How far can a hot trunk startup go?
A corner of the Internet celebrity trunk market at Yangfeng Road Night Market in Nanning City, Guangxi.
Luo Jie / photo
When there were no customers, Li Dandan and Xiao Hei chatted on the seats next to the trunk to pass the time.
Xu Fan / photo
In the Yangfeng Road Night Market, there is a steady stream of customers in front of the booth.
China Youth Daily, China Youth Daily reporter Xie Yang / photo
Luduoduo's trunk bar attracts many young people to check in.
China Youth Daily, China Youth Daily reporter Xie Yang / photo
Every day around 17:00, as long as it doesn't rain, 25-year-old Awen drives a red-and-white modified van slowly into the trunk market of Greenland Central Square, Qingxiu District, Nanning City, Guangxi.
After placing the freezer and tables, chairs and benches, he sat leisurely aside and waited for customers to patronize.
When there were not many guests, he would sit around the car with a few friends, chatting freely with the summer evening breeze and melodious music.
In the trunk market, the lights flickered and laughter erupted.
Driven by the night economy and camping fever, trunk entrepreneurship has gradually become popular.
On major social platforms, short videos and news reports of trunk markets in Xi'an, Nanjing, Wuhan, Chengdu and other places continue to emerge. Signboard hangings, vertical blackboards, and ambient lights related to booth stalls are also selling well on the Internet.
A decorated or modified private car, low booth fees, cakes, drinks, clothing accessories and other items with low thresholds make many young people eager to try.
Is the trunk business just a "senior street stall" as some people describe it?
How far can this entrepreneurial model that is popular all over the country go?
Life and dreams fly together
Affected by the new crown pneumonia epidemic, Ludodo's brick-and-mortar bar business is sluggish.
She drove thousands of kilometers from Harbin, all the way to the south, and opened a trunk bar in Nanning, Guangxi in October last year.
In the Yangfeng Road Night Market in Liangqing District, Nanning City, Lu Duoduo's trunk bar is a dazzling presence.
Under the pink neon signboard, the yellow light illuminates the rear trunk full of various drinks and delicate glassware.
A ring of decorative lights around the trunk twinkles in the dark, adding a romantic vibe to this moving bar.
From time to time, passers-by would punch in and take pictures in front of her car.
Before, Lu Duoduo went to car camps in Daming Mountain in Nanning City, Guangxi Sports Center and other places to set up stalls, or was invited by enterprises and businesses to do activities.
In May of this year, as the popularity of the Yangfeng Road Night Market became more and more popular, she decided to move the business here.
Although the Yangfeng Road Night Market, filled with barbecue, snail noodles, and lemon tea, is somewhat at odds with the romantic mobile bar, but in Lu Duoduo's view, high traffic is the last word.
When the business is good, she can sell about 150 glasses of mixed wine a night, and the turnover can reach one or two thousand yuan.
When there are few people, you can earn several hundred yuan a night.
Not far from Lu Duoduo's mobile bar, Tan Yingying's trunk cake stand looks a lot simpler.
A simple strip of cloth hanging on the back of the raised car is the sign of the stall, and a folding table covered with plaid is a display stand for products.
Tan Yingying said frankly that her work was affected after the epidemic, so she thought of starting a business with her boyfriend using the trunk of the car.
During the day, she has to do part-time jobs such as driving school and insurance, and at night she drives to Yangfeng Road with her boyfriend to set up a stall.
When the popularity is high, she can close the stall after selling cakes and drinks at 9:00 pm. When there are few people, she will set it up at the latest after 1:00 am. ".
In Tan Yingying's view, trunk entrepreneurship is a way to combine life with dreams.
"Life is that we have to make money to support our family, and our dream is that we look forward to making milk tea and coffee in the future, and driving all the way to travel and set up stalls to realize our Tibet dream," she said.
During an interview at the Yangfeng Road Night Market, a reporter from China Youth Daily and China Youth Daily learned that the people who can do the trunk stall business are basically car owners, and the cost of decoration is much higher than the threshold for setting up a street stall. .
From the perspective of revenue, the market management will arrange the stall owner in a better position because the stall is relatively bright and eye-catching.
But in addition to the location advantage, in terms of operation, they have no obvious advantages compared with the tricycle stall owners or street stall owners operating in the same market.
Compared with the wild marketing of some stall operators who are loudly soliciting customers and guessing codes for free drinks, the stall owners in the trunk area are obviously a lot more Buddhist.
Li Dandan (pseudonym), who sells coffee in the central plaza of Greenland, works in HVAC during the day in a building materials company, and sets up a stall in the trunk at night as her sideline.
The 27-year-old Nanning girl bought a Jinbei van for outdoor camping last year, and later started to set up a stall with the help of a friend.
Open the back cover of her car, and there is a colorful beverage shop. The stainless steel coffee machine, the log-colored cargo rack, and the transparent storage box covered with colorful labels make her small shop look young and fashionable.
The interior of the car was also transformed into two rows of sofa chairs, with Hello Kitty pillows placed, and the orange-red lights from the window looked extra warm.
Li Dandan loves to laugh. She is friends with Xiao Hei, who sells wine next door.
She recalled that she was the first batch of people to enter the trunk market at the invitation of Xiao Hei in August last year.
At most, there are more than a dozen trunk stalls open at the same time, but with the rent collection in the business district and the diversion of emerging Internet celebrity night markets, many stall owners have looked elsewhere.
Li Dandan and Xiao Hei still stay in the vicinity to operate their business. "The environment here is relatively warm as a whole. After get off work, it feels good to hang out and chat here."
For more than half a year, Li Dandan has gained a lot of new friends.
Some nearby residents often come to the stall to drink coffee, and Li Dandan jokingly calls them the "big one and two" big brothers.
When it was cold last winter, she and other stall owners were cooking hot pot and playing cards in a modified car. She didn't seem to care that much about turnover.
Setting out a stall every night seems to have become a way of her nighttime pastime.
A trendy market for young people
At 7:30 p.m., the Internet celebrity car market in the Kangle Qingshan Riverside Town under the Qingshan Bridge in Nanning City opened for business.
The post-95s entrepreneur Luo Zhiyong's trunk drink shop is a little special. He converted the open truck compartment of a pickup truck into a light stage. Whenever a customer visits his drink shop, his partner Wei Meimei (pseudonym) will Will sing songs on stage.
Luo Zhiyong told reporters that his main customers are young people in their 20s and 30s, many of whom are fashionable youths who play music, skateboards, and pets, as well as surrounding residents.
"From 7:00 to 9:00 in the evening, most of the parents and children come for a walk after dinner. After 9:00, there are more young people." In the fountain square of the riverside town, the sound of the skateboard landing, the sound of the engine of the modified motorcycle, The sound of children chasing slapsticks is so lively.
It is not as prosperous as a large commercial complex, nor is it as noisy as a night market. Luo Zhiyong believes that the trunk market where he is located presents a "comfortable and freehand" atmosphere.
25-year-old Nong Qiuying often drives from the Wuxiang New Area headquarters to Luo Zhiyong's stall after get off work with friends, ordering a cup of lemon tea, listening to songs and chatting, and playing cards and board games when there are many friends.
With the rise of short video platforms such as Douyin, Kuaishou, and Xiaohongshu, young people's trunk startups are characterized by a strong Internet celebrity economy. Many consumers also come here with the purpose of punching in Internet celebrity trunk stalls. a tour.
The 35-year-old Feifei has been a self-media travel blogger for 8 years. The epidemic has put an end to her plan for a national self-driving tour.
In December 2021, she and her lover decided to convert the rear trunk of the RV into a mobile coffee shop.
While setting up stalls at the Confucius Temple Wharf and Yangfeng Road Village in Nanning City, she registered accounts on Toutiaohao, Bilibili, YouTube and other platforms, focusing on RV modification and RV self-driving tours. The fans accumulated on the media platform include Many are converted into customers.
He Fan, who was the first to operate a trunk market in Nanning, established NP (NewPartner) with some returnee friends in 2015 to introduce the popular trunk market in Europe and the United States into Nanning.
"The car trunk market originated in the United Kingdom. At first, local residents used the trunk of the car to replace the idle items in their homes. Later, it gradually evolved into a comprehensive gathering that integrates making friends, leisure and entertainment, and item sales and sharing." He Fan Said, we made some improvements during the introduction. In addition to retaining the tradition of barter, we also plan a theme for each issue, such as environmental protection, caring for small animals, etc., and then invite well-known local news figures to the scene to attract citizens to participate, and arrange small Performances, customs clearance games, lottery activities, etc. increase the interactive experience of consumers.
In He Fan's view, the trunk market is a business model for young entrepreneurs to face young consumers.
Every car in the market is a small flow body. From the appearance of the trunk shop, to the projects, products sold, and marketing methods, they must be interesting and innovative to stimulate the interest of young consumers.
To this end, He Fan and his team, in addition to strictly screening merchants when attracting investment, sometimes make special trips to the streets to find some special craftsmen.
He Fan believes that the location of the trunk market is also very important.
At that time, he had held several trunk fairs in the suburbs, but because citizens had to make a special trip to drive there, the traffic flow was not ideal.
Cooperating with commercial complexes in prosperous areas to hold markets, the market and commercial complexes can drain each other, and the effect will be much better.
The "B-Side" of Trunk Entrepreneurship
"At that time, NP Company gave up the project after operating the trunk market in Nanning for 3 years." He Fan said that there were no technical barriers to operating the trunk market. Yes, some operators even waived the rent for the business at the beginning, which had a great impact on him.
In addition, after several years of operation, the commercial entities and real estate developers who had asked them to attract traffic gradually lost their freshness. When talking about business cooperation, the other party bluntly said, "Why don't we change to another cooperation model next time."
He Fan believes that each business model has its own life cycle. Once more and more people do it and the industry competition becomes more and more intense, it means that its life cycle is going downhill.
What he didn't expect was that a few years later, the trunk market became prosperous again in some business districts and night markets in Nanning.
"Perhaps after the epidemic, everyone is eager to go outdoors to relax." He Fan said that with the rise of camping fever, the current trunk operators often set up a tent beside the car, and put some tables and chairs, so that everyone can have a good time. Planting the experience of enjoying the cool air in the camp, "this is also an innovation."
A reporter from China Youth Daily and China Youth Daily checked the news and found that the boom in entrepreneurship in the trunk in the past two years is also related to the vigorous development of the night economy in many areas.
For example, the relevant departments of Nanjing City, Jiangsu Province proposed that the trunk market in Wumadu Square should be built into a benchmark consumption scene with Nanjing characteristics.
When promoting the economic development of the night market, Suzhou District of Jiuquan City, Gansu also built the trunk market as a highlight of the youth innovation and entrepreneurship demonstration block.
Although the trunk business looks beautiful, a reporter from China Youth Daily and China Youth Daily found in an interview that it is not easy for operators to make money to support their families in this way.
The weather is the first hurdle in front of them.
The rainy season in Nanning is long this year, and stall owners often drive hard to the market to set up their stalls. When a heavy rain comes, they can only close early.
Feifei's mobile coffee cart was sitting at Nanning Confucius Temple Pier for a while.
The Confucius Temple Wharf is a treasured camping site in Nanning, but after the summer in June and July, the hot weather is not friendly to camping, fewer people come, and coffee sales have dropped a lot.
"There are more people watching, but fewer people buying drinks." Ms. Tian, who runs a sister tea stall in the trunk of the Yangfeng Road Night Market, complained that although the night market was crowded, the stalls had similar business items, which led to more and more merchants. more rolls.
Some stalls selling lemon tea in the market started a price war of "buy one get one free" and "buy two get one free", and "guess the code to win lemon tea" has also become a new marketing method. I wonder if I'm fit to stay here.
Awen, who runs the trunk dessert stall in the central plaza of Greenland, although the business is a little deserted, but every hour, he will use a small brush to brush the fog condensed on the freezer little by little, so that passersby can see the fresh food in the freezer. Taro, taro balls, corn and other sugar water raw materials.
"When the business is at its best, the daily turnover is only more than 100 yuan, and when there are few people, it is only tens of yuan." Awen said that compared with spending 5 hours a day to prepare raw materials, such results are difficult to satisfy.
In addition, the raw materials of the sugar water cannot be sold out on the same day, and the next day they will deteriorate or have a bad taste, so they can only be thrown away, which also greatly increases the cost.
Awen said that according to the current business situation, stalls can only be used as a sideline, and it is difficult to maintain a living as a full-time job.
At present, he regards starting a business in the trunk as a pastime during the transition period. In the future, when the economic situation improves, he still plans to find another full-time job.
In He Fan's view, the trunk market, as an imported product, is somewhat different from my country's consumer culture.
Logically, it should be built to be relatively high-end, but if it is made high-end, it will definitely face a relatively small crowd, and if it is made too civilian, it will be regarded as a high-end street stall.
"Consumers who go to the market often pay more attention to real things, such as whether the taste of the thing you sell is good, the quality of the product, and whether the price is affordable." He Fan said, as for whether you present it in the form of a car trunk, or Presenting in the form of tents or in the form of booths is not the key factor, after all, there are too many choices now.
Young people may visit the trunk market once or twice for the sake of punching in and having fun, but in terms of long-term development, there is still a question mark about the vitality of the trunk market.
China Youth Daily, China Youth Daily reporter Xie Yang, intern Xu Fanluojie Source: China Youth Daily