Among the top ten consumer trends in 2022, which ones are growing faster and which ones are slowing down?

2022 is coming to an end. In this year, there are many consumer industries that are regarded as hot spots. So which industries are worth paying attention to in 2022? As we are about to enter 2023, what are their prospects? This article analyzes this and hopes it will be helpful to you.

As 2022 is coming to an end, how are those consumer industries that were once considered to be hot spots doing now?

At the beginning of the year, after experiencing the consumer investment boom in 2021, the progress of new consumer financing collectively stalled, and news of layoffs, store closures, and losses came from time to time; by the middle of the year, the outdoor economy was booming, and camping and frisbee brought a number of upstream and downstream products into fashion; at the end of the year, the live broadcast dividend has peaked, and various e-commerce platforms have also kept the shopping festival transaction data secret.

In terms of investment and financing in the consumer sector, according to incomplete statistics from IT Juzi, this year’s financing of over 100 million yuan is mainly distributed in food, alcohol, catering, pets, fashion, skin care, etc. At the same time, projects of over 100 million yuan have become more frequent in the first half of this year.

Consumption behavior is embedded in every aspect of people's lives. Which industries are worth paying attention to in 2022? As we are about to enter 2023, what are their prospects?

1. Coffee: How to “extend life” next?

Throughout 2022, the coffee track will remain a hot topic, with new and old players constantly competing, including many cross-border players.

At the beginning of the year, Manner announced that it had opened more than 200 stores in ten cities across the country, announcing its grand plan. The day before, Seesaw Coffee announced that it had completed a multi-million-yuan A++ round of financing, once again gaining the favor of capital.

The amount of financing and the number of financing transactions continue to be refreshed. According to data from the Tulu Consumer Research Institute, in the first half of 2022, there were 14 financing events in the coffee field, with a financing amount of 1.803 billion yuan, of which some financing amounts were not disclosed.

In the continuous capital wave of coffee, chain operation has become a major trend.

The most eye-catching one is Luckin Coffee. In addition to continuing to lead with its absolute store advantage, Luckin has also gotten rid of the quagmire of financial fraud and achieved full profitability for the first time in history this year. Today, the number of its offline stores has exceeded that of Starbucks China.

Luckin Coffee founder Lu Zhengyao chose to revive the business and launch a new coffee brand, Kudi Coffee.

The above-mentioned brands have been born with coffee genes, but this year the number of companies that have "changed careers" is more diverse.

China Post’s first “Post Office Coffee” opened for business in Xiamen at the beginning of the year; Tianjin’s “Goubuli Steamed Buns” established Gloria Jean’s Coffee Food (Tianjin) Co., Ltd. to enter the coffee market; well-known sports brand Li Ning and communications technology giants have respectively applied to register related coffee trademarks.

In the eyes of these cross-border players, the coffee business is just the icing on the cake, mainly to meet consumers' needs for the third space and identity expression, but this demand is always short-lived, and the coffee business is not as simple as "spending some thought".

While cross-industry players such as China Post and Li Ning are entertaining themselves, a new trend has emerged in the coffee industry: another outlet for capital and traffic has blown in - live streaming sales.

In October this year, T97 Coffee became a new coffee brand that quickly went viral thanks to a live broadcast with the slogan "Do you want to make coffee?" Not only did its sales increase sevenfold in one week, the founder even kept making bold statements, saying that he would open 1,001 stores within a year and become number one in the entire Chinese coffee industry in the future.

But as the popularity slowed down, the magic of this coffee brand was only a flash in the pan. The popularity is always fleeting. Without core competitiveness, no matter which brand it is, it will be difficult to truly "survive". In 2023, where will the next hot spot of coffee come from?

2. New tea drinks: Can’t increase growth but increase investment

Compared with coffee, new tea drinks are a bit bleak in 2022, and seem to be adjusting their pace throughout 2022.

Heytea and Nayuki took the lead in lowering prices at the beginning of the year, changing their previous attitude of focusing on the high-end market and reducing the average price of many products to below 30 yuan, sending a signal of attacking the "downstream market".

Another obvious change is that looking back at 2021, new tea ingredients were booming, and people were keen on continuously exploring niche fruits, but in 2022, almost only coconuts brought a short-lived boom, and more brands turned to impacting the last traffic dividend of online live broadcasts.

Leading brands Nayuki and Heytea took the lead in entering the live broadcast market, followed by mid-tier tea brands such as Shuyi Herbal Jelly, Guming, and Chabaidao. Online live broadcasting has become a marketing standard for all brands. Chabaidao even publicly released its results, saying that in 2022, the brand continued to grow on Douyin and achieved tens of millions of live broadcast sales on many occasions.

As major brands are involved in the online battlefield, Mixue Ice City, which earns tens of billions of yuan a year from affordable milk tea, is gradually confirmed to be planning to go public, which has attracted all the attention in the industry. However, with limited incremental growth and a stock game at hand, new tea drinks that "can't burn money" are more busy reducing costs and increasing efficiency in 2022, while seeking new growth curves.

The first "HEYTEA Handmade" milk tea shop under HEYTEA in Nantou Ancient Town, Shenzhen, announced its closure, and previously closed its sub-brand "HEYTEA Xiaocha". But at the same time, HEYTEA also announced at the end of this year that it would further open up franchises and start business partnerships with suitable store formats in non-first-tier cities.

Nayuki's Tea established an investment company this year, Shenzhen Meihao Ziyouli Investment Co., Ltd., and throughout 2022, Nayuki's Tea has made frequent investments. In December, it completed the largest investment in the new tea beverage industry this year, acquiring Lelecha for 525 million yuan. Prior to this, Heytea and Mixue Bingcheng also had experience as VCs and became investors with capital.

New tea brands are striving for new growth in different ways, but behind this is an anxiety that cannot be ignored. In the future, brands need to think about matching and satisfying the demands of consumers and further break through the current homogeneous competition in order to live more steadily and in the long run.

3. The beauty product launch boom: a new turn after the calm

The beauty retail market is shrinking in 2022. According to the National Bureau of Statistics, the total retail sales of cosmetics from January to October this year was 308.4 billion yuan, a year-on-year decrease of 2.8%.

However, domestic beauty products are experiencing a wave of IPO financing.

According to incomplete statistics from True Detective, 19 Chinese cosmetics companies have plans and actions to go public this year. Among them, 7 are "cosmetics brands", covering the two sub-sectors of medical beauty and skin care.

From the perspective of medical beauty, in January this year, the listing guidance registration materials of Chuanger Bio, which was listed on the New Third Board, have been accepted by the Beijing Stock Exchange; in June, Aimei Beauty, which has been listed on the A-share market and is known as the "Medical Beauty Mao", formally re-submitted its prospectus to the Hong Kong Stock Exchange, moving towards the first "A+H" medical beauty stock; in September, Fulijia successfully passed the IPO on the Shenzhen Stock Exchange's Growth Enterprise Market; in November, the "first collagen stock" Juzi Bio officially landed on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange.

High gross margins and considerable profits have made many medical beauty companies "invaluable". At present, the market value of the "medical beauty giant" Aimei has exceeded 100 billion yuan, and Juzi Biopharma has exceeded 30 billion yuan.

In terms of skin care, Shangmei Group, which owns the brands Hansu, One Leaf, and Red Elephant, submitted its prospectus to the Hong Kong Stock Exchange twice in January and October this year, and has now passed the hearing; in June, Miss Skin, known for its moisturizing skin care, officially entered the listing guidance period of the Beijing Stock Exchange; in November, the Chinese herbal skin care brand Xiangyi Bencao signed a listing guidance agreement with CICC, officially launching the A-share IPO process.

In addition to brand companies, among the domestic beauty-related companies planning to go public this year, Bawi Co., Ltd., a beauty OEM company with many major customers such as Unilever, Missha Korea, Marubi Cosmetics, and Lafang Home Cosmetics, also entered the listing guidance period of the Beijing Stock Exchange in March this year.

The frequent "listing boom" this year hides new changes in the beauty industry environment. In December last year, the "Standards for the Evaluation of Cosmetic Efficacy Claims" officially came into effect, further curbing industry chaos and strengthening industry standards. The industry generally believes that with the introduction of this standard, some non-compliant small and medium-sized enterprises will be gradually screened out, and new opportunities will be given to companies that are more in line with the "efficacy evaluation" rules.

On the other hand, in the context of the general decline in beauty retail sales this year, listing financing for innovative transformation is a move to bide one's time and gather strength. However, after passing the first hurdle of listing, beauty companies still need to seek a second curve in the involutionary race.

IV. The catering IPO boom: much noise, little action

Another listing trend in 2022 will be concentrated in the catering industry.

According to incomplete statistics from the Times Weekly reporter, 10 catering companies have submitted prospectuses to prepare for listing since 2022. The types of companies are diverse, including the first generation of Internet celebrity restaurant Green Tea, the king of takeaway pizza Domino's, the fourth largest hot pot brand in China Laowang, the king of Malatang Yang Guofu, and even the three major Chinese fast food chain brands, Country Style, Lao Xiang Ji and Lao Niang Jiu.

Behind the catering companies that are rushing to go public are all subdivided categories with a scale of hundreds of billions. At the same time, the common points of these catering companies are high popularity, long development history, large-scale store network and standardized business categories.

Why are restaurant companies flocking to go public? The timing behind this is obvious.

In recent years, the limited flow of offline restaurant customers, coupled with the high labor and raw material costs, has put long-term pressure on restaurant operations; and when the industry accelerates metabolism, for large restaurant companies with stronger risk resistance, counter-trend expansion is also a golden development node. Regardless of the reason, raising funds through listing is a fast path for restaurant companies to break through.

The vision of embracing the capital market is beautiful, but judging from the current situation, the wave of restaurant companies going public can only be described as much ado about nothing.

Domino's, which has the fastest IPO process, originally planned to list on the main board of the Hong Kong Stock Exchange on December 23, but it announced earlier that it had decided to delay its global offering. In addition, the remaining restaurant companies are basically in the state of disclosing prospectuses or their prospectuses have expired, and their listing prospects are unclear.

The still sluggish catering consumption environment is certainly an external factor that has hindered the listing process, but another major reason behind this may be the flaws in the performance of catering companies.

In the past three years, the revenue growth of the above-mentioned restaurant companies has mainly relied on the expansion of store scale, while the profit level has basically been an increase in revenue but not in profit. However, the table turnover rate, which is an important performance indicator, has basically been stagnant or even declining.

The more important problem is that for the capital market, the above-mentioned catering companies have more than enough scale and popularity, but they can not bring enough imagination. Green Tea Restaurant, which debuted 14 years ago, is still famous for its famous dish Bread Temptation; Lao Wang’s specialty, pork belly and chicken soup hot pot, is no longer new in the fiercely competitive hot pot industry; and Yang Guofu, known as the king of spicy hot pot, has been expanding its territory with the franchise model, but the food safety issue is difficult to solve.

Behind the wave of restaurant companies going public, the Chinese restaurant industry has reached a turning point. When market uncertainty increases, embracing capital, expanding store networks, and increasing supply chains are the only way for large restaurant companies to move to a higher level in the transformation. However, in addition to seeking stability and expansion, how to continue to provide freshness for diners who are tired of new things is a compulsory subject for restaurant companies at this stage.

5. Outdoor economy: many newcomers, the industry urgently needs regulation

No vacant land escaped unscathed in 2022. This year, you’d be hard-pressed to find a soccer field without a Frisbee, a suburban wasteland without a camper, or a greenway without a bike.

This year, people turned their attention to leisure and entertainment in the city. Frisbee, a sport with low barriers to entry and strong social interaction, became a new popular sport; camping in the suburbs became a choice for people to escape the hustle and bustle; and cycling allowed people to transform their daily fitness needs into measuring the city on wheels.

As a result, this year, the camping industry boomed, frisbee communities sprang up like mushrooms after a rain, and cycling equipment became popular.

In April, outdoor equipment brand Naturehike completed nearly 100 million yuan in financing. In the same month, Qingshan Capital exclusively invested in outdoor lifestyle brand ABC Camping Country. Outdoor equipment such as jackets, tents, outdoor tables and chairs on e-commerce platforms all saw year-on-year growth of more than 50%. The number of searches related to "frisbee" on Xiaohongshu has seen explosive growth for several consecutive months. As the popularity of cycling increases, popular bicycle models are even harder to find.

However, the rapid development has also brought about development chaos. Currently, the backgrounds of campsite operators are uneven, and many campsite operators are still lacking in outdoor survival knowledge; and the surging traffic and the emerging and uneven Frisbee clubs have also troubled Frisbee professionals.

As the outdoor economy heats up, criticisms about the poor experience at campsites or in frisbee groups have gradually accumulated. Now that the peak season is over, consumers are beginning to become more rational.

Behind the chaos is the "congenital deficiency" of the outdoor economy: camping and Frisbee are niche sports, but they have quickly become popular due to the outbreak. However, when there are many newcomers, and the industry's foundation and related talent training have not kept up, it has created the current pseudo-prosperity state where good and bad are mixed and the industry has not yet established order.

With the arrival of winter, the outdoor economy enters the off-season, and the industry inflection point also comes. The industry hibernation period is also a key adjustment period for practitioners in their business operations. After a year of incubation, the outdoor economy will remain hot in 2023, but the development status will change. The transition from extensive growth to standardized operation will be the only way for the outdoor economy.

6. Craft beer: Still needs time to settle

Driven by the petty-bourgeois sentiment, the new trend brought about by craft beer is still attracting a large number of people to join.

Tianyancha APP shows that as of December this year, more than 1,500 craft beer-related companies have been newly registered in 2022, an increase of 22.0% compared with the 1,378 newly registered beer companies in the whole of last year. Currently, there are about 4,400 craft beer-related companies in the country. Beer industry data shows that by 2025, the domestic craft beer market is expected to reach 87.5 billion yuan, with a penetration rate of 11%.

Craft beer has attracted investors. According to incomplete statistics from Jiu Xun, billions of yuan of financing has poured into the craft beer industry this year, and most of the popular ones are newly established brands.

In January this year, Ruien Craft Beer, which was established less than a year ago, won millions of yuan in angel round financing from Blue Ocean Capital; in February, "Vanbeer Craft Beer" completed millions of yuan in angel round financing, led by 36Kr and followed by Jiayue Capital; in April, Chongqing Shiqimen Craft Beer launched its A round of financing, with strategic investment from Cedar Capital; in June, Steam Bear Craft Beer and Wine Star Project received millions of yuan in angel round and seed round financing respectively, and "Jingdu Fresh Beer" received strategic investment in the seed round from Qianhui Capital; in July, the alcohol-free craft beer brand "New Zero Beer" completed its Pre-A round of financing.

Despite continuous financing, craft beer has encountered a bottleneck in terms of profitability, especially the survival status of taverns is not optimistic.

The "2022 China Craft Beer Bar White Paper" shows that only 2.5% of craft beer bars have "substantial profits", 77% of craft beer bars are "barely maintaining", 20% of craft beer bars are "still losing money", and 8% plan to close stores or reduce their scale.

Take the "first pub stock" Helen's as an example. In the first half of this year, Helen's revenue increased but profits did not, and it closed nearly 100 stores. Orient Securities predicts that in 2022, the number of Helen's stores to be closed will reach 130.

Unlike new brands that still need time to settle, some established companies are using their previous accumulation to move towards personalized, customized, and high-end development. For example, Beijing A Beer incorporates the style and craftsmanship of North American craft beer and is trying to take a differentiated route for domestic craft beer; Yanjing Beer has chosen Wang Yibo, Cai Xukun and other popular stars to launch high-end craft beer to reach younger high-end consumers.

Craft beer is still popular, but the craze has gradually returned to rationality.

7. NFT digital collections: a year of wild growth

At the beginning of 2022, the "Metaverse" became very popular, and NFT digital collections became the winning magic weapon for a number of consumer brands to make money with the help of the Metaverse.

From the perspective of sports brands, Nike has become the number one player in NFT this year. In April this year, Nike released a series of virtual sports shoes NFTs, and in July, it launched a joint series of NFTs in cooperation with CLONE X. Data from the Dune Analytics platform shows that Nike earned $93.1 million in revenue from direct sales of NFTs, and received $92.17 million in royalties (creator royalties) from NFT transactions between users.

As for domestic brands, in March and May this year, Xtep launched the digital collections "160X-Metaverse" and "National Speed ​​​​1" successively; in April, Li Ning bought the Bored Ape NFT, and plans to cooperate with Tencent Tianmei Studio this year to integrate its NFT elements into the Metaverse game; in the same month, 361° launched the "I am the Oriental Future" series of trendy digital collections; and Anta took advantage of the Winter Olympics to sell related digital collections and launch three digital spaces.

Not only sports brands, but even catering brands have also dabbled in NFT. As early as December last year, Nayuki's Tea released NFT blind boxes to explore the metaverse. In January this year, BudLight NEXT, a brand under Budweiser, launched NFT; in March, KFC's parent company Yum! Brands submitted NFT and metaverse-related trademark applications; in September, Starbucks' NFT plan was officially launched, integrating NFT into the new membership system, and users can purchase NFT with credit cards without registering a cryptocurrency wallet.

Trendy stars like Jay Chou and JJ Lin also got a piece of the pie.

In January this year, Jay Chou sold 10,000 phantom bears at a price of 0.26 ether (about 6,200 yuan) on the Metaverse platform, which sold out in just 40 minutes, with total sales reaching 62 million yuan; in August, Jay Chou created a digital space consisting of 5 DEMOs and sold them in the form of blind boxes for a limited time. According to Forbes, singer JJ Lin joined an NFT community ARC established in January this year.

Tianyancha APP shows that as of September 2022, there are about 90 digital collection-related companies in China, of which nearly 50 are newly established in 2022. The "2022 First Half Global NFT Digital Collection Market Development Research Report" predicts that the scale of China's digital collection market will reach 29.52 billion yuan in 2026.

There is no doubt that with the momentum of the Metaverse, NFT digital collections will become a hot topic in 2022. But at the same time, the emerging, highly profitable, and lack of supervision characteristics of NFT digital collections also bring about opportunities and risks.

In April this year, Jay Chou's Bored Ape NFT worth 3 million RMB was stolen by hackers. On platforms such as the Black Cat Complaint Platform and Xiaohongshu, some consumers also said that they had experienced their collections being stolen and sold, the platform collecting money and running away, and the collections being worthless.

As 2022 draws to a close, the popularity of NFTs has waned. With the strengthening of supervision, NFT digital collections will also transition from the initial stage of wild growth to the next stage with constraints and rules.

The Internet Finance Association of China, the China Banking Association and the China Securities Association jointly issued the "Initiative on Preventing NFT-Related Financial Risks", proposing six major propositions, including resolutely not including financial assets such as securities, insurance, credit, precious metals, etc. in the underlying products of NFTs, and not weakening the non-homogeneous characteristics of NFTs by splitting ownership or creating them in batches.

8. Warehouse membership store: What to do after the novelty wears off?

This year, there has been endless discussion about whether warehouse membership stores can become a way out for hypermarkets.

This is related to the trend of the retail industry - the offline retail industry has been saturated, market competition has further intensified, and supermarkets have once faced unprecedented difficult situations.

Warehouse membership stores have become a popular format for offline retail, especially this year.

According to iMedia Research, China's warehouse membership supermarket industry grew by 12.3% year-on-year in 2021, with a market size of 30.43 billion yuan. It is predicted that the figure will be close to 40 billion yuan in 2025. According to incomplete statistics, more than 10 retail companies have opened warehouse membership stores since 2021, and the number of newly opened warehouse membership stores has exceeded 100 per year.

Retail supermarket brands were once full of confidence. Costco and Sam's Club had already taken the lead in taking advantage of the trend and expanding into the Chinese market; Hema Fresh, which launched the Hema X membership store, called for the slogan of creating a Chinese membership store, and Carrefour had already planned to upgrade 200 traditional hypermarkets into 100 membership stores within three years.

But in fact, it is too early to define whether warehouse membership stores are the way out for hypermarkets. The Huiyuan store model undoubtedly provides a new consumer experience and shopping choice in the short term, but after the novelty wears off, there is still great uncertainty as to how to maintain the current business status.

How can retail supermarket brands continue to provide consumers with high value-added products and services to build consumer stickiness? How can they have more say in the face of core strengths such as supply chain, product selection, and crowd positioning? This is still a big challenge.

9. Pet Economy: Scale is not everything

As the size of the pet-owning population continues to grow, the popularity of the pet food, clothing, housing and transportation segments continues to rise.

The popularity can be seen from the data. In November this year, Mojing Data conducted statistics on Tmall's "Double Eleven" pre-sales. The pre-sales of most industries declined to varying degrees, but the pet-related market grew brightly, with pre-sales increasing by 44%.

The "2022 China Pet Industry Trend Insight White Paper" released by JD.com shows that the number of pet-owning households in China reached 91.47 million in 2021, and it is estimated that the number of pet-owning households will exceed 100 million in 2022.

Amid the heat and opportunities, the pet track is accelerating its integration with capital. At the end of 2022, Tianyuan Pet successfully listed on the Shenzhen Stock Exchange's Growth Enterprise Market, which also means that there are already 6 pet companies listed on China's A-shares.

As competition becomes increasingly fierce, the pet market is shifting towards intelligent development. New and traditional home appliance technology brands such as Xiaomi, Midea and Haier have entered the market to share the pie. Dogness, a domestic pet brand focusing on overseas markets, has already been listed in the United States and is doing very well.

However, no business is easy. The pet economy seems to be a blue ocean, but in reality there are still many constraints, and the resulting competitive pressure is obvious.

For example, the phenomenon of OEM is still prevalent in most industries.

This is particularly evident in the pet food market, where domestic brands often work for overseas brands, which ultimately leads to further compression of profit margins. In addition, most domestic pet food companies are still in the low-end field, and it is difficult to increase the price range. The ultimate reason is the lack of core competitiveness.

In the long run, verifying the value of the pet economy track is not as simple as scale, and the industry's future challenges are still considerable.

10. Pre-prepared meals: opportunities for long-termists

Perhaps there is no track that will undergo a reshuffle as quickly as pre-prepared meals within a year.

Pre-prepared dishes, also known as semi-finished dishes, are dishes that have been prepared in the factory and preserved by freezing or vacuum packaging. For a long time, the main battlefield of pre-prepared dishes has been on the B-end. However, with the improvement of the standardization and industrialization level of catering enterprises, as well as the further upgrading of the home culture and single-person dining needs of contemporary young people, in early 2022, along with the consumption of New Year's Eve dinner, C-end pre-prepared dishes became popular.

The attention from all parties has caused the stock prices of pre-prepared meal-related companies to soar, and companies in the catering industry have launched products in the field one after another. The popularity of the track has also attracted many trend-chasing players to join the game.

At the beginning of the year, Lu Zhengyao launched a new pre-prepared meal project called "A Bite of China", expanding the market through the franchise model. There was a rumor that he planned to open 3,000 stores within 5 months. In July, Qudian CEO Luo Min held a strategic conference for Qudian's pre-prepared meals, and shouted the slogan "10,000 stores to be opened this year". After causing widespread controversy, the project was shelved. By September, the first batch of franchisees of A Bite of China had closed their stores and exited the market.

Pre-prepared meals are undoubtedly still worth looking forward to, but if the only purpose is to make quick money and there is a lack of long-term and deep-rooted spirit, it will be difficult to sustain.

As the industry bubble is cleared, the industry has entered a new development situation. In the future, in the field of pre-prepared meals, companies in all links of the industry chain, such as product research and development and channels, will compete with each other in strength.

Whether it is Guolian Aquatic Products and Anjing Foods, which have many years of technological accumulation in the field of aquatic products or frozen foods; or online and offline channel merchants such as Hema Fresh, Dingdong Maicai and Walmart, which have strong channel and market insight capabilities; or major well-known catering companies with strong product research and development capabilities, they all have sustained and stable sales performance in the field of pre-prepared meals.

Now, another New Year’s Eve dinner is approaching, and the more mature industries and more well-prepared pre-prepared meal players are about to usher in a new trial node.

Author: Tu Mengying, Li Xinting, Ye Manzhi; Editor: Hong Ruolin

Source public account: No. 19 Business Research Society (ID: time_biz), penetrate the fog of business and return to the essence of value.