“ The vegetable market is rising and young people are sinking. ”At the moment of the epidemic, looking for the sign of “coming back” of a city, we probably have to go to the local food market.Just like July in Shanghai, it revived with the return of vegetable markets in all blocks. Mengxi restaurant, a well-known online celebrity, just resumed business a few days ago. The stall owner and customers returned at the same time. After hearing the news, many people will deliberately choose to catch the morning market on the first day.Gourmets praise the beauty of the vegetable market. Cai Lan said that wherever you go, you should first visit the vegetable market, “mainly because you like to eat, and you will buy anything you haven’t tried.”. Chen Xiaoqing said that all urban tourism without visiting the vegetable market is equivalent to love without marriage.The vegetable market to a city is often the soul to a physical existence, but in the past ten years, the pulse of this city has gradually drifted away from the young people.On the one hand, the highly developed e-commerce of takeout and fresh food has made young people adapt to the convenience of door-to-door service. On the other hand, the young generation who advocates personality, freedom and freedom is obviously not in the same level of life as the kitchen with a strong flavor of fireworks.Now, change is happening quietly.Some young people, represented by the post-90s generation, are keen to explore the vegetable markets and restaurants near their homes. In Douban, there is a “vegetable market enthusiast” group, with 140000 members gathered to share the highlights of roaming the vegetable market; In xiaohongshu, exploring the food market is a regular option for food bloggers. Buy clothes, get a perm, and shoot blockbusters in the food market. Tiktok wanghong also loves the food market.It is hard to deny that the epidemic has greatly changed the outlook on life and consumption of young people.More eager to feel ordinary daily life, willing to go out of the house, buy vegetables and cook by hand, study healthy living and eating habits, know how to compare prices many times, and live a frugal life – of course, the deeper reason may be that the post-90s are no longer young.Standing on a larger industry level, in the past two years, fresh e-commerce has been trapped in labor costs and profit models. Online product prices no longer have advantages, and gradually reduce the territory. Users can always choose better alternatives by voting with their feet. The vegetable market, in the current urban planning and design, is also increasingly moving in the direction of youth and trend.Young people enter the vegetable market, which is also waiting for young people.Happy shoppingLei Lei, who works in a large Internet factory in Beijing, has always been calm and down-to-earth on weekends in recent years.After getting up at more than 5 o’clock, he will go for a run in the nearby park. Now he can run for 10 kilometers in a row. After that, on the way home, he can easily bring back breakfast, wake up his wife, finish the meal, and then go to the nearby vegetable market together.It is a large farmers’ market outside the North Fifth Ring Road. It is near wholesale, and the prices of vegetables and meat are quite cheap. Lei Lei, for example, said that a fresh bass weighing one and a half kilograms can be won at a price of about 20 yuan, “which is more convenient than the online priceOnce, she wanted to buy eggs, and the store happened to be sold out. The landlady told her to “come this time tomorrow, there must be”. The next day, as soon as Zhu Zhu Zhu entered the store, the landlady hurried to say, “girl, the eggs are coming.”In a city with a population of 20 million, this is a warmth remembered by strangers.Why is it a vegetable marketNot long ago, Zhong Shuru, an anthropologist and distinguished associate researcher of the school of tourism of Sun Yat sen University, shared his research on the vegetable market on a podium.She mentioned that the United States began the “retail revolution” in the 1970s, and large chain supermarkets gradually replaced small markets. However, in China, even though Carrefour, Wal Mart and other giants have entered China for decades, the vegetable market has not been replaced as in the United States.One of the most important reasons is that for a long time, the vegetable market has been a small society maintained by acquaintances, including the purchase chain of vegetable vendors and the human relations between regular customers.“There are thousands of interesting people and things in the same furnace. Social relations and social exchanges happen all the time in the vegetable market.” Zhong Shuru said.However, it is hard to deny that it is still an offline retail store targeting the elderly. The study mentioned that there are 360 vegetable markets in Nanjing, among which 80% are middle-aged and elderly customers, and 53% of the vegetable market turnover has decreased year by year.Over the past ten years, fresh e-commerce has witnessed rapid development in China.In 2005, Yiguo fresh was established, marking the emergence of fresh e-commerce. In 2014, due to capital involvement, represented by the front warehouse mode of daily excellent fresh, the track ushered in a big outbreak; Then, HEMA, jd.com, meituan, etc. joined the game one after another. Before and after the epidemic, community group buying players who bought more vegetables and orange heart preferred entered the game. In the game of crazy money distribution, young people were gradually taught to buy vegetables online.But recently, the industry is another direction.Ding Dong has continuously withdrawn from many cities, including prefecture level cities such as Guangdong, Anhui and Hebei, as well as Tianjin, a municipality directly under the central government. It can be predicted that it will continue to focus on the first and second tier key cities and gradually shrink.From 2019 to 2021, the company’s annual net losses were 1.873 billion yuan, 3.177 billion yuan and 6.43 billion yuan respectively, which is a big money burner.Daily Youxian is directly rumored to be bankrupt. At the end of July, an online conference audio in Youxian daily showed that in the name of air control, the company notified employees to work at home, but directly stopped everyone’s internal accounts, and employees were directly dismissed collectively. What’s more, someone found that the company had taken away valuables such as computers, including many employees’ personal computers.The overall failure of community group buying came earlier, and the once ambitious platforms have long ceased, so there is no need to repeat.Young people in first tier cities used to be their main users, but on the other side of the overall contraction of platform businesses, young people are also being driven by the general environmentIn the 2021 Research Report on China’s smart vegetable market industry released by iResearch consulting, it is mentioned that from the perspective of fresh retail channels, the vegetable market is still the largest fresh retail channel. In 2020, the fresh retail in the Chinese vegetable market accounted for 56.0% of the total fresh retail.There are nearly 40000 vegetable markets in China. The problems existing in traditional vegetable markets, such as dirty environment, low level of informatization, extensive management, food safety and so on, have become the focus of local standardization in recent years.Creating the online red vegetable market is an epitome of the market’s re attracting young people.Last year, the reconstruction and upgrading of Xi’an Jianguomen food market introduced art blocks, bars, exhibitions and street fairs, becoming a model of youth. The old market, formerly known as Xi’an Velveteen Factory, was constrained by the renewal and iteration. Finally, the reconstruction party integrated the cultural and creative block with it, and achieved an online hit point.Similar to Jianguomen food market, Wuhan shahubian market and Suzhou Shuangta market were once popular.What the new retail business review wants to express is that, admittedly, the online Hongcai market is not the mainstream after all, but more as a carrier of urban culture and a business card facing the outside world.In other words, there is no inevitable causal link between the transformation of the vegetable market and the return of young people to ordinary life. The former is a part of urban construction planning, while the latter points more to the emotional changes of a generation.But in any case, the vegetable market is rising and young people are sinking. There is indeed a collision between the two in a broader sense, which is enough.Read the original textThe anxiety of the post-90s generation was cured by the vegetable market每日优鲜则是直接有了倒闭的传闻。7月底，每日优鲜内部一则线上会议音频显示，公司借治理空气为名，通知员工居家办公，却直接停掉大家的内部账号，员工直接被集体辞退，甚者，有人发现，公司已将电脑等贵重物品收走，其中包括了不少员工私人电脑。社区团购的整体败退来得更早一些，曾经野心勃勃的各平台们，早已偃旗息鼓，不必赘述。一线城市的年轻人曾是它们的主力用户，只是，各平台业务全线收缩的另一边，年轻人们，也在被大环境推动着改变习惯。林琼形容自己最近的状态，用了四个字：知足常乐。这个瘦削的广东女孩北漂四年，在一家头部互联网教育公司做产品。过去两年时间，疫情叠加行业动荡，公司在裁员中飘摇，眼看着熟悉的同事一个接一个离开，尽管自己有幸没有“毕业”，薪资却大幅缩水，也已经没了升职涨薪的可能。刚北漂时也有雄心壮志，如今的林琼却已经可以坦然接受当下的状态。她告诉新零售商业评论，工作不忙，又没有太多机会外出游玩，索性开始认真生活——学着像妈妈那样，趁着周末，去菜市场挑一挑好食材。后腿肉可以让摊主切丝、切薄片，排骨可以剁成想要的大小，买菜时可以随手拿上一把小葱，再听听摊主阿姨的炒菜心得。当然，这件事最有意思的是，菜市场的叔叔阿姨们玩起“私域流量”丝毫不逊于互联网人。林琼笑说，因为常去一家摊点买肉，便加了老板微信，常常能在朋友圈看到老板更新“好货”，还标注了“如果量大，可以送货上门”。摊贩们不懂“互联网黑话”，但实践了真正的“黑话”，林琼突然反思，行业浮华无趣，她开始思考，或许是时候回广州了。菜市场也在变 如果常关注城市规划和设计，会发现一个明显的趋势，近两年，网红菜市场是一个高频词汇。北京三源里菜市场，因为靠近使馆区，周边五星酒店、外交公寓林立，寸土寸金，早在许多年前，就已经是知名的“网红菜场”。明星、五星级酒店大厨常来这里买菜，因这里有来自世界各地的新鲜食材、不同美味。在小红书，探店博主、旅游博主、生活博主都常光顾三源里菜市场，甚至有不少年轻人选择来这里拍婚纱照，摊主们倒是见怪不怪。但三源里不止于此，过去数年间，这里承办了包括《薛兆丰经济学讲义》新书首发、宝马汽车、银联云闪付等多场文化宣传及企业活动。今年，快手小店也在青岛兴山路农贸市场举办了文学展，引来一波年轻人打卡潮。艾瑞咨询发布的《2021年中国智慧菜场行业研究报告》中提及，从生鲜零售渠道来看，菜市场依然是最大的生鲜零售渠道，2020年，中国菜市场生鲜零售占整体生鲜零售的56.0%。中国有近4万家菜市场，传统菜市场存在的环境脏乱、信息化程度低、管理粗放、食品安全等问题，在近些年成为各地重点规范整理的对象。打造网红菜市场，是菜市场在重新吸引年轻人的一个缩影。去年，西安建国门菜市场改造升级，引入了艺术街区、酒吧、展览和街边集市等形态，成为年轻化的典范。这家前身为西安平绒厂的老市场，受困于更新迭代的掣肘，最终，改造方将文化创意街区与其相融，成就了一个网红打卡点。与建国门菜市场相似的，还有武汉沙湖边市集、苏州双塔市集等，都曾风靡。新零售商业评论想要表达的是，诚然，网红菜市场终归不是主流，更多是作为城市文化载体，成为面向外界的一张名片。换言之，菜市场的改造潮，与年轻人回归平凡生活也没有必然的因果联系。前者是城市建设规划层面的一环，后者更多指向了一代人的情绪变迁。但无论如何，菜市场上升，年轻人下沉，两者确实有了更广义上的碰撞，这就足够了。作者：王明雅；来源：新零售商业评论（ID：xinlingshou1001），转载已获得授权。转载授权及媒体商务合作：Amy（微信号：13701559246）；加入社群：Cherry（微信号：15262433826）。
