Earn 100,000 yuan a month, buy Tianshui Malatang for others and make a lot of money

This article explores how Tianshui Malatang’s popularity through social media has spawned purchasing opportunities and impacted the local economy, revealing the business potential and challenges behind Internet celebrity foods. I hope this article will provide inspiration for your understanding of social media marketing and promotion of local specialties.

After Tianshui Malatang became popular, it gave rise to a new business opportunity - Malatang purchasing agent.

At present, only a few people can go to Tianshui, Gansu to eat a bowl of spicy hot pot, and more people from other places put their hopes on online shopping. On platforms such as Xiaohongshu and Douyin, many local people in Tianshui have started posting to do purchasing business on behalf of others.

From spicy hot pot to other Tianshui specialties, purchasing agents can satisfy all needs. When traffic from Shandong comes to this fifth-tier city in the northwest, local people in Tianshui want to seize this bonus.

Everyone can predict that the traffic will go to another unknown small town again, but by seizing this golden time, locals may be able to seize an unexpected opportunity. After all, on major platforms, the purchasing agents of Liuzhou snail noodles are still active.

1. Spicy hotpot purchasing agents receive overwhelming traffic

The high-speed train from Shanghai to Tianshui takes 9 hours and costs 780 yuan, while the air ticket costs thousands. Zhang Jing, who was attracted by the Tianshui Malatang short video, opened the ticket purchase software and then closed it again. A bite of Tianshui Malatang costs thousands of yuan. On the social platform, Zhang Jing has joined no less than three Shanghai Tianshui Malatang "opening groups". "The group leader said that he went to Tianshui to learn the skills and will soon open the first Malatang restaurant in Shanghai," Zhang Jing said with a smile.

But after almost two weeks, Zhang Jing still couldn't wait for the Tianshui Malatang restaurant in Shanghai. She had to put her hope on those purchasing agents.

"Malatang purchasing agent", "Tianshui Malatang errands", "You can buy whatever you want to eat", such titles appeared on Xiaohongshu, Douyin and other platforms. After Tianshui Malatang became popular, a group of people who acted as Malatang purchasing agents emerged on the Internet. Unlike the packaged seasoning packets sold on Pinduoduo and Taobao, Malatang purchasing agents mostly buy directly from local Malatang stores, vacuum pack them themselves, and deliver them by express delivery.

Purchasing agent business has become a new side job for local people in Tianshui.

It was after Tianshui Malatang became popular that Jiang Shijie came up with the idea of ​​doing purchasing business. "Many people asked in the comments how they could eat Malatang without going to Tianshui," Jiang Shijie told Tech Planet. He owns a photography and editing studio in Tianshui and has relatively free time.

Before March, people in Tianshui were already buying Malatang on behalf of others. "In fact, local people only think of eating Malatang when they can't think of what to eat at night," said Jiang Xi, who is still in the first year of high school. He never thought that Malatang, which is the most common food for Tianshui people, would have such a great appeal to outsiders.

It was not until a friend from another city went to eat Malatang even though he could not catch the high-speed train that Jiang Xi realized that Tianshui Malatang might really be different. After seeing the online purchasing of Liuzhou snail rice noodle, Jiang Xi also had the idea of ​​purchasing Tianshui Malatang.

Jiang Xi should be one of the first Tianshui locals to purchase spicy hot pot on social platforms. She still remembers that the first post was on January 23.

Unlike Jiang Xi, Wang Xue accidentally started the malatang purchasing business after she mailed malatang to her college classmates last year. "At first, some friends from other places wanted to try it out. What is the difference between Tianshui malatang and chain stores like Zhang Liang malatang and Yang Guofu? I didn't take it seriously and just sent them some," Wang Xue recalled.

Before March this year, Wang Xue was a purchasing agent on WeChat, relying entirely on word of mouth from friends. After the Chinese New Year, Wang Xue wanted to open a store on the social platform and use her free time to sell cherries, another specialty of Tianshui. But she didn't expect that before the cherries were ripe in May, Malatang became popular in March.

"At the beginning of March, WeChat was buzzing with people recommending malatang to me by friends," Wang Xue told Tech Planet. As she was too busy on WeChat, Wang Xue started to open a store on Xiaohongshu and sell malatang.

Hand-rolled noodles, potato balls, and Tianshui chili oil, these local specialties are also spreading beyond Tianshui at a faster pace.

2. Tired of the Internet celebrity store owner

Hand-rolled noodles, potato balls, and spicy oil are the key to Tianshui Malatang's uniqueness. When Wang Xue first started to do purchasing on behalf of others, she directly went to the Malatang store near the community to buy seasonings and hand-rolled noodles. But after Malatang became popular, the Malatang store no longer cared about purchasing on behalf of others like Wang Xue.

Jiangxi also encountered the same problem. Most of the local specialty purchasing agents are to meet the regret of outsiders who cannot go to the site, and they specifically run errands to local Internet celebrity stores that have become popular, such as the Haiying Malatang that has become popular in Tianshui this time.

In January, Jiang Xi was still able to buy Haiying Malatang seasoning for customers, but now the seasoning chef is too busy to supply her. After March, customers have to wait in line for at least two hours at Haiying Malatang, and it is impossible to deliver the same-day purchase.

Jiangxi could only start looking for other spicy hot pot restaurants to supply goods, but spicy hot pot restaurants such as Yuanying also began to ignore local people. "Yuanying's boss was exhausted," Wang Xue directly found a local factory and got the goods directly. "The spicy hot pot restaurant owner is familiar with me and directly recommended his supplier to me," Wang Xue explained.

One day in advance, Wang Xue told the manufacturer to order a certain quantity. Every morning at six o'clock, Wang Xue would go to the factory to pick up the goods, and then pack and vacuum-pack the goods at home in the morning to ensure that the orders could catch up with the express delivery time of the day.

Ensuring delivery within 24 hours is the most important thing for every Malatang purchasing agent. If the efficiency can be improved and the food reaches the customer one day earlier, it means that all the ingredients can be stored for one more day.

"There are no additives in either the seasoning or the hand-rolled noodles. Everything is made fresh on the same day and directly vacuum-packed without steam," Jiang Shijie explained. "In fact, it can only be kept for a few days in the refrigerator."

In order to efficiently complete all the processes from promotion, picking up goods, packing to shipping, Jiang Shijie actually has a small team of five or six people working together.

Jiang Shijie is responsible for promoting and operating the five or six accounts he has on hand, posting tweets, replying to private messages, and communicating with customers. Similarly, every morning, someone from Jiang Shijie's team drives to pick up goods from various stores. "Guagua and noodles are local breakfast specialties, and they are only sold during this period in the morning. If you come late to pick up the goods, they will be gone," Jiang Shijie told Tech Planet. Then they pack and vacuum the goods and arrange the orders for each day to ensure that they can catch up with the logistics time of the day.

Jiang Xi, who is still in high school, can only take the bus to pick up the goods. During the winter vacation, Jiang Xi was alone and took the bus to pick up the goods from different specialty stores every day. It took 5 hours a day just to pick up the goods.

After packaging and vacuum packing, Jiang Xi won’t be able to finish until around seven or eight in the evening.

But for Wang Xue, picking up the goods is not the most difficult part, but packaging is. After the seasoning packaging machine broke down, she had to remove the product link. The six days of waiting for a new packaging machine was the golden time for Tianshui Malatang to go viral. Wang Xue, who had more and more orders, could only worry.

Wang Xue could only use the most primitive method to pack the seasonings and ship out the backlog of orders on time. Picking up, packing, and shipping, the purchasing business is not as simple as imagined.

3. Business is booming, and purchasing agents and spicy hot pot restaurants are competing for goods

Compared to local malatang in Tianshui, the price of malatang purchased through purchasing agents is much higher. 63 yuan for three servings of malatang, including hand-rolled noodles, seasoning packets and potato balls. But in fact, for purchasing agents, the cost is mostly on express delivery. "Gansu is still relatively far away, and only SF Express can guarantee timeliness." Wang Xue only dared to use SF Express, and the express fee for one kilogram was 18 yuan. As the weather warmed up, Wang Xue even switched to SF Express air transport. "After putting it back on the shelves, I raised the price by five yuan. Many people didn't understand that it would cost 28 yuan to air transport one kilogram."

Jiang Shijie also only dares to send SF Express to customers. Although the logistics costs may be more expensive than the ingredients, Wang Xue and Jiang Shijie's daily consultation volume is still increasing.

Jiang Shijie has to reply to dozens of messages every day, while Wang Xue, who already has a good reputation, now only focuses on replying to messages on WeChat. After the product link was re-listed, customers suddenly flocked to consult. "Now the number of inquiries and orders seems to be even greater than before," Wang Xue no longer has time to calculate the number of orders every day.

When Malatang first became popular, Wang Xue received around 150 to 200 orders every day.

Wang Xue calculated that she could earn about 15 yuan for a 63 yuan spicy hot pot order. If the number of orders remained stable, she could make nearly 3,000 yuan a day.

Jiang Shijie charges a running fee for each order, 20 yuan for each ingredient. At present, with a small number of orders, the running fee for a day can exceed a thousand yuan.

In Tianshui, a daily income of over 1,000 yuan is probably enough to cover the salary of most jobs there. However, with hundreds of orders a day, Wang Xue could no longer complete all the work by herself. Wang Xue began to ask her family to participate in the packaging and delivery, and she even took two months off. "On the one hand, it was because I had to renovate my house, and on the other hand, it was because of the malatang purchasing service," Wang Xue explained.

The same goes for Jiang Xi. Although he has accumulated less than 200 orders, after school starts, Jiang Xi can only reply to customer messages at noon and in the evening after school, and the work of picking up and packing the goods has to be left to other people.

However, while the traffic brought them business, it also brought them a new problem - lack of food supply.

"Now we need to compete with local Malatang restaurants for ingredients," Wang Xue told Tech Planet. As the number of orders increased, in order to give priority to local Malatang restaurants, the factory would control the amount of goods Wang Xue could take. Wang Xue had to find a new factory to supply her with ingredients at the same time to ensure that the goods could be shipped on time.

"They hired dozens of aunties to roll out the noodles, working in three shifts, almost 24 hours a day," Wang Xue told Tech Planet, but the factory still couldn't keep up with the supply. "Some aunties even quit because they were too tired."

Jiang Xi never thought that there would be a day when all the potato balls in Tianshui would be sold out. "At about 1 pm that day, all the potato balls in the vegetable markets in the city were sold out," Jiang Xi told Tech Planet. She almost couldn't buy ingredients at the spicy hot pot restaurant.

Spicy hot pot is just the beginning. These purchasing agents have begun to promote other Tianshui specialties to outsiders. Wang Xue's store has newly added Tianshui snack "Xiangdou Geda Mo".

Two months ago, she only wanted to sell cherries and probably never thought that she would open a Tianshui specialty store.

Author: Xi Rui

Source: WeChat public account "Tech Planet (ID: tech618)"