Community Commerce Around Us: A New Power Beyond Neighborhood Appearance Residents | Business | Community

Community commerce, this concept is a somewhat ambiguous compound word that can vividly summarize a certain type of business in Shanghai. In the current era of internet celebrity shopping malls shining brightly, commercial entities dedicated to serving local residents around the community have quietly emerged, existing with a completely different development logic and construction method. They precisely target the service group, are low-key, simple, honest and trustworthy, and accompany the people of Shanghai like friendly neighbors.

By carefully examining the meticulously crafted community businesses, one may be able to appreciate the delicate and warm qualities unique to this city.

Take a alleyway to the extreme

The commercial form in Shanghai is like three autumns apart, not seen in a day.

The public welfare service space created by local governments is integrated with the existing commercial entities in the surrounding area, forming a new community commercial atmosphere.

A few days ago, a friend living in Xuhui said, "Come and have lunch at the newly opened 'Life Box' next door."

"Life box"? The name is quite attractive, like the lyrics of an old song: "Tomorrow is like chocolate candy in a box, what taste, full of imagination..."

We arrived at Lane 550, Shaanxi South Road, which is densely packed with house numbers, a typical Shanghai old alley. After walking dozens of steps, the aroma of food wafted in, and many people had already started queuing in front of a delicate neon lit small building. It was just 11:30 noon at this time.

Taking a closer look, stir fried pork liver costs 13 yuan, minced meat and vermicelli costs 7 yuan, salted meat and rice costs 5 yuan, and there is also a special price of crispy meat for 9 yuan... This is the community cafeteria in Tianping Street, with over a dozen dishes written on the signboard and placed at the entrance. We had a full meal and even made a package, including 3 large meat dishes, 3 vegetarian dishes, and 2 steamed dishes, which cost a total of 75 yuan.

This small building with an arched ceiling contains the universe. Coming out of the dine in area and walking inside along the corridor, a small service desk is embedded in the wall. This is the reception desk of the party and mass service station in the residential area. In addition to accepting inquiries from residents, it also provides convenient services, such as lending out strong flashlights, household toolboxes, etc., and can also measure blood pressure.

The rooftop gardens on the second and third floors once again amazed us. Wooden steps, guardrails, and colonnades are simple and rustic, adorned with red flowers and green grass, and colorful cartoon seats scattered everywhere seem to welcome children. Looking down from the terrace, the old style residential buildings with red tiles and yellow walls are in front of us, as if we can smell the sunlight on the quilts that residents are drying. It is rare in the city center to have such a unique view, where we can see the flow of people shuttling back and forth in the alleyways, as well as tall buildings with sparkling glass curtain walls in the distance. Being in this place can create a long-awaited sense of small happiness, as if time is slowing down enough to focus on experiencing everything in front of you.

This sense of comfort was interrupted 10 minutes later: a pair of young people climbed onto the rooftop garden to take art photos, a training institution teacher took the children to shoot teaching videos... I gave the space to the following ones and left the "life box" satisfied.

Following this alley to the west, there is a steamed bun shop and an organic vegetable shop. This traditional community commercial small shop may not have much to do with "appearance", but the design of the shop's sign is very coordinated with the "life box", and the creator must have put in some effort. The story here serves as a foreshadowing.

Suddenly, I recognized this alley. Isn't this the location of the "Jiashan Old City"? It is a place that many young people and foreigners in Shanghai know. Originally, at the western end of this alley, several hundred meters away, there is another house number: Lane 259, Jiashan Road. The sign of "Jiashan Old City" stands prominently on the top of the iron gate.

Many people know the story here: many years before the emergence of the "life box", the old factory building in "Jiashan Old City" was transformed into a commercial area by foreign design companies, with bars, cafes, and specialty shops gathering. Weekend markets are also held every once in a while.

Mature commercial venues and brand new livelihood service venues converge in a short old alley, and the formation of this community commercial atmosphere can be said to be 70% man-made and 3% natural. Xia Zhenwei, the secretary of the Shaanxi residential area who grew up in this area, told me that the houses in "Jiashan Old City" and "Life Box" are both state-owned assets of Xuhui District, which is also a natural advantage for the sustainable development of the old alley ecology. This alley used to be chaotic, and the "street vegetable market" has been difficult to manage for many years, but the business format is needed by residents. Therefore, multiple government departments have combined and gradually standardized to help it operate legally and serve residents. For this steamed bun shop, which has been rooted in the alley for over a decade, "Life Box" deliberately avoided the category of steamed buns in its breakfast supply and instead made the "Four Great Kings" that Shanghai people like. This not only enriches the community's commercial variety, but also helps small businesses who struggle to survive to maintain their "rice bowl".

Secretary Xia spoke in Shanghainese endlessly, revealing various details that had a Shanghai flavor, enough to make us smile and think it was true.

"Life Box" is the service brand of the entire Xuhui District. I have run multiple "Life Boxes" in a row, almost each of which is a form of community commerce: Ximu "Life Box" located on Fenglin Road has professional community coffee shops and flower shops; The "Life Box" in Leshan, located on Leshan Road, appears in the form of a "food market+community minor repairs"; The "Life Box" in Zhao Lane, located on Yishan Road, has a small library and a science popularization comprehensive activity room, which is particularly friendly to children

Of course, every time I went to a "life box", I never returned empty handed. I enjoyed a coffee breakfast for 18 yuan, picked up a handful of peonies for 35 yuan, and borrowed two collections of novels.

Believing in oneself for whom one exists

Clear thinking is an advantage for Shanghai residents, which is also important for the development of community commerce.

In the Taopu area of Putuo District, the renovaters of Baili Life Square are well aware that the community commercial complex that is about to reappear exists for whom.

This affordable place that the surrounding residents like to visit was built in 2010, with a total area of 37000 square meters and a building size of approximately 1/10 of that of Global Port. Although there is no shortage of mature commercial buildings in the surrounding area, with Dahua Business District to the east and Jiangqiao area to the south, and Jiading's popular commercial complex is just a stop by subway, Baili Life Plaza can still steadily win consumers.

There is a style of old state-owned enterprises, such as the Doudou Supermarket, ordering a table of local dishes, and seeing new products at the Golden Counter. They always go twice a week. Although residents do not know who the owner behind Baili Life Square is, consumers feel sensitive. The property rights of this shopping center belong to Putuo City Investment, a state-owned enterprise in Putuo District. The original intention of its opening was not for commercial development, but to improve the quality of life of surrounding residents. Years have passed, and Putuo City Investment has realized that the buildings have become old like human bodies, with gray facades, leaking roofs, elevator malfunctions, increasing air conditioning energy consumption, and a lack of vitality among the merchants who settle in. For residents, it is tasteless to eat and a pity to abandon them.

Starting from 2022, Putuo Urban Investment will organize its subsidiary companies to carry out renovations - renovating their appearance and updating merchants who have settled in. Nowadays, although the mall has not yet officially opened, residents have seen scenes of the new mall lighting up at night. When the floodlighting equipment lights up, the surface of the building presents a scattered radiance, which can be comparable to those popular check-in malls.

Some people don't like to compete with internet celebrity shopping malls. Li Qin, Deputy General Manager of Anjin Company responsible for the Baili Life Square project, always believes that "our own children are the best.". He believes that the ultimate goal of internet celebrities is to monetize through foot traffic. If internet celebrities cannot accumulate word-of-mouth and meet people's daily consumption needs, their popularity will be unsustainable.

In Li Qin's view, Bai Li Life Square has two core advantages. One is the loyal consumer group in the surrounding area. There are 100000 residents nearby, and according to his calculations, the monthly pedestrian flow after renovation can reach 450000. Although this number may not reach half of some popular shopping malls, consumers are his loyal customers who have a deep understanding of what they want and what they don't want.

Secondly, it is the high utilization rate within a limited commercial area of less than 20000 square meters. Li Qin did not outsource the recruitment to an experienced third-party company with a strong grasp of merchant clients. Instead, he led his team to implement stores one by one. The mall could accommodate a total of around 50 enterprises, and about 70% of them have been implemented, with a total of 30% being old merchants.

Confidence comes precisely from a clear card in one's hand. Li Qin said: "Although the retail industry has declined due to the rise of online shopping, we still have confidence, which comes from a full understanding of the consumer population." The transformed mall retains the just needed business forms of cinema, barber shop, dental clinic, children's training institutions, cafes, etc., giving most of the 6000 square meters of space originally given to Wal Mart to the newly introduced Shangxi Supermarket, and a small part to some coffee, milk tea and catering stores.

At that time, the team of Anjin Company had a round of talks with many well-known brands, and ultimately invested the olive branch in "Shang Youxuan" and boldly introduced small convenience stores nearby. In addition, brands such as McDonald's, Starbucks, Naixue's Tea, Chow Tai Fook, Anta, as well as a number of hot pot restaurants and Sichuan restaurants are also about to settle in. Li Qin's experience is: "After coming out of a big store, people will go to a convenience store to buy a bottle of mineral water to drink; opening a cinema can at least make the downstairs caf é sell dozens of cups of coffee a day, and training institutions can also make McDonald's business better... In a healthy environment, shops can borrow and support each other."

In the process of wholeheartedly renovating Baili Life Square, Li Qin seems to have realized the true essence of community commerce: high frequency and low price. "Community commerce may be the closest and closest form to the essence of commerce to consumers. A shopping mall is like a stage, and the quality of the stage is far from just decoration, but rather the introduction of people, content, and the relationship between performers and audiences. In his opinion, owners should build a more perfect consumer scene, focus on the theme of" content supply ", and focus on building a sustainable commercial" stage "for their target audience.".

This stage is only a few months away from the opening of the big screen. Merchants who have signed up are eager to try it out and have started conducting consumer group research, while many old customers are looking forward to it bringing new fun to their lives.

Exploring the Way to Get Along with Residents

Diversified communities have facilitated the diversification of community business formats. Building and co governing while promoting functional improvement through co governance is a common feature of community commerce that I have seen.

Caoyang Community, known as the first worker's new village in New China, has received much attention in recent years due to its outstanding planning and proper governance.

There is a community commercial complex that was renovated almost simultaneously with the Millennium Park, but was temporarily overshadowed by this internet famous park, which is worth mentioning. The Guixiang Road Pedestrian Street, less than one kilometer away from the Baixi Park, is 388 meters long and only 10 meters wide. It was built in 1952 and is the same age as Caoyang New Village. It exists quietly to this day, seemingly integrated into the lives of surrounding residents. The surrounding environment is not bad, but it is still far from a "quality of life".

Taking advantage of the 70th anniversary of the founding of Caoyang New Village, "Guixiang Road" has been upgraded to "Guixiang Fang". The biggest highlight is that Guixiang Vegetable Market has been upgraded to Guixiang Market, which has been transformed from an old building into a small commercial complex. The first floor is equipped with various snacks, catering, and convenient living services; The market has moved from the first floor to the second floor, and each booth's electronic AI intelligent scale has functions such as price display monitoring and food traceability; There are also social spaces for neighbors, cultural spaces for pavilions and corridors, and space for holding markets around the commercial complex.

"This is everyone's joint contribution," said the street officials responsible for the renovation of Guixiangfang, including the surrounding residents and the merchants of this street. In the process of planning Guixiang Fang, the design team visited residents countless times and listened to their opinions, successfully interpreting this "comic life show belt" at the scale of "neighborhood units", preserving and optimizing the living scenes needed by residents. At the same time, in the entire renovation and subsequent management, the street also took the lead in establishing the "Guixiangfang Street Association" joint party committee, bringing various government management departments and street merchants together into the "circle of friends" to participate in subsequent management.

When chatting with members of the street association about Guixiang Fang, people began to depict scenes like this: in the future, there will be live streaming rooms by the riverbank, street performances on the garden commercial street, as well as parties and fashionable night markets on the rooftop

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Even if understood literally, community commerce has a strong "community" attribute, is related to the public, and naturally possesses a co governance and sharing attribute.

The community commercial complex "Zhongtan Yili" diagonally opposite Tian'an Qianshu, a popular landmark in Changshou, is also a typical case.

Zhongtan Yili is a community commercial building embedded in the residential buildings of COSCO Liangwan City. This commercial building has existed since the completion of the community 20 years ago. In the past two years, the developer has implemented updates and construction here, and together with Yichuan Street, they have introduced a group of new businesses that meet the needs of residents.

The frequency of residents visiting Zhongtan one mile is not lower than visiting Tian'an Qianshu, but the neighborhood secretary Shao Jianping said that getting along with the community business is actually not easy because no ordinary person can do without community business, and no ordinary person wants it to be too close to them. Just like in Zhongtan Yili, there are 14 doors open in the community, and the living pipes and garbage bins of the residents are also intertwined with the commercial community.

What is the way of getting along? Shao Shuji said, "There is nothing else, only concessions." And this kind of concession is mutual. For example, the fire pipes in residential buildings are leaking due to aging, and there is no one to repair them near the Spring Festival, making it difficult to afford this cost for a while. The development party of Zhongtan Yili has borne this cost; Many business employees pass through the entrance and exit of the community, sometimes borrowing parking spaces from the community... Such incidents happen from time to time. If the two parties cannot reach an agreement, they can also be handed over to the neighborhood party building alliance for handling, which is supported by government resources.

Community commercial entities and community residents are interdependent, and some cultural activity spaces planned by residential areas are naturally placed in commercial entities. Last year's precious photo exhibition showcasing the transformation of COSCO's two bay cities brought many residents closer psychologically to the commercial community.

As a promotional slogan during the event: "Revitalize with your heart, light up the future." These eight words provide a reference answer for how community commerce can operate in a healthy and long-term manner - innovating community commerce with your heart and creating a future oriented lifestyle.

A New Force Beyond Neighborhood Appearance

There are endless stories about community commerce.

In the past, we often looked towards developed countries and learned from their business development experiences. For a long time, there has been a chain of disdain: projects in large domestic cities are handed over to designers in European and American countries, projects in medium-sized cities are handed over to designers in large cities... and so on, as if "dimension reduction attacks" are the magic weapon for creating commercial masterpieces.

And now we are gradually discovering that Shanghai already has the world's largest community commercial complex with top-notch software and hardware facilities. So where else should we benchmark and from whom should we learn? Standing on the "mountaintop" is not just about "looking at the small mountains". Looking at oneself from a different perspective will inevitably lead to new insights each time.

The "Shanghai 2035 Overall Plan" proposes the concept of a "15 minute community living circle", emphasizing the provision of diverse and convenient social services for urban residents in short distance spaces, and emphasizing the provision of cultural and leisure functions beyond commerce. Around this concept, Shanghai has made numerous attempts to create community business models and quickly upgrade and iterate them, making them a high-frequency consumption center for people.

After a brief review, it can be found that there are several obvious characteristics of Shanghai community commerce - emphasizing the convenience service function, and emphasizing both commerce and public welfare; Skilled in creating a sense of human touch and relaxation in commercial spaces; Skilled in organizing characteristic community activities, mobilizing the enthusiasm of the masses, and enhancing interactivity.

Based on these advantages, community commerce still has the potential to deepen and penetrate, and there are many areas to focus on: firstly, a small project size and relatively fixed consumers may not necessarily be disadvantages, but there are certainly limitations. Community commerce needs to work hard to increase customer flow and revenue, such as planning multiple themes such as clothing, food, housing, health, tourism, and education, and not overlook small product categories such as drugstores and laundry shops. I have seen storage cabinets with freezing function, milk water heaters and microwaves for mother and baby use, and specific spaces for trendy brands to provide live shopping services for customers in a mall in a small city in Japan.

Secondly, we will pay more attention to building distinctive social spaces and continuously develop new high-quality social and leisure scenes for residents. For example, many community businesses set up stairs internally, which is a public space that is particularly easy to accept and can create a sense of hierarchy. An IKEA in Shanghai has taken the staircase element to the extreme in its recent interior renovation, inviting people to sit, chat, and have some desserts. Even those without shopping needs are willing to stay in such a friendly space for a while. This construction method is particularly suitable for replicating into the community business field, in order to strengthen the emotional connection between residents and commercial entities.

Thirdly, we can delve deeper into the field of cultural consumption. Cultural life, as an essential necessity for contemporary community residents, helps to enhance the attractiveness of community commerce and form unique regional characteristics. For example, some community commercial entities have started holding art exhibitions, photography exhibitions, light shows, and cultural markets, etc. These types of activities are not expensive, but they can expand the influence of community commerce through various efforts, and also normalize some popular activities.

The underlying logic of all of this, extracted from the interviewees, is based on a positive outlook on the development trend of community commerce. Some analysts, operators, and government officials in the commercial real estate industry unanimously believe that a clear trend after the epidemic is that young people and office workers who previously had vague concepts about communities and neighborhoods have turned their attention to this area with "home" as the core and radiating physical boundaries, and their attention to community commerce is continuously increasing. Some commercial real estate companies have actively developed community commercial product lines, and Internet giants have also accelerated the layout of community commerce to explore offline markets. According to a domestic survey, it is expected that by 2030, at least 20000 new community commercial entities will form nationwide.

So, let's get closer to community commerce and experience it. It is not only a visible representation of neighborhood communities, but also represents a new trend and power.