation is catching up with new consumer demand. If the wormwood door hangings still maintain their "old appearance", it is probably impossible to achieve such a premium. However, when traditional products are combined with flower art and added with multiple cultural connotations, they suddenly have a sense of fashion and grasp the aesthetics and wallets of young people.

2. The Artemisia argyi hammer has become popular after “changing its appearance”, with some manufacturers selling millions of products per month

In addition to mugwort bouquets, a variety of youth-oriented mugwort products are also popular during the Dragon Boat Festival, and mugwort hammer is one of them.

The hammer can release body stress by hammering. It exudes a rich aroma of mugwort. Now, there are more than 20,000 notes on Xiaohongshu. On Douyin, the hammer has also occupied major live broadcast rooms and has attracted many office workers who want to relieve shoulder and neck pain. Luo Yonghao also promoted this mugwort product and gave it the evaluation that "as long as it is available, it will always sell well."

According to Taobao Factory, a mugwort hammer priced at 6.5 yuan has "sold over 1 million units online" this year, ranking first on the massage hammer best-selling list, far surpassing other wooden and latex massage hammers.

Wu Fuyu, a seller in the supply chain of wormwood products and the e-commerce manager of Nanyang Wan Ai Biological Products Co., Ltd., told the World Online Business that with the arrival of the Dragon Boat Festival, many consumers regard it as a good gift for this year's festival. Although the wormwood hammer is not a new product launched this year, after a period of rejuvenation in the past two years, it has not only sold at a higher price, but also increased sales. At present, the company's products can sell 100,000 to 150,000 pieces a month in the entire supply chain, and the monthly sales of a single product are nearly 1 million yuan.

Image source: Taobao screenshot

"Originally, this product was developed for the elderly. The packaging fabric and pattern are rather old-fashioned. The product has been on the market for many years, but has not seen any improvement. Homogeneous competition has become increasingly fierce, and the initial price of 20 to 30 yuan has dropped to a low of two or three yuan," said Wu Fuyu.

"Later, we understood the needs of young people and upgraded our products. We used fabrics and patterns with brighter colors and launched a DIY version, which allowed consumers to experience the fun of hand-made straw hammers. This version is especially suitable for traditional Chinese medicine experience and festival team building. The average order value increased and sales were immediately opened up."

At present, Nanyang Wanai is also planning to launch silk embroidered fabrics and other mugwort hammers with higher appearance and more traditional Chinese aesthetic to cater to the new demands of the younger generation of consumers who love domestic trendy products.

3. Finding a “new resonance” between young people and traditional festivals

Mugwort, which carries the beautiful meaning of "warding off evil spirits, bringing good fortune, health and peace", is an important seasonal delicacy of the Dragon Boat Festival. Just like this traditional festival, the mugwort industry also urgently needs to find ways to connect with young consumers.

"Mugwort is a very traditional large-scale product. If you want to stir up the market and gain new opportunities in this industry, you need to innovate and iterate old products, or develop new products to stimulate new demands. If you still hold on to traditional ideas and do not innovate and upgrade, you will never be able to move forward," said Wu Fuyu.

He introduced that in recent years, the "super products" with annual sales of hundreds of millions produced by Nanyang Wan Ai are all products that meet the needs of the younger generation, such as mugwort steam hot compress patches, mugwort foot bath bags, etc., which subvert the traditional cumbersome usage methods and can improve people's lives through more convenient product forms.

After more than eight years of deep cultivation of moxa products on Taobao, the team is delighted by the current trend of the company's products becoming younger. "Originally, only 10% of our moxa products were sold to people aged 18 to 25, but now this proportion has risen to 15% to 18%, and the number of young consumers is increasing every year," Si Long, head of e-commerce operations at Nanyang Wan Ai Biological, told Tianxia Online Business.

"Similarly, the gap between contemporary young people and traditional culture is not insurmountable, but it requires some innovative products and methods to reactivate young people's interest in tradition and bring a better participation experience," Wu Fuyu commented.

The popularity of new Chinese-style mugwort door hangings and mugwort incense hammers this year is exactly how young people find a "new resonance" with traditional festivals. They innovate on the core of traditional values, fit in with new concepts, new aesthetics, and new expressions, and stimulate new business vitality. They not only review the cultural connotations of traditional Chinese festivals, but also retain a sense of beauty and healing in the busy modern life, which just interprets the meaning of the existence of the festival itself.

Author: Huang Tianran, Editor: Xu Yiting