Author: Lu Xuchen Editor: Tao Ruogu
On the day of the first purchase of the upgraded shopping cart, Wang Xiaoxiao set off from home at six o'clock in the morning, and Sam's in Tianjin was close to eight o'clock, and before the door opened, there were already many people waiting, printing out the shopping list in advance, holding a pen and paper in his hand, and placing another with one shopping cart in front of him. Later, she learned that these were all peers, and as soon as the door opened, she rushed in and grabbed the pistol legs, "Miss this time, I don't know when I will bake it again next time." "In the past year, I have been going back and forth to Tianjin twice a week, which has become the daily routine of this mother in Shandong County. Sam's Supermarket in Tianjin is located in the Meijiang business district, bringing together purchasing agents from Yantai, Dezhou, Cangzhou and other surrounding counties and cities, often men and women are paired and appear in pairs. Wang Xiaoxiao was most impressed by the four Tangshan sisters. Four ladies around 35 years old, one was responsible for taking pictures and adding orders on the spot, the other queued up to occupy a seat, and the other two carts were purchased. On the weekend, there was a long queue to buy roast chicken, and one person was limited to one, and when the one who occupied the place was about to arrive, the other three people flashed to the front of the line at a brisk trot and successfully bought four roast chickens. Wang Xiaoxiao speculated that it was a local at the checkout who borrowed a membership card for them to swipe, so that the four sisters could easily bypass the purchase restriction policy, and that person earned points and enjoyed recharge discounts. At Sam's, the limited-purchase Double J cherries have always been a sought-after commodity. The price of a box of 10 catties and about 300 yuan is the purchase price of Li Yuwei in Guangxi County during the Spring Festival last year, plus more than ten yuan of purchasing fees, which is also cheaper than cherries of the same quality in the county. Li Yuwei borrowed a friend's ID card to apply for six membership cards, which is a common operation of purchasing agents. On the day of the purchase, my friends came to Sam's to help, grabbed the best cherries, put them in the shopping cart, and let the friends keep an eye on them, otherwise they might be snatched away. The photo of the cherry was posted to the group, and immediately 30 people placed an order, one person bought three or five pieces, and some people booked the packaging, and a total of more than 50 boxes were ordered. A frequent customer in the order is a mother of three children in her thirties, her husband is in business, and the family lives in a villa area of one or two million in the county, driving more than 300,000 yuan. Most of Li Yuwei's customers are female bosses living in the county, from women's clothing, building materials, power equipment and other industries. They look at Sam because the product is guaranteed, and the bad fruit is returned. The mother of three, laundry detergent, face towels, toilet paper, steak and lamb chops to eat, all had to be bought from Sam. When purchasing, Li Yuwei will also buy some Vinda paper towels for her family, she feels that the quality is really good, but she can't say where the specific benefits are.
Li Yuwei's shopping cart is full of mochi and Swiss rolls. Courtesy of the narrator, Wang Xiaoxiao, who competed with the four Tangshan sisters, stacked stacks of Swiss rolls, lime juice and fresh meat in her shopping cart, full of instructions from fellow villagers in Shandong. Most of her 500-strong buyer base are women working within the system. Wang Xiaoxiao often goes to the government affairs center of Binzhou County, where various departments are concentrated, and the average regular worker has a monthly salary of more than 6,000. The Avène spray set was on sale, and some customers only wanted one bottle, and Wang Xiaoxiao told her that the price of the sub-package was expensive because of the risk of unsalable. The other party said happily: "As long as you buy the real thing, it doesn't matter if it's a little expensive." "In the customer base, there are also female bosses and full-time wives with wealthy families. Laundry detergent and toothpaste gift boxes are given by the female boss to employees as Mid-Autumn Festival benefits, and the gifts are not high-end, "but the grade looks different." "Locals buy things, face is very important, there was Sam's purchase on behalf of the price of 20 to 50 yuan per piece, people don't care, just want to get Sam's promise of "providing high-quality goods for elite life". Wang Xiaoxiao's customers are almost all women, and in the past year, she has only been in contact with one or two boys, and they buy Sam's protein powder for fitness. As a warehouse-style membership store, Sam's targets middle-class consumers who have money and leisure. In the past two years, Sam's has stood firmly on the heels of Internet celebrity supermarkets, and young people have become a way of life to visit Sam's and post high-quality shopping carts. Supermarkets have become popular check-in places, buying "poor ghost packages", and visiting "theme parks for social animals" have all become hot Internet memes. Riding the Internet, "Sam Fever" blew to the county seat. However, the official membership store has not yet settled in, and some people are eyeing the gap in the market, appearing between the gap between supply and demand that cannot be bridged, running errands for county residents, and going to Sam's stores in big cities to buy on their behalf. In the eyes of a daigou in Yancheng, Jiangsu, the reason why Sam is sought after by the "middle class of the county" is because they have money and no place to spend it. During this year's Spring Festival, many young people returning to the county from first-tier cities found that they were from the countryside and entered the city – their peers in the county drove BMWs, and their relatives' homes were full of high-priced fruits. During Sam's first Spring Festival in Nanning, Li Yuwei brought tens of thousands of drinks, snacks, cakes and dried fruits to customers. On weekdays, the amount of goods purchased per week is as little as 3,000 and as much as 7,800. Some township food shops will also place orders from Li Yuwei, buy more than ten or twenty pieces, and put them in the store to attract customers. In addition to the cherries, Li Yuwei also snatched the panda blanket, which she didn't know was popular at first, but a customer asked her to buy it after seeing a recommendation on Xiaohongshu. The link was sent to the group, and it was echoed, "As long as one customer says this thing is good, someone else will specify to buy it next time." ”
Purchasing agents need to use one shopping cart against another to queue up to buy. Courtesy of the narrator
Replicating a "middle-class life"
Ordinary members are 260 yuan a year, and excellent members are required to 680 yuan. Many families stock up on a week's worth of food and groceries at a time, spending thousands at a time. Sam's membership system and thousand-dollar consumption have become a barrier between the middle class and the working class, and if you haven't visited Sam's, you are likely to be ridiculed for not seeing the world. Searching for "Sam's photo" on Xiaohongshu, you can see more than 30,000 notes sharing tips for taking pictures at Sam's, and a blogger with 1.87 million followers advocates that Sam's must be filmed, and "money can't be spent in vain". Wang Yang of Sheyang County, Jiangsu Province, smells the value of Sam as a social currency. In August last year, he and his wife, who worked in the scenic spot, took advantage of the off-season to work part-time as Sam's Purchasing Agent, setting up a stall in the center of the town to sell mochi and durian mille-feuille. He found that many people would take photos of the sub-packs they bought and send them to Moments, with the text: "Finally eat Sam." He designed a box with Sam's logo enlarged and his contact information to promote it through customer posts. In this way, Wang Yang has accumulated four customer groups, a total of thousands of people, and there are also four or five thousand fans on the media. The clients include civil servants and doctors, and they live in the middle and high-end new communities of the county. He didn't quite understand people's pursuit of Sam, and felt that Sam had it, and the county supermarket also had it. When Sam's Cheerilee was robbed, Wang Yang saw Cheerilee from the same supplier lying in RT-Mart, and no one cared about it.
Sam's products purchased back to the county. Photo courtesy of the narrator Wang Yang actually didn't realize that he was providing a service that flaunted himself as different. In the night market of the county seat, the desserts he sells are divided into packages with a price increase of 30%-40%, and the unit price is much higher than that of the fried skewers and oden sold in the surrounding area. On the first day of the stall, not long after the stall was erected, seven or eight customers surrounded it, mostly women with babies, and a girl contracted all the durian mille-feuille on the stall, and the two or three thousand yuan of goods were quickly sold out. Now the income from purchasing agents has exceeded Wang Yang's monthly salary of 4,500 yuan, which fills the mortgage and shares the financial pressure of decoration. The couple plan to continue to do it, and the division of labor cooperates - Wang Yang goes to Sam's in Nanjing or Nantong to buy, take charge of the camera, and operate the social platform, and his wife does customer service and appearance. In the county seat of Binzhou, Shandong, Wang Xiaoxiao can also be regarded as a "county middle class". After becoming pregnant in 2019, she resigned to be a full-time mother, and gave birth to a second child two years ago. The husband who works in the system earns seven or eight thousand yuan a month, the family lives well, there is no mortgage pressure, and he always takes his children to Tianjin or Jinan City on weekends to go shopping and have fun, and the family travels twice a year. She joined the local 500-person Bao Ma group, and from time to time she saw Sam's shopping experience and good product recommendations shared in the group, or recommended Sam's shopping to others. Curious, she spent more than 200 generations to buy Sam's Internet celebrity products. She has a small hair, the family does business, and it costs 4,000 yuan a month to hire a nanny, and she is also a loyal customer of Sam. The two of them combined, since they want to buy it, it is better to do purchasing agents to earn some extra money and subsidize the road expenses. After the Spring Festival last year, they posted a circle of friends, saying that they were going to Tianjin Sam's and could help with the purchase, and more than 50 people joined the group at once, "I didn't expect so many people around me to have needs." A year later, they have nearly 500 customers, most of whom are introduced by regular customers, most of whom are mothers like Wang Xiaoxiao, who like to buy daily consumables such as diapers and laundry detergent. In the past four or five years as a housewife, Wang Xiaoxiao's daily life revolves around the children, either picking up Dabao to school or coaxing Xiaobao to sleep, and her life is repetitive and boring. I don't want to make money, I just want to find something to do for myself. She now has the opportunity to expand her social circle and relieve her boredom in life - most of her customers are mothers, and when she sees someone asking for help in her circle of friends, Wang Xiaoxiao is always willing to comment, and she is known as an "enthusiastic citizen", and she enjoys the feeling of being needed. As a full-time wife, Wang Xiaoxiao has to open up to her husband about any expenses. The money earned from purchasing has become a "small treasury" that she can use freely. However, most of this money was also spent on the spot at Sam's when purchasing agents.
County Internet celebrity, iterating in cost performance
At a time when life is being shaped by the Internet, most consumers in the county are exposed to Internet celebrity products in the city through the Internet, and then get actual experience through online shopping, purchasing agents and other channels. Since the year before last, Li Yuwei, a native of Guangxi, began to take food purchasing as a side business, selling Master Bao, Luxihe, and now buying Sam's, "Whatever is hot, you can sell it." A year after purchasing Sam's, Li Yuwei felt the weakness of customers' purchasing power. Some of her regulars stop placing orders, and her clients have many people who work within the system. In the county where she is located, in the past two years, there have been many coffee shops and dessert shops around the community and commercial streets, and a small cake costs 28 yuan. Her cousin opened a restaurant, and whatever was popular in the big city, she would join it, selling beef brisket rice for a while, selling European buns for a while, and once she sensed the signal of the ebb tide, her cousin would immediately withdraw and move on to the next outlet. As a purchasing agent, I will always observe the market trend. Li Yuwei has been doing Sam's purchasing for a while, and she found that many fruit stores and beauty stores have popped up, using the way of purchasing Sam's to attract traffic, and the purchasing fee is only one or two yuan, or even not charging the purchasing fee at all, in order to attract customers to the store to consume, and competitors have mixed into her customer base to grab people. Since March last year, Li Yuwei has been reported several times, saying that she does not have a food business license and cannot sell packaged food. She hurriedly hid the Sam's purchasing video posted on Douyin, and didn't dare to act in a high-profile manner anymore - after all, her original intention of purchasing Sam's was also to attract traffic to her store, and it was not worth taking too many risks. In Sheyang County, Jiangsu, Wang Yang, who started as a Sam's purchasing agent, has opened up more business, buying Internet celebrity products from other big cities such as Master Bao, Domino's, and Aunt Xu. There are also people who want to ask him to buy tea, but he doesn't understand: the taste of this milk tea is not similar to that of the overlord tea in the county? In contrast, Sam has become a drainage signboard, and the proportion of real orders is not much. In the eyes of a purchasing agent in Cangzhou, Hebei Province, Sam's top position is about to be replaced by Fat Donglai. His customers received a mediocre response to Sam's new beef noodles with roast peppers, and some complained that they were tired of eating Swiss rolls. In the past month, he has made four trips to Fat Donglai at the request of customers to buy popular products such as beer and large moon cakes. Unlike Sam, Fat Donglai takes the people-friendly route: medicines can be sold by the tablet, and a Hetian jade pendant can be bought for a hundred yuan, and the gross profit margin of a down jacket is only 0.06%, making only 3 cents. These magnified selling points are highly sought after by consumers, forming another trend of living a budget-conscious life. Careful budgeting is still one of the keywords for building county-level consumer portraits, and this judgment comes from a research report on county-level consumption trends released by Black Ant Capital last year. Consumers in the county pursue "upgrading without raising prices", which means that they value cost performance while improving the quality of life. Public media reports on "Starbucks sinking to the county seat" have also mentioned that Starbucks employees in the county will take the initiative to teach customers to receive consumption coupons and discounts because "county consumers are extremely price-sensitive". Internet celebrities have an expiration date. After the new taste, the main consumer of Sam in the county is left with the women who run the family. In Binzhou County, Shandong Province, Wang Xiaoxiao found that Internet celebrity desserts like Swiss rolls are usually only repurchased three times. The most common items that appear in orders are large quantities of daily necessities. Especially when diapers and toilet paper are discounted, it will attract a peak in the number of orders. Among Wang Xiaoxiao's customers, some people buy Sam's 20 yuan and 2 liters of milk for his son who lives in high school every week, which is cheaper than the Telunsu sold in the county town.
Wang Xiaoxiao's trunk. Courtesy of the narrator Sam's fresh meat will only be favored by county consumers at special nodes such as the Spring Festival and Valentine's Day. As the weekend get-together approaches, orders for Sam's Cake will increase. Because in a private bakery in the county, a 6-inch cake costs 158 yuan. In comparison, Sam's 8-inch durian mille-feuille costs 128 yuan, which is quite cheap. The county customers who have really precipitated are pursuing an "upgrade" that does not raise prices. After the boom, Wang Xiaoxiao is still Sam's loyal customer. As a consumer, she is no longer satisfied with the choices offered by the county market. She wants to make complementary food for her baby with a fresh date, but in the county supermarket, the production date of some products is still stuck in October last year. And the longan sold in the supermarket is frozen, and the flesh is red, and it costs 15 yuan a catty, she added. As for the vegetable market, which offers a lot of fresh fruits and vegetables, she doesn't like to go there, in her words, she is afraid that she will be looked down upon by people if she buys less, and she is embarrassed to refuse the stall owner's promotion. Compared with food, clothing, housing and transportation, her consumption pressure comes more from other aspects. When his son was six months old, Wang Xiaoxiao sent him to an early education class, "Everyone else said that it was good, but I was afraid that the child would be left behind." Two and a half years later, following in the footsteps of Fa Xiao, she signed up to learn English at an international early education center, spending 100,000 yuan for 100 lessons. Now, my son attends a private kindergarten with 10,000 yuan a year, and the picture shows that it provides a kindergarten bridging course. "Shandong is too volatile", Wang Xiaoxiao said, she didn't want to save on daily expenses, and she wanted to use the best food and drink within her ability. Spending at Sam's is part of her enjoyment, and she is "happy when she spends money". (For privacy reasons, names have been changed.) ⭐ Star Wall Street news, good content do not miss ⭐ This article does not constitute personal investment advice, does not represent the views of the platform, the market is risky, investment needs to be cautious, please make independent judgment and decision-making.