6 billion in revenue in 3 days, sales doubled! It's their turn to be rich and powerful

The most popular tourist city this winter should be Harbin, and topics related to Harbin have been frequently searched since the beginning of 2024. Let's take a look at the changes in Harbin under this situation!

In the past 2023, Internet celebrity cities took turns to become popular. In spring, Zibo welcomed guests from all directions with barbecue, and in midsummer, Guizhou's village super BA brought rural carnival. In winter, Harbin has become a new top stream. On social platforms, there have been endless guides to go to Harbin for an ice and snow trip recently, and topics related to Harbin have been frequently searched since the beginning of 2024.

The popularity of internet celebrity cities is inevitable. After the epidemic, people's demand for going out has exploded, and the spread of information on social platforms has fueled the public's enthusiasm. In order to catch this "overwhelming wealth", cities have made big moves: Zibo has opened a barbecue train for its guests; Harbin not only put frozen pears on a plate to entertain the "Southern Little Potatoes", but also hung an artificial moon on the Sophia Cathedral and raised hot air balloons by the river. The various ways of entertaining guests have made even the locals sigh, "Harbin, you make me feel strange."

The two-way rush of people and cities has ignited the consumption enthusiasm of cities and set off a traffic feast on the Internet. During the three-day New Year's Day holiday, Harbin received a total of 3.0479 million tourists, with tourism revenue of nearly 6 billion yuan, and the city's ability to attract money reached its peak; when "going to Zibo to take the exam" was soaring, the search volume of "Zibo barbecue" once increased by 3000%, and barbecue-related products became popular.

When the fierce traffic hit, the lives and businesses of people living in the Internet celebrity cities underwent unexpected changes.

Xu Lin, who has been purchasing red sausages in Harbin for more than ten years, found that many out-of-town diners appeared in the long queue, and the hometown food became more famous; Liu Xinmiao, who sells warm equipment for Northeast tourism, doubled his sales this year after two years of tepid growth; Northeast bathing has become a check-in item for out-of-town tourists, and a bath towel factory that has been in Harbin for 20 years has changed its thinking and launched cute bath towels for "Southern Little Potatoes"...

All walks of life are constantly busy, launching service competitions, and maintaining this tremendous wealth in their own way.

1. “The most challenging year since starting the business”

"In the long queue of people buying sausages, about two-thirds of them are newcomers, all tourists from other places." Xu Lin can recognize at a glance that these newcomers are "Southern Little Potatoes." Most of them wear light-colored down jackets and cute hats. "The main reason is that the shoes they wear are different. They are not as thick and warm as the locals' shoes. Some of them are really cold."

It's cold in the Northeast, and when there are a lot of people, it takes two hours to queue up to buy red sausage. But in order to buy Harbin red sausage, almost no one "quit halfway".

Seeing tourists flocking to his hometown from all over the world and the growing popularity of his hometown's red sausage, Xu Lin has more confidence in this year's red sausage purchasing business.

Xu Lin is over 60 years old and was born and raised in Harbin. He lives in a residential area opposite the "Shangwei Hongchang". When he was young, he worked as a worker and also worked abroad. After many years of wandering around, he finally returned to his hometown Harbin to develop. More than ten years ago, when he saw his daughter open an online store to sell cosmetics, he thought that he could also sell something online.

He consumes gourmet food frequently. The "Shangwei Red Sausage" near his home is very famous. Moreover, this store adopts the "front shop and back factory" business model, has no online store, and supplies a limited amount every day. "There is only one store, no branches", so he decided to buy the red sausage online. When the business was the hottest, he could sell more than 6,000 kilograms of red sausage a month. There were too many people buying red sausage, so the store had to implement purchase restrictions. People who wanted to buy red sausage lined up in a long line. When it was busy, he had to pay extra to hire 18 people to line up full-time to buy the required amount of red sausage.

In the past few years, sales have declined. After the epidemic, various places have gradually recovered their vitality, and red sausage diners are all over the world. There are more orders for purchases, and Xu Lin also believes that business will pick up. Before the Mid-Autumn Festival in 2023, he purchased more than 200,000 yuan of red sausage, thinking that he should be able to sell all of it before the festival, or maybe not enough.

But the reality was lower than expected. Until the day of the festival, he still had tens of thousands of yuan worth of sausages unsold. "This has never happened before."

If this situation continues, he said that 2023 will be the most challenging year since he started his business.

Similar to his situation, Liu Xinmiao is also looking forward to the arrival of the new year 2024, for a major breakthrough in his clothing business.

Liu Xinmiao is from Henan Province and is in his 30s. In the winter of 2021, he traveled to Harbin. Because he liked the local snowy scenery and the enthusiasm of the people, he stayed in Harbin to start a business and opened an online store selling ski suits, warm gloves, snow boots, etc. He could sell hundreds of products in one winter.

The local house rent was not high, the price level was within his acceptable range, and the business could sustain his life, so he continued to do business. In the winter of the following year, during the peak season for ice and snow tourism, "many people died", and although the sales of ski suits and other products increased, the overall data was mediocre, and the business was not doing well.

In the winter of 2023, he expects sales to increase compared to previous years, with 30% more new products. Judging from the sales data of the first two months, sales have increased to a certain extent, but not explosively. If nothing unexpected happens, he will usher in another relatively dull winter.

But by late December, that changed.

2. Food is popular outside the circle, and the sales of warm equipment doubles

On December 18, Harbin Ice and Snow World was packed with tourists. Some people queued for hours but still couldn't play on the slides. Tourists from the south were pouring in like crazy. Xu Lin said that it was "the first time I saw the Ice and Snow World so popular."

It is impossible to verify who first called out the name "Southern Little Potato". There are many videos online about princesses and princes asking to get on the bus, which has brought a nationwide carnival and overwhelming traffic to the city. The morning market on Hongzhuan Street is crowded with outsiders pushing suitcases, and the lobby of the bath center is also full of suitcases. Locals also joked about the video of "relatives come to the house, don't eat the iron pot stewed goose, don't fight for the pot-wrapped meat, and don't fight for the bath", saying that "the main purpose is to let the southern golden beans have fun."

Hot air balloons rose up by the Songhua River, a bright moon shone over the Hagia Sophia, and truant penguins appeared on the streets... Harbin's "pleasing city style" is not just a superficial behavior, but also a warm hospitality. Xu Lin said, "It was the first time I saw tofu pudding with sugar!"

In the past half month, the joke "Erbin, you make me feel strange" has been very popular on the Internet.

Joking aside, everyone actually understands “Erbin”.

Harbin is an old heavy industrial city, and many young people there are leaving. In 2021, Harbin's permanent population was 9.885 million, falling below the 10 million mark. This winter, seeing so many young people pouring into the city and his hometown so lively, Xu Lin said that the locals are really happy.

When he met tourists from the south who asked him what to eat, he could recommend a long list of things in one breath: the hard red sausage was chewy, the meatballs from the Commerce Commission were also delicious. The air-dried sausage from a restaurant was the best, and drinking red wine and chewing a small piece of the dried sausage from Zhengyanglou was delicious. The dried tofu, tofu rolls, the cakes from Lao Dingfeng, and the bread from Huamei Western Restaurant were all worth trying.

Liu Xinmiao has always had a good impression of this city. He thinks its popularity is accidental and inevitable: "The locals are warm and hospitable." After the epidemic, the tourism market is booming, and the winter ice and snow economy is just right. Harbin is also an ice city, and it is not surprising that it is loved by tourists. It is said that "the local government has been preparing for a year." Since the beginning of 2023, it has been promoting Internet celebrity check-in spots such as the Red Street Morning Market, the Ten Thousand People Snow Disco, and the Sophia Cathedral Travel Photography.

Harbin is popular, and Harbin red sausage is also popular again. Tourists who tasted the red sausage in the local area fell in love with the taste and wanted to send the red sausage to their relatives and friends in their hometown. Those who were temporarily unable to come to Harbin also went to Xu Lin's online store to buy red sausage. During this period, Xu Lin sold more than 100 kilograms of red sausage a day, which was a significant increase compared to previous orders.

Liu Xinmiao's clothing sales have nearly tripled. While he is busy shipping so that people who have travel plans can receive their equipment earlier, he is also busy teaching "Southern Little Potatoes" who are about to travel to Harbin the secrets of keeping warm, and sharing the importance of choosing beautiful colors for taking photos when checking in...

Besides business, they also recommend fun places in Harbin to buyers. Liu Xinmiao said that he has visited all the popular attractions and it is a good idea to follow the famous attractions. Xu Lin shared some of his favorite treasures, including the Folk Museum and the snow sculpture competition of Harbin Engineering University, which is also worth watching. "The snow sculptures are artistic, with different styles from different countries and a unique flavor."

(Photo source: Xiaohongshu @展辰Shayne, Strawberry Bear who loves traveling)

3. Become “Erbin”

There are internet-famous cities every year. Some observers analyzed that many of the early traditional popular tourist cities relied on natural scenery to attract a large number of tourists; later, cities with cultural landscapes became popular, and Xi'an, Changsha, Chongqing and other cities attracted a large number of people to check in through short video dissemination.

In recent years, the Internet has magnified the power of "overnight popularity", and more and more unexpected cities have become Internet celebrities. For example, because of Hanfu and e-commerce live streaming, Cao County, Shandong has become popular all over the country; Ding Zhen has brought fame to Ganzi, Sichuan; the diving uncle has attracted attention to Tianjin; barbecue has made Zibo popular; and now Harbin has become a popular tourist city.

Phenomenal internet celebrity cities continue to emerge, and the linkage between internet celebrity cities and other cities has become a hot topic among netizens. Some time ago, Guangxi sent 2 million yuan of sugar oranges to Heilongjiang, and Harbin later gave back 100,000 boxes of cranberries. This return gift shocked many netizens, and even many locals did not know that "it turned out that the largest cranberry production area in Asia is actually in Heilongjiang."

Netizens across the country have launched a campaign to dig up the little-known specialties of their hometowns. They found that more than 12% of the world's caviar is produced in Sichuan, Jiangxi's roasted eel products are among the best in the country, Lu'an City in Anhui Province has the country's largest goose liver production base, and Zhangye in Gansu Province actually has South American shrimps farmed in saline-alkali water...

With such exposure and the effect of city linkage, it is not difficult to predict that more "Erbin" are on the way.

But no city will always be the top city. Some people pointed out that "after the explosion, it may return to normal."

But even if things return to normal, the traffic brought by the Internet celebrity city will still increase people's attention to the city. Just like Zibo barbecue has cooled down, but locals said, "The loss of popularity is only compared to the previous peak. After this round of tourists' attention to Zibo, the number of tourists in Zibo has increased a lot compared to the same period last year."

People are happy about the sudden popularity of a city, and hope that it will continue to be popular. People in Harbin, the traffic center, maintain this overwhelming wealth in their own way. They grab the traffic and also care about the "retention" volume.

In addition to red sausage, Xu Lin has put more than 100 products on the shelves in his online store. "People in the north love to eat meat, so we have to add pig heads and pig feet; Shanghai people like soy products, so the store has dried tofu, tofu rolls, cakes and bread on the shelves," so that people who like Harbin food can buy their favorite food in one stop.

For each batch of goods, he would carefully introduce the dryness and hardness of the products to the consulting customers, and what changes there were compared to the previous ones. Through purchasing on behalf of others, he gained a batch of iron powder.

Liu Xinmiao also expressed his optimism about Harbin. He plans to return to Harbin to expand his business after finishing his work in his hometown, set up another warehouse in Harbin to improve delivery efficiency, and make his business more and more prosperous.

Winter will pass, but it will come again next year. Their story in Harbin will continue.

Author: Jiang Xuefen, Editor: Si Wen

WeChat public account: E-commerce Online (ID: dianshangmj)