“The hottest golden week in history”, what consumption trends does it reflect?

After the epidemic, the popularity of "consumption downgrade" remains high. Consumers tend to be more rational in their attitude towards goods, giving priority to cost performance. The just-concluded Double Festival finally showed signs of consumption recovery, and the "holiday economy" is back. What kind of consumption trend is behind this? This article will answer your questions.

During the Mid-Autumn Festival and National Day holiday, people finally saw the strong momentum of consumption recovery. According to the Ministry of Culture and Tourism, 826 million domestic tourists traveled during the holiday, a year-on-year increase of 71.3%, and domestic tourism revenue reached 753.43 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 129.5%. During the holiday, there was a strong consumer demand, especially the service retail industry represented by "eating, drinking, playing, shopping and entertainment", which showed a thriving trend.

In recent years, the focus of the consumer market has gradually shifted to the service industry. Meeting with friends at theme parks on holidays, spending New Year's Eve together in a homestay, or encountering an unfamiliar "Internet celebrity city" through a City Walk have become popular lifestyles for consumers today, and this has also opened up a new situation for the consumer market.

1. The scale of service retail consumption doubled, and the holiday economy "returned"

On October 5, Meituan released consumption data for the National Day Golden Week, showing that the average daily consumption of service retail nationwide increased by 153% compared with the same period in 2019, ushering in the busiest National Day in five years. Shanghai, Beijing, Chengdu, Chongqing and Shenzhen ranked among the top five in the country in terms of consumption scale.

In traditional tour groups, shopping is often the highlight. Now, young people are no longer addicted to shopping, but spend money on intangible services. During this year's National Day, Xiao Zhang, who was in Beijing, traveled around Inner Mongolia. He rented cars and bicycles, booked hotels in advance on Meituan, and bought local specialties online when he got home. He did some calculations and found that most of the expenses during the trip were spent on services. The main idea is to not own any entity and to solve everything with flexible rental.

There are many tourists like him who travel light with only a mobile phone and a suitcase. During this Golden Week, more and more tourists are looking for good places to eat, drink and have fun through Internet retail platforms.

Wuhan is a paradise for food lovers. After arriving at the airport or train station, some tourists from other places do not rush to the hotel, but take their mobile phones to follow the map and go directly to Liangdao Street, Wansong Garden, Jiqing Street and other food streets well known to locals, queuing up in front of down-to-earth breakfast stalls and exquisite and elegant high-end restaurants. According to local media reports, the passenger flow of Wuhan food streets during the National Day reached 152% of the same period in 2019.

In Shanghai, a traditional popular tourist city, tasting local cuisine is a must-do for tourists from other places. According to the Shanghai Observer News, Xiaoping Restaurant, a Shanghai "must-eat" restaurant that specializes in local cuisine, receives more than 50% of tourists during the holiday season. The queues start at 10 a.m. and 4 p.m. every day, and the restaurant can receive more than 100 tables a day, with tables turning over 4 to 5 times. In order to meet the peak of holiday traffic, the restaurant has also equipped half of its staff and arranged special personnel at the front desk to guide tourists to make reservations and wait for seats.

In addition to checking in for delicious food, many tourists also choose to take a city ride during the National Day holiday to experience the city culture and natural landscape while feeling the leisurely atmosphere of the holiday. The winding Hutong area within the Second Ring Road in Beijing, the streetscape of plane trees in downtown Shanghai, and the Xiamen Ring Island Road, where you can enjoy the sea view and visit scenic spots along the way, are all popular routes for City Rides.

In addition, the Hotel Tour, which is loved by hotel fans, also saw a huge demand during the Mid-Autumn Festival and National Day holidays. As Shanghai's "city business card", the Peace Hotel organizes three Hotel Tours every day, from the Peace Museum, the Nine Countries Suite, to the Bund Observation Terrace, taking everyone back to the Shanghai Bund a hundred years ago.

Before this, some tourists had come here just to taste the same retro set meal as Chaplin in the nearly 100-year-old Huahe Pavilion and enjoy the wonderful performances by the elderly jazz band with an average age of 70, leaving behind the most special memory of the modern city of Shanghai through an immersive experience. Meituan data shows that the number of searches for Hotel Tour on the platform has increased by 600% year-on-year since the beginning of this year.

Checking in local food with your mobile phone, riding a shared bicycle to visit the city, and experiencing a special theme hotel... These new ways of playing and new models that emerged during the Golden Week not only provide strong impetus for the holiday economic recovery, but also reveal a new trend that service retail is gradually moving towards the core position of the consumer market.

2. Big brands gather together, service retail contributes to new growth

After seeing the booming trend of service consumption, many brands have begun to increase their investment in service retail.

The newly opened Pop Mart City Park in Chaoyang Park, Beijing, attracted many local citizens to visit during the Mid-Autumn Festival and National Day. On Dianping.com, many users left positive comments, saying that it was "good for making movies" and "suitable for taking children to play." A senior Pop Mart fan even said, "I used to buy blind boxes in the store, but now I go to the park to slide down the slide," lamenting the "consumption upgrade" from simply buying goods to experiencing services. Pop Mart's offline theme park not only finds new ways to display classic IPs, but also the offline service content such as retail and exhibition areas, dining areas, etc. in the park have become new revenue channels.

In fact, since service retail is highly correlated with consumption scenarios, many businesses are trying to enrich service content in order to attract traffic to offline businesses and increase revenue growth.

In the third quarter of this year, Haidilao, which is famous for its high-quality service, started a fancy "rescue" mode. In July, with the hot market of offline performances this summer, Haidilao parked the bus outside the concert venues of popular singers such as Jay Chou, Jolin Tsai, and JJ Lin. There were also Haidilao employees holding up light boards and banners to act as the atmosphere group, singing and dancing while inviting fans who had just finished watching the performance to take the free bus to the Haidilao store to continue the "second party".

In September, Haidilao opened roadside stalls in famous night markets in cities such as Qingdao, Shanghai, Taiyuan, and Shenzhen. In addition to its debut with crayfish, braised food, maocai, milk tea, and desserts, it also heated up the night economy and boosted the growth of customer traffic in surrounding stores.

During this period, Haidilao also set up a "hair salon" at the entrance of the store, where diners can scan the code on site to make an appointment for a hair washing experience for 200 Lao coins: sitting in a massage chair, washing your hair while getting a massage, from shampooing, hair care to blow-drying and applying essential oils, all the steps are included.

Pang Donglai, known as the "Haidilao of the retail industry", did not miss this round of "service retail battle". On the eve of the Mid-Autumn Festival, Pang Donglai put its homemade Internet-famous mooncakes on the shelves. As the products were so popular, they were sold out as soon as they were put on the shelves. There was a situation of queuing all night and purchasing at high prices. For this reason, Pang Donglai launched the same-city takeaway service, so that customers can buy mooncakes without having to queue up offline. The retail service experience of online ordering and offline delivery also made Pang Donglai gain popularity and traffic at the same time.

On the road of exploring the value of service retail, there are not only Haidilao and Pangdonglai, but also many major retail brands that have begun to try to use service retail to expand their business boundaries.

From January to September this year, "supermarket 10 yuan haircut" became a popular consumption item on the Meituan platform, and the search for "Wumart supermarket haircut" on the Meituan platform increased by 296%. Many consumers would first go to the haircut shop to get a number and then go shopping, and then go to the store for a haircut. Based on the fixed monthly haircut needs, many consumers have also become accustomed to shopping at Wumart supermarkets.

A similar case to the "supermarket haircut" is the "McMc Study Room" launched by McDonald's. In recent years, as the number of students taking the postgraduate entrance examination and the civil service examination has continued to rise, many students preparing for the examination have chosen to go out to chain restaurants and cafes to study. As a result, McDonald's set up a "study" area in its stores and provided free drinking water and WiFi in the "McDonald's Study Room". As of September this year, the number of searches for "McDonald's Study Room" on the Meituan platform increased by 7 times year-on-year.

3. The Internet is accelerating the transformation of the service industry

From the perspective of merchants, service retail provides a dual boost in traffic and sales for commodity retail. However, from the perspective of the consumer market, the value of service retail is not just as simple as empowering commodity retail, but also promotes the standardization of service supply, so that consumers can buy services faster, at a lower price and with higher quality.

In August this year, the National Bureau of Statistics added the release of service retail sales data for the first time. One of the reasons behind this is that the current national consumption structure is constantly transforming and upgrading, and the consumption pattern is gradually changing from mainly commodity consumption to a balance between commodity and service consumption.

Let's take a simple example: In the past, people might have a drink or a big meal to relieve work stress. But now, more and more people choose to soak in hot springs, do SPA, or take a spontaneous trip, and these stress relief methods will lead to various types of consumption behaviors, including goods and services. Although the starting point of demand is the same, the consumption scale that is finally excavated is indeed very different.

In fact, there has always been a demand for service retail, but the current market environment has given service retail a new space for development. Compared with the retail format centered on commodities, the service industry cannot achieve standardization in the sales process like selling commodities, and it also lacks after-sales links. Consumers are dissatisfied with the service experience and it is difficult for them to provide feedback to merchants to help improve service quality.

However, with the help of technology and the Internet, not only can services have quantifiable standards, but merchants and consumers can also establish two-way communication channels through the platform. In the article "Can "Tea Brewing Around the Fire" Win the Third Space?", the Jingzhe Research Institute mentioned that the popularity of small teahouses that have emerged in recent years is not due to products such as tea and candied fruits, but to the high-value, photo-ready scenes, and the lively atmosphere that reflects the fireworks of the market.

In an era without digital platforms, the atmosphere and atmosphere of a small teahouse could only be spread through word of mouth. What kind of tea is available? How much does it cost per person? Is it worth it? These questions closely related to consumer decisions could not be answered. Therefore, it was difficult for the store to quickly get through the startup phase and continue to attract new customers to the store.

However, through digital platforms, new customers can not only directly view the store environment and product prices, and form consumption expectations based on real reviews from other consumers, but can also directly obtain discounts, purchase online and place orders. This provides great help for new formats and new stores.

Whether it is the out-of-town diners who follow the "must-eat list" during the National Day holiday, or Haidilao and Pangdonglai who are rushing into the service retail market, we can see from them that commodity retail and service retail are gradually merging, and the Internet is accelerating the transformation of the traditional service industry and creating more high-quality service supplies.

On the one hand, the platform's digital technology helps merchants break free from the constraints of offline scenarios and shortens the overall path from demand mining to consumer decision-making. On the other hand, it gathers more high-quality services and consumers' segmented needs, forms two-way communication, promotes the completion of transactions, and helps merchants continue to achieve two-way growth in traffic and revenue.

Compared with commodity retail, service retail represents mass, high-frequency, rigid consumption, and has a larger market capacity and room for growth. Digital retail platforms can not only help service retail achieve normalization and standardization, but their digital capabilities can also cope with transaction behaviors generated by massive consumer demand.

In addition, service retail is highly dependent on physical space, and forms long-term and stable business through the supply of high-quality services. The biggest feature of offline is that it can mobilize people's sensitivity in all directions. The process of service is the process of narrowing the distance with consumers, which helps brands to continuously accumulate their own advantages in the competition with peers. As an efficient carrier for accepting consumer demand, recording the consumption process, and feedback on consumer experience, the digital retail platform has undoubtedly accelerated the precipitation of brand value, allowing more merchants who take the lead in deploying service retail to seize market opportunities.

At present, it is not just the growth in consumption data during the Golden Week that demonstrates the vigorous vitality of the consumer market. As the penetration rate of the digital economy in the service industry increases, it is conceivable that in the future, everyone from big-name retailers to niche life service merchants will be able to find new growth drivers and embrace the business opportunities brought about by the next round of consumer market upgrades.

Author: Bai Lu

WeChat public account: Jingzhe Research Institute (ID: jingzheyanjiusuo)