Author | Walker Iran
Edit | Egg total
Produced by | Bullet Finance
Zhang Li, who works in Beijing, returned her spring festival train ticket three times.
The first time was because Zhang Li's company was in Fengtai, and after the first batch of epidemics came out, the hometown put Fengtai District on the list of high vigilance, and the return to the hometown must have been quarantined for 14 days. In order not to cause trouble to her family, and in order to make her Spring Festival more free, she chose to refund the ticket at that time.
The second time was because the work was not really arranged. Originally, because her hometown had separated the key streets of Fengtai from other areas, Zhang Li thought that she could return to her hometown for the holidays, but due to work reasons, she had to return a high-speed rail ticket that was hard to grab.
The third time was after the work arrangement was in place, Zhang Li bought a train ticket again to prepare to go home for the New Year, but when she was about to go out to catch the train, she saw that Jiankangbao suddenly popped up the window and had to do nucleic acid.
Alone in Beijing for the New Year, Zhang Li did not know to whom she was full of nostalgia to tell, nor did she know whether the long-awaited hometown food could be tasted again during the Spring Festival. When she was idle to brush Douyin, she suddenly saw that someone at the Douyin New Year Goods Festival made and promoted the yellow sticky rice steamed buns that must be made during the Spring Festival in her hometown.
Zhang Li, whose interest soared for a time, opened the interface of the New Year Goods Festival of major e-commerce platforms and began to look for those traditional foods and supplies in her hometown that were once in memory.
Although she didn't buy much online, she felt that the nostalgia that had haunted her before was gradually fading. Looking at those familiar or unfamiliar hometown customs products, she even has a feeling of "returning to her relatives to prepare New Year goods".
And such a "New Year on the cloud" has become the most powerful means for many young people to relieve their nostalgia. In a sense, those young people who can only celebrate the New Year on the spot have found a sense of emotional belonging from the online New Year Festivals of major platforms.
1. The Spring Festival on the clouds
In the Spring Festival of 2022, some people have ushered in a reunion, but there are also many people who have not returned home and choose to stay where they are.
The Ministry of Transport officially said that it is expected to send 1.18 billion passengers nationwide during the Spring Festival in 2022, an increase of 35.6% over 2021 and a 60.4% decrease from the 2019 Spring Festival before the outbreak of the epidemic.
Since the outbreak of the new crown epidemic, "local New Year" is accelerating to become a New Year custom on some level, and netizens even ridiculed the people who celebrated the New Year in situ as "original people".
Indeed, in physical space, many people are either actively or passively separated from their hometowns by thousands of miles, unable to experience the taste of the year. However, a variety of communication means and convenient network services, thousands of miles away can also spend a new year on the cloud, and maintain close communication with their families.
Whether or not they return to their hometowns for the Chinese New Year, people's consumer demand for purchasing New Year goods will not decrease, but the way is different - today, young people who celebrate the New Year on the spot are no longer in the town to catch up with the big market, but in the cloud to "catch the market".
Baidu's hot search big data inventory of the Year of the Tiger "Top Ten Ways to Celebrate the New Year on the Cloud", ranking first in the "online shopping for New Year goods", and the popularity of searches surged by 239% year-on-year.
In order to meet the needs, the Ministry of Commerce will work with relevant departments to jointly guide the "2022 Online New Year Goods Festival". Relevant departments proposed that while ensuring the adequate supply of important people's livelihood commodities and epidemic prevention materials, more customized, intelligent, green and high-quality goods should be launched, as well as catering packages and customized Chinese New Year's Eve meals suitable for different groups of people, and the supply of digital products such as literature, film and television should be expanded.
In addition, the state also advocates that all localities increase the supply of brand and quality goods, and organize e-commerce services to extend to rural areas with the help of online New Year goods festivals to promote the sales of agricultural products.
According to statistics, the Taobao New Year Goods Festival lasts from January 7 to January 24, the Pinduo Multi-year Goods Festival runs from January 6 to January 20, and the Jingdong New Year Goods Festival runs from January 9 to February 7. This year's hot live e-commerce is also stepping up its efforts in the New Year Goods Festival, Douyin opened a 16-day "Douyin Good Things New Year Goods Festival" from January 1, and Kuaishou E-commerce and WeChat video numbers also launched the New Year Good Goods Festival activities in the same period.
During the Spring Festival, the major e-commerce platforms not only do not close, but also continuously improve the consumer experience for the characteristics of the Spring Festival. For example, when people click on various apps, special visual effects such as red envelope rain, firecrackers, and new year tigers come to the face, and you can feel the festive New Year flavor through the mobile phone screen.
The express transportation industry has also implemented the "Spring Festival does not close" policy, China Post, SF, three links and other major domestic logistics companies and Meituan, Ele.me and other enterprises to ensure the supply and capacity during the Spring Festival. According to the Beijing Municipal Postal Administration, there were about 36,000 employees in the logistics industry during the Spring Festival in Beijing, with an on-the-job rate of more than 60%, and the on-the-job rate of major brand enterprises such as postal, SF and JD.com exceeded 80%.
In addition to e-commerce platforms and domestic merchants, overseas friendly people have also responded positively, and the supply of New Year goods is not only for each family to find the "taste of hometown", but even for busy people to find "good taste of the world".
Since the launch of the "SCO National Special Commodity E-commerce Live Broadcast Activity" on January 10, nearly 1,800 live broadcasts of various types have been held, and more than 1,500 categories of special commodities in SCO countries have participated in the activities. The Deputy Secretary-General of the SCO and 14 envoys in China participated in the live broadcast, recommending SCO's special products to Chinese consumers and introducing the New Year folk customs of various countries.
According to official reports, the live broadcast has led to nearly 100 million yuan in commodity sales, participating in more than 4 million people, and the "Spring Festival of New Year Goods" of "people not moving goods" seems to be held in full swing.
2. The taste of off-site orders
Because he was in a state-owned enterprise, the unit demanded that "non-essential and not go out of Beijing", Chen Le, whose home in Xinjiang, painfully refunded the ticket he had already booked and chose to stay at the unit during the Spring Festival.
"Going back to the New Year may also require home health testing, it is better to stay in Beijing, and not add to the chaos, but also to contribute to the Winter Olympics." Chen Le told Bullet Finance.
When Chen Le told his parents that he could not go home for the New Year, his parents expressed understanding and support after a brief loss. In order for Chen Le to feel the warmth of his hometown in Beijing, his father found relatives in his hometown to prepare fresh beef and mutton cuts, and his mother went to the market to buy good dried fruits, made meatballs and snacks, and packed a sack full of "taste of home" and sent it to Chen Le.
Since the package was sent from Xinjiang, Chen Le has constantly refreshed the mobile phone page, paying attention to the logistics process, afraid of missing the pain of his parents.
Although the objective conditions of just graduating made Chen Le unable to pick up her parents to Beijing, Chen Le also prepared her own wishes, she ordered big-name skin care products online, and also purchased a fully functional intelligent scrubbing machine, wanting to give her parents a New Year surprise.
"I want them to feel what 'serendipity' is, and although I can't go back, the gifts I bought can give them some emotional comfort, and I believe my daughter is doing well in Beijing." Chen Le said.
In recent years, the purchase of New Year goods in different places has become a common phenomenon, and the various gifts sent by young people to their hometowns in the big cities where they are working hard convey the worries of the wanderers; and the local specialties and New Year goods prepared by the elders in their hometowns make the wanderers in a foreign land feel the taste of their hometown.
Graph /Photo Network, based on VRF protocol
According to the Jingdong Consumer and Industrial Development Research Institute, in the first week of this year's Jingdong New Year Goods Festival, the volume of "off-site orders" sent to non-residential addresses increased by 30% year-on-year, and the volume of off-site orders increased by 50% compared with usual days. Among them, Shandong, Henan, Hubei, Jiangsu and Sichuan are the regions that receive the most off-site orders, while Beijing, Shenzhen, Guangzhou, Shanghai and Hangzhou are the cities that send the most off-site orders.
In addition, Meituan's preferred data shows that the number of monthly orders for the national "filial piety single" has exceeded 3.5 million, and the number of "filial piety single" orders in Beijing has exceeded 860,000, the fastest growth rate in first-tier cities.
The rising off-site orders are the epitome of the upgrading of consumption patterns, different from the reserves and just needs of new year goods decades ago, young people's appeals are often "convenient and healthy" and "make parents happy", and household appliances naturally become the most favorite gifts prepared by young people.
Kuaishou data shows that the recent consumption of smart life small household appliances increased by 2678.2% year-on-year, and massagers, electric toothbrushes, and sweeping robots have become the new favorites of new goods. Tmall official data shows that the new year's goods festival smart home improvement products growth rate of more than 110% year-on-year, music showers, health intelligent monitoring toilets, intelligent care cameras have become explosive products.
However, the people take food as the sky, and food is naturally the consumer goods that people pay the most attention to when they "catch up on the clouds".
According to the "2022 "Douyin Good Things New Year Goods Festival" data report released by Douyin E-commerce, 319,000 seasonal agricultural goods were launched by Douyin E-commerce during the New Year Festival, and the sales volume of fresh agricultural specialties increased by 420% year-on-year. In addition, Douyin's special "Hometown New Year Festival" special event has led to the sales of 3.019 million local flavor foods, of which Guangxi snail powder, Xinjiang cheese and Henan braised noodles have become the most popular commodities among consumers.
Jingdong New Year goods consumption report shows that food is consumers' favorite New Year goods, from high-tier cities to sinking markets are often high-priced food that represents health, nourishment and trend, and the low-level and low-tier cities are mainly fresh meat and dry goods with regional characteristics.
3. The fun of staying behind for the Spring Festival
To be fair, in addition to not being able to reunite with his parents, Chen Le has no regrets about not being able to return to his hometown during the Spring Festival. She even had some "small luck", and the arrangement of the unit gave her absolutely good reason not to go home.
"The excitement of returning to the hometown for the New Year mainly comes from the party, seven days, all the classmates, relatives, friends take turns to invite guests to dinner, but also to prepare red envelopes for children, as few as a few thousand, as many as tens of thousands." To tell you the truth, many people are not familiar with it at all, and you can avoid these ineffective human expenses without returning to your hometown, plus the transportation costs saved, you can change to an iPhone 13. Chen Le said.
For Chen Le, staying in Beijing for the New Year also has a clear advantage: he is 25 years old, graduated from graduate school, in a state-owned enterprise, has no object, and returning home for the New Year will definitely become the "older single young woman" that relatives and friends focus on. "I'd rather have four or five blind dates a day." Chen Le said that she believes that if she stays alone in Beijing, she can avoid the trouble of being forced to marry and get away with it.
"I had a Chinese New Year's Eve meal with a few friends who had a good time, and I couldn't go home, so I would huddle together for warmth." The unit also issued Universal Studios tickets to employees who have no immediate family members in Beijing as a Spring Festival benefit, and there is no time for work, and the holiday can just call classmates to play together. Chen Le smiled and said to Bullet Finance.
As a post-95, Chen Le's understanding of the Spring Festival and the previous generation have a very obvious difference, "Su Dongpo said 'this peace of mind is my hometown', but now people reunite does not necessarily have to be in the hometown, some of the old colleagues in the office have been 'reverse New Year' in recent years, the Spring Festival is no longer rushing back to the hometown with the flow of people, but the parents were brought to Beijing, and the purpose of reunion was also achieved, the ticket price is still cheap, I can also try next year." ”
Compared with uncomfortable reunions, young people prefer to enjoy a free and comfortable Spring Festival holiday. Convenient Internet services allow young people to enjoy their favorite tastes in an affordable and efficient way, and also use the distance of physical time and space to avoid the uncomfortable customs during the Spring Festival, make up for the nostalgia in the hearts of wanderers, and also bring fresh experience and fun.
Since the beginning of e-commerce, the relationship between people and commodities has been reconstructed, and people's consumption methods and consumption habits have accelerated in wave after wave of business formats. In the days when the new crown epidemic is still not over, the New Year custom of local New Year and online shopping for New Year goods seems to have become a new form of life for people, and has also formed a perfect industrial model in the whole society, and this New Year custom may continue for a long time.
Of course, this activity, which arose from the New Year's Goods Festival on the cloud and triggered the emotional migration of young people in the local New Year, continues, and behind this change is a profound change in the living conditions of young people in China.
This year's young people spent a different spring festival on the clouds and thousands of miles away, and since then, the "New Year" has also been given a new meaning and new flavor.
*The title image in the text comes from: Visual China, based on RF protocol.