New consumption opens up new space
Instant retail meets local needs
China Economic Network reporter Guo Wenpei and Li Fang
Currently, instant retail is becoming the largest increment in local retail. Meituan's financial report shows that in the second quarter of this year, Meituan's real-time delivery order volume increased by 31.6% year-on-year to 5.4 billion orders; The core local business achieved steady growth, with quarterly revenue reaching 51.2 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 39.2%. Meanwhile, as the representative of JD's real-time retail platform business, JD Daojia's total transaction volume for the 12 months from July last year to June 30 this year reached 70.8 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 30%. The annual number of active stores exceeded 300000, a year-on-year increase of over 70%.
Why is instant retail so eye-catching? Industry experts say that the real-time retail format of "online ordering, store delivery, and hourly delivery of goods" meets the diverse needs of merchants and consumers. The institution expects that the market size of the instant retail open platform model is expected to exceed one trillion yuan by 2025.
"Real time retail refers to a new type of retail business that relies on real-time logistics and other fulfillment capabilities to expand and connect local retail supply such as physical merchants and warehousing, and meet consumers' immediate needs." According to An Lin, an expert at the Research Center of Taotian Group, the rapid development of instant retail in recent years is closely related to the importance of instant fulfillment on e-commerce platforms. Real time retail enterprises continue to invest in the construction of real-time logistics systems, building local front-end warehouses and other infrastructure to help physical retail stores achieve digitalization. The large, stable, and flexible local logistics fulfillment system makes real-time retail possible, and also brings greater space for the expansion of product supply.
The relevant person in charge of JD.com stated that the essence of instant retail is still retail, entering a new stage of development. The value is no longer just about expanding the customer flow of stores to cover an additional 3 kilometers, but more about returning to the essence of retail, namely cost, efficiency, and experience. This also puts higher requirements on digitalization and supply chain. The real-time retail model determines that retailers, brand owners, service providers, and platforms need to work together and compete in a differentiated manner.
In the view of Jiang Han, a senior researcher at Pangu Think Tank, the potential of the real-time retail market is enormous, but it will not overturn the existing e-commerce landscape. Traditional e-commerce and instant retail can leverage each other and develop together to meet the different shopping needs of consumers. However, with the intensification of industry competition, there is an urgent need for breakthroughs in improving service quality, increasing customer stickiness, and reducing costs.
"At present, the instant retail industry is in the early stages of growth, and the instant delivery system and other aspects still require joint investment and efforts from all sectors of society." An Lin said that instant retail has great development space in a wide range of sinking markets. However, the industry also faces challenges in capacity building, especially at the end of the retail system, where long-term investment is required for insight into segmented markets and support for terminal warehousing and distribution systems. Small and medium-sized business entities should actively embrace and leverage platforms.
Unique scenes bring novel experiences
Reporter Zhou Lin from this newspaper
Recently, Happy Fried Dough Twists's first restaurant themed experiential comedy, Heart Stealing Dinner, premiered in Tianjin at the immersive theater in the Creative Milan Life Square, Wuqing District, Tianjin, with a warm response. As an immersive comedy that combines drama, interaction, and dining, citizens who watch the drama can act as performers and lead actors on the same stage. "I have been paying attention to the performance of Happy Fried Dough Twists, which is very interactive and interesting," said Li Xiaojia, an audience member from Tongzhou District, Beijing.
Not far from the immersive theater, the Creative Milan Life Square, which has just opened this year, has an immersive space full of people, allowing children to play to their heart's content. Here, technologies such as holographic projection, induction radar, and audio-visual interaction are utilized to integrate interactive images, children's picture books, and esports games into the spatial experience. In the future, rich and colorful technological interactive content will continue to be integrated, providing tourists with a 360 degree immersive experience. Han Shubin, Director of Investment and Operations at Creative Milan Life Plaza, stated that since its opening, the square has held more than 20 art exhibitions with different styles, gathering more than 20 "first stores" in Tianjin, including the Creative Milan Art Center, Sanqian Academy, and Juqi. "Here, you can experience the new changes brought by the new retail format," said Han Shubin.
In the past, one could only marvel at the charm of racing cars across screens in a few film and television works. Now, when you come to the world of Wuqing V1 cars, you can personally feel the pleasure of racing cars passing by. V1 Automotive World integrates racing culture, automotive consumption, sports experience, and track sports functions. Since the beginning of this year, V1 Automotive World has held events such as the V1 Racing Carnival and the CEC China Automotive Endurance Championship. Racing events, as well as sports car exhibitions, music festivals, esports competitions, go karting experiences, and markets, have jointly created a strong atmosphere of car culture and car life, expanding the fun of car life through immersive interactive experiences.
"The activities here are very exciting and the experience is very innovative. In addition to V1 Auto World, we often go to Florence Town and Nanhu Green Expo Park," said Li Jiahao, a tourist from Langfang City, Hebei Province.
Featured scenes, diverse business formats, and high-quality supply, various new business formats bring new consumption highlights to Wuqing. For example, the Aokangda Famous Car Plaza project, which will officially debut within this year, has a construction area of 150000 square meters and can accommodate 4000 famous cars at the same time. After completion, it will become the largest used car trading landmark in North China, radiating to the Beijing Tianjin Hebei region and even the entire northern automotive market, with an expected economic benefit of 10 billion yuan.
Zhang Yingxin, Director of the Sports Bureau of Wuqing District, stated that in the next step, Wuqing will focus on assisting Tianjin in accelerating the construction of an international consumption center city, firmly grasping the construction goals of "internationalization, high-end, intelligent, and hub", further innovating and expanding the consumption scenarios of "competition, exhibition, performance, food, housing, shopping, entertainment, training, and tourism", and promoting the integration and development of the Grand Canal cultural heritage and the international style consumer business district.
Low carbon lifestyle leads green consumption
Reporter Yu Jian from this newspaper
This summer, Chen Yilin, a high school student in Zhuhai, discovered that a thick layer of green film had been applied to the renovated glass dome of the shopping mall while shopping in Nanwan Huafa Mall. The mall staff told her that, without affecting the lighting, the green film can provide insulation and significantly reduce the perceived temperature inside the mall. Meanwhile, due to the introduction of a central air conditioning energy-saving intelligent control system, the air conditioning temperature can be set and adjusted in real-time according to the temperature, saving energy consumption by 15% to 20% compared to before.
Regularly replacing LED energy-saving lighting fixtures, using biodegradable tableware and plastic bags, introducing high-tech equipment to promote wastewater treatment and rainwater and sewage diversion... In major cultural and tourism attractions, restaurants, supermarkets and other consumer places in Zhuhai, more and more operators, citizens, and tourists are using energy-saving and environmental protection products, voluntarily reducing emissions, and adopting a green and low-carbon lifestyle is becoming a new social trend.
The Implementation Plan for Carbon Peaking in Zhuhai City, issued in May this year, proposes to implement carbon reduction actions for urban and rural construction and circular economy assistance. At the Chimelong International Marine Resort in Zhuhai, the newly built venue adopts transparent roof insulation and shading technology, as well as an efficient energy system. In the "Clean Beach Campaign" held at the beach of Dadong Bay in Hengqin, tourists and volunteers picked up discarded plastic products such as water bottles to jointly reduce marine plastic pollution.
Zhu Lin, General Manager of Zhuhai Huafa Shangdu Commercial Operation Co., Ltd., introduced that in addition to implementing energy conservation and consumption reduction in engineering construction, their company also opened up an area of about 1200 square meters of new energy vehicle charging piles using outdoor parking lots early on, encouraging consumers to travel green. The current usage rate of 22 charging piles in operation is close to 100%. With its active leading role in the field of green consumption, the company has been recognized by the Guangdong Provincial Department of Commerce as one of the "Green Shopping Mall" creation units in Guangdong Province in 2022.
On the production side, biodegradable plastic production enterprise Zhuhai Jinfa Biomaterials Co., Ltd. sold over 60000 tons in the first half of this year, a year-on-year increase of 27.53%. The company's technical manager, Ouyang Chunping, stated that with the further implementation of plastic restriction policies and the increasing environmental awareness of consumers and enterprises, the biodegradable plastic industry is expected to achieve sustained growth.
The relevant person in charge of the Zhuhai Municipal Bureau of Culture, Radio, Television, Tourism and Sports stated that Zhuhai is promoting 32 star rated hotels in the city to not actively provide disposable items, and to follow environmental protection principles to do a good job in garbage classification and plastic pollution control; Encourage 11 A-level scenic spots in Zhuhai to reduce carbon emissions, cooperate with the promotion of "waste free cities" and ecological civilization in large-scale events, and actively promote green and low-carbon lifestyles.
Building an Industrial Ecology through E-commerce Live Streaming
Our reporter Liu Cheng
In the top floor e-commerce live broadcast room of Qingdao International Clothing Industry City, located in Tongji New District, Jimo District, Qingdao City, Shandong Province, the lighting is bright, and the host passionately introduces the design concept and production process of clothes to online customers.
"In the past, small OEM enterprises like us had very low profits and unstable order volumes. Coincidentally, with the rise of e-commerce, we began to learn how to design popular clothing, promote products on shopping websites, and provide good after-sales service..." Liu Taichuan, the general manager of Qingdao Chuantailong Clothing Co., Ltd., experienced a downturn in the traditional clothing industry and also caught up with the dividend period of e-commerce live streaming development.
Currently, e-commerce live streaming is gradually becoming the main way to lead digital consumption. In Qingdao, more and more merchants are participating in live streaming sales. In Liu Taichuan's words, the era of e-commerce live streaming is also an era of digital consumption upgrading. For e-commerce, it is necessary to learn to break traditional thinking, respond quickly, and the local government needs to create a good e-commerce environment.
In recent years, Qingdao has actively promoted the transformation and development of traditional commerce towards a digital economy, planted a solid foundation for the live streaming e-commerce industry, and built an industrial ecosystem that integrates production and sales, connects online and offline, integrates product and sales, and mutually feeds back. At present, there are 4724 e-commerce live streamers in Qingdao, with 441000 live broadcasts this year and a total of 5.72 billion viewers. Jimo District has also leveraged its strong foundation in the textile and clothing industry to invest in the construction of a Qingdao live streaming e-commerce base. It has settled in live streaming e-commerce institutions such as Moyun Live, Tencent Kandian, and Feiliu Technology, radiating and driving more than 2000 live streaming merchants in the market and surrounding areas.
Wu Xiaolei, Secretary of the Party Group and Director of the Commerce Bureau of Jimo District, introduced that in the first half of the year, the online retail transaction volume of Jimo reached 6.2 billion yuan, and the number of live streaming hosts and live broadcasts ranked first in Qingdao. "In order to promote the rapid development of the e-commerce live streaming industry chain, we have successively built multiple e-commerce live streaming industry bases, including Qingdao Digital Economy Industrial Park, Hesheng Cross border E-commerce Industrial Park, 1898 New Media Industrial Park, and Yingjie E-commerce Industrial Park, through a point-to-point approach and chain expansion." said Wu Xiaolei.
