Post-00s sell 1 million entrepreneurial tools and become the winner behind this Internet celebrity trend

This year, the "bamboo tube trend" is blowing hard, and bamboo tube milk tea, bamboo tube ice cream and other delicacies with city names have become very popular. Have you checked in for a cup?

This year, a "bamboo tube trend" has swept the entire Internet. Bamboo tube milk tea, bamboo tube ice cream and other delicacies with city names have become extremely popular, attracting young people to check in and take photos.

Zhang He, who sells bamboo cups, is very busy this year, selling thousands of them a day. Tourist attractions, milk tea shops, and ice cream shops all call him to urge them to ship the products: "If they ship one day late, I will make less money."

The "bamboo tube wind" not only blew strongly in China, but also blew abroad.

(Photos from Weibo @李志杰liz, Xiaohongshu @iiiicloud)

Zhang He said that customers from overseas countries and regions such as France and the United States also purchase Chinese bamboo cups, using them as a tool for attracting customers and starting businesses. This summer, he was able to sell tens of thousands of bamboo cups a day.

Within half a year of starting his business, he sold more than 1 million bamboo tube cups, becoming the winner behind this internet celebrity trend.

1. Selling Internet celebrity startup tools

Zhang He is 22 years old this year. When he was in college, he started a business with his classmates and opened an online store to sell clothes. In the year he started his business in college, his hard work paid off. One of his products was a big hit, and they made more than 50,000 yuan.

But in the second year, because his partner was busy dating and he had to prepare for school, neither of them had the energy to take care of shipping. At that time, there were many problems with the store's after-sales service. Many buyers asked for returns because of poor packaging and product snags. That year, they lost more than 100,000 yuan.

Having lost money, he went to work in a company in his hometown county after graduation and lived a life of punching in and out every day.

This year, after working for a few months, he decided to start his own business, "I'm so young, I need to work harder."

A friend who was looking for an entrepreneurial opportunity told him that after the epidemic, more people traveled. Young people especially like to buy bamboo tube ice cream and bamboo tube milk tea and check in and take photos in scenic spots, Internet celebrity milk tea shops, and Internet celebrity restaurants. The green bamboo tube and white cream and ice cream look very good together. These photos have attracted many young people to watch and praise them online, and they are very popular.

He followed his friend's advice, found a bamboo tube production factory, negotiated a cooperation agreement, and started selling bamboo tube cups.

Bamboo tube drinks are popular, and the sales of bamboo tube cups are gradually increasing. At that time, he worked during the day and worked overtime at night to handle orders for bamboo tube cups. Summer is the hottest time for bamboo tube cups. He often starts from 10 pm and communicates with customers until 7 am the next day. "There are so many orders that I don't have time to sleep."

He didn't expect that the bamboo tube cup would "fall out" soon after it became popular. At that time, some manufacturers produced bamboo tube cups without cleaning and drying. If customers did not store them properly after receiving them, the bamboo tube would mold. Some buyers on the Internet also expressed concerns about the hygiene of bamboo tube drinks, saying that "some merchants may reuse the cups."

Zhang He lives in a city with abundant bamboo resources and many bamboo processing factories. Considering that "making bamboo tubes does not require a high technical threshold", he decided to cooperate with the factory to produce bamboo tubes, providing a one-stop service for production and sales, and controlling the quality from the source.

2. More than 1 million units sold

This spring, Zhang He, who had just started his own business, found a chopstick factory, purchased a batch of bamboo, and invited a master to help cut and polish the bamboo tubes.

As the weather gets warmer, people are sharing photos of their travels and gourmet food on social platforms such as Xiaohongshu. They take photos holding bamboo tube milk tea and bamboo tube ice cream. Under the blue sky and white clouds, with stickers of city names such as "Hangzhou", "Chengdu" and "Dali", the photos are particularly beautiful. Such "high-value" beautiful photos are attracting more and more people to watch online.

(Photo source: Xiaohongshu@宋宋, Xiaoyang's memo)

During that period, Zhang He's bamboo tubes were always in great demand, with two to three thousand sold a day. Milk tea shops and internet-famous restaurants regularly placed orders to use bamboo tubes to pack milk tea and make bamboo tube rice. "Whether it's a big bamboo tube or a small one, there's a market for it."

In July, the height of summer, the weather was getting hotter. In addition to restaurants and milk tea shops increasing their purchases of bamboo cups, ice cream shops also had a need to purchase bamboo cups in bulk. Throughout July, his sales of bamboo cups increased dramatically, and he could sell tens of thousands a day.

The hot sales of bamboo cups led to insufficient supply from upstream manufacturers. For a while, many manufacturers were in urgent need of bamboo cups, and they were unable to adjust the supply in time after receiving large orders. So Zhang He simply purchased a cleaning machine, a grinder, and a dryer, and also hired a master to make bamboo cups.

In a day, he can make more than 10,000 bamboo tube cups, just enough to meet the daily order volume.

Throughout the summer, the "bamboo tube trend" has been gaining momentum across the Internet. Merchants in popular tourist spots use bamboo tube milk tea and bamboo tube ice cream as a means of attracting customers, and they want thousands of bamboo tubes for each order. Because bamboo tubes are consumables, customers have to place orders again after a while, and for several days in a row, they were in a state of "not being able to ship out all the goods."

The owner of the milk tea shop urged him to ship the goods, saying that he could sell thousands of cups of bamboo tube milk tea a day, "If the bamboo tubes arrive one day late, I will make less money."

Zhang He also became anxious. Once, he saw that the express delivery had arrived at the station in the receiving city and was not forwarded on the same day. He paid several hundred yuan out of his own pocket to contact a local truck and delivered the bamboo tube cup to the customer's store.

From July to September, he sent out more than 10,000 bamboo tubes almost every day, "and often encountered the situation where he could not send out all of them."

A bamboo tube cup costs two or three yuan. Within half a year of starting his business, Zhang He sold more than one million bamboo tube cups. Not only did he make back the money he had lost from selling clothes before, he also gained a group of stable big customers and reached long-term cooperation with several new Chinese-style milk tea brand stores.

3. Foreign customers also love Chinese bamboo cups

For a while, there were constant news reports about the failure of bamboo tube drinks on the Internet, saying that some store owners recycled moldy bamboo tube cups to make drinks. The safety and hygiene issues of the Internet celebrity bamboo tube cups made people worry, and they questioned whether this fancy marketing form could last long.

But these voices did not affect Zhang He's bamboo tube cup business.

He said that shop owners who really want to do long-term business and care about the reputation of their store will not choose to use moldy cups, as that will cause great damage to their business. They will purchase new bamboo tube cups regularly.

Bamboo cups are consumables. If they are stored for a long time, they will become moldy, black, and cracked. Bamboo cups that are not vacuum packed can be stored for more than 10 days in winter. Zhang He's bamboo cups are vacuum packed after being sterilized at high temperature. If old customers store them properly, a batch of bamboo cups can be stored for 3 months.

One store owner said that when the bamboo cup was first popular, the price was relatively high. Now that the production volume is large, old customers can get discounts for bulk purchases, and the cost of purchasing new bamboo cups is within their affordable range. For old customers who want to do a good business, regularly purchasing new bamboo cups is more in line with the long-term business philosophy.

What he didn't expect was that the Internet celebrity "bamboo tube trend" also blew abroad. He received orders from France, the United States and other countries. At first, the orders were for hundreds of bamboo tube cups, and later they placed orders for thousands of them at a time.

Although the busiest summer has passed, he estimates that the "bamboo tube wind" will continue to blow next year. In addition to Chinese buyers, more overseas customers may also try this Internet celebrity traffic-generating magic tool.

He plans to launch stickers for more cities and customize bamboo tube cups to catch the next wave of traffic.

(At the request of the interviewee, Zhang He is a pseudonym in this article)

Author: Jiang Xuefen

Source: WeChat public account "Seller (ID: maijiakan )"