A table of delicious dishes during the reunion season is full of care for loved ones, expectations for the New Year, and love for life.
Years are good, years are good, things are prosperous and people are prosperous. When you walk into the vegetable market, you will find a dazzling array of seasonal goods and a sense of life with people coming and going.
The Central Economic Work Conference held at the end of 2023 proposed "optimizing the consumption environment."
Nowadays, many wet markets are adapting to diversified needs and trying innovative operations to not only maintain the convenience of life supply, but also enhance the comfort of consumer experience, retain repeat customers, and win new customer groups.
This edition recently jointly launched the "Come and Visit the Vegetable Market" media integration activity with the People's Daily video client "Vision" to collect stories from netizens online and visit the vegetable market offline to see what new scenes and changes are happening in the consumer environment at home.
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Harbin Daoli Vegetable Market welcomes new customers
"Driven by young consumers, passenger traffic increased by 1.5 times and consumption doubled in January, reaching nearly 1 million and 20 million yuan respectively."
At the end of the year and the beginning of the year, Harbin becomes a popular tourist destination.
For foreign tourists, the wet markets "embedded" in the streets and alleys are the most direct place to experience the taste of the city.
“Bring a few kilograms of red sausage home is not considered a visit to Harbin” “Just eat the big-headed Leba”... Harbin Daoli Vegetable Market, the distinctive sound of hawking mixed with the sounds of frying, cooking, pots and pans The movements merge into a river of sound.
Liu Ziwei, from Chongqing, nibbled on boiled corn that cost "two yuan a piece or five yuan three" and walked freely between them.
24-year-old Liu Ziwei is a graduate student at Chongqing Normal University. She traveled to Harbin with her classmates during the winter vacation and experienced the amusement rides of Ice and Snow World, experienced the ice lantern art in Zhaolin Park, and then "sauntered to Daoli Food Market": "We had already After paying attention to this century-old market, I made a special trip to 'check in' and experience the 'old iron' cuisine of Northeast China."
Sweet honey buns, glutinous sticky bean buns, fragrant grilled cold noodles, crispy fried tenderloins... Daoli Vegetable Market has more than 200 shops arranged in a market area of nearly 14,000 square meters. Satisfy the taste buds of guests from all over the world.
It is full of human touch and life, providing an "immersive experience".
Liu Ziwei had fun buying and eating happily: "When the lady selling red sausage said, 'What are we going to order today?', I thought of myself as a regular customer. We chatted while choosing, and the sweetness of her words was enough to make the lady miss a mark."
"The old store has welcomed a new customer group and gained new vitality. Driven by young consumers, customer traffic increased by 1.5 times and consumption doubled in January, reaching nearly 1 million and 20 million yuan respectively." In Daoli Cuisine. In the impression of market manager Ma Rongfeng, more and more young people, including tourists and citizens, visit the vegetable market in recent years, and even account for the majority.
Why do young people love to visit the vegetable market?
In Liu Ziwei's view, the "appearance" of the wet market has contributed to this "two-way rush": "We come here for the special snacks, but we will definitely also pay attention to the sanitary conditions. Although there are many merchants here, the stalls are neat and the environment is tidy, which makes It makes people feel comfortable and at ease.”
In Ma Rongfeng's eyes, "catering" to young people requires an "exclusive secret recipe": "Young people like to play on social media and pay attention to 'letting their circle of friends eat first'. Therefore, we encourage stall owners to actively show themselves and face the customers' cameras. Say a few more words, and at the same time cover the wireless network for the market to facilitate merchants’ live broadcast and customers’ sharing.”
[Reporter’s Comments] The Daoli Vegetable Market is filled with steam, oil smoke, steaming heat, and full of people... The breath of life blends here and condenses into various flavors on the tip of the tongue, making people truly feel the beauty of daily life. This is probably This is why many young people fall in love with visiting wet markets.
Chengdu Zhongdao Street Vegetable Market embraces new business formats
"The rent at the wet market is lower, and the money saved can be used to upgrade the quality of materials and stores to better meet customer needs."
Walking along the Zhongdao Street vegetable market in Shuyuan Street, Jinjiang District, Chengdu, you can see a dazzling array of fresh fruits and vegetables, meat, poultry and seafood, and hear people shouting and asking for prices.
On the street, a small house with red bricks and wooden doors flashes into view, which is quite surprising - it is a coffee shop.
"The original site was a chicken shed, which was transformed into a coffee shop. Unexpectedly, it became an 'Internet celebrity.'" Chang Sihong, the store manager, opened a campus coffee shop when he was in college in 2018.
After graduation, he systematically learned beverage preparation and store management, and returned to Chengdu to start his own business again.
Why open a coffee shop into a vegetable market?
"It has a sense of contrast and is interesting." Chang Sihong said frankly, "More importantly, the rent in the wet market is lower, and the money saved can be used to upgrade the quality of materials and stores to better meet customer needs."
The coffee shop attracted Zhu Hong, who lives nearby: "The price is affordable and the taste is mellow. I stopped by to buy a cup after get off work. If I want to take a rest, I sit in the shop and look at the bustling crowds outside the window. It's very life-like." Some middle-aged and elderly people shopping for food. They also come here to try new things, and some residents who come here because of its reputation even become regular customers.
"The customer flow is getting bigger and bigger, and hundreds of cups can be sold every day." Chang Sihong said that the sales volume in the wet market shows that the consumer demand of the people has become more sophisticated.
He planned an outdoor space, which is often full when the weather is good. "Chengdu already has a 'teahouse culture'. Drinking a cup of coffee in the open air is also an expression of the social need for 'zero distance'."
The reporter went deep into the vegetable market and came to an art museum B&B.
The B&B was renovated from an old teahouse. The first floor is used as an exhibition area and the other three floors are guest rooms.
"Retain the old flavor while also building a new public space." said Wu Ziqian, the person in charge. "In addition to regular exhibitions, the B&B will hold three special art exhibitions in 2023, attracting 12,000 visitors, driving an increase in revenue of nearly 20%."
"The wet market not only has 'firewood, rice, oil and salt', but also 'poems and distant places'." Peng Shiqun, a merchant at the Zhongdao Street wet market, said that in the past, most of the people who visited the wet market were old acquaintances from the surrounding communities. Since then, there has been a literary and artistic style. Elements, diners and tourists come here to visit, and business is getting better and better. Last year’s revenue increased by about 10% compared to previous years.
[Reporter’s Comments] From convenience and benefit to the people, to enriching consumption scenarios, to creating a social space to adjust life and release emotions, places like Zhongdao Street Food Market integrate the history and culture of the old city into the streets and alleys, and gather new business formats and scenes. In all kinds of markets, more and more places are meeting the increasingly diversified consumption needs of citizens and tourists better and better.
Kunming Daguan Seal Script New Market Meets New Demands
"Increasing the number of check-in tourists does not mean reducing the number of grocery shopping customers. When young people are 'out of the circle', other groups cannot be 'kept in the circle'"
How did the wet market become an "Internet celebrity", and how should it become "popular"?
At Kunming's Daguan Zhuan New Farmers' Market, a reporter asked this question.
"First of all, the environment must be good." Before taking over the management of the market, Wu Xianji was the project safety officer and supervisor of Yunnan Jiantou Third Construction Co., Ltd. "Those who do engineering are best at 'renovating' the appearance of buildings. The company invested 30 million yuan , renovate water supply and drainage, fire protection, power supply systems and dirty and dirty areas, harden roads, replace roofs, renovate exterior walls, renovate bathrooms..."
“The number of customers in the store has increased.” Wang Yan, the owner of Wang’s Yunnan Style Steamed Pork, has been operating here for more than 20 years. It is purely handmade and uses abundant materials. It is the signature store in the market. “The store used to be opened in the No. 2 greenhouse, which was narrow and crowded. , customers queue up and interact with each other. During the renovation, the project team customized a design plan for the upstairs store, installed an elevator, and expanded the space, but the rent did not increase!"
"This place is very famous on social media." The first stop for Xia Yuan, a girl from Wuhan, Hubei Province, when she came to Kunming was the Daguan Zhuanxin Farmers Market.
The traditional vegetable, fruit and seafood stalls, specialty coffee, milk tea, and cultural and creative shops are all well-proportioned and rich in categories, which are very attractive to her. "I drank the sweet white wine, tasted the steamed pork with rice flour, and now I'm going to 'check in' the bean curd rice noodles." "
Daguan Zhuanxin Farmers Market has more than 600 stalls and is open for more than 20 hours a day.
How to operate such a large market well?
Wu Xianji has his own thoughts: "Increasing the number of check-in tourists does not mean reducing the number of grocery shopping customers. When young people are 'out of the circle', other groups cannot be 'in the circle'."
For tourists, the vegetable market is a "vegetable garden" where you can not only see the rich ingredients gathered together, but also retain the simple market atmosphere, which is "beautiful, delicious and fun".
For surrounding residents, the vegetable market is a "vegetable basket". Flowers are eaten in spring, leaves are eaten in summer, fruits are eaten in autumn, and roots are eaten in winter. The main consumers are local residents, and the main focus is "affordable, convenient and abundant".
In the first month of the year, citizens go shopping and tourists gather, which is the peak period for the farmer’s market.
Wu Xianji and the management team are busy: understanding the purchase status of merchants and launching "temporary leasing" to meet warehousing needs; studying netizen comments and carrying out micro-transformation of the market; organizing comprehensive cleaning and improving the channeling mechanism to ensure that the market is tidy and the passages are smooth; according to citizens' consumption To meet demand, introduce affordable vegetable stores to ensure stable prices...
"We have also introduced the 'Internet celebrity quality inspection' to enhance the 'Internet reputation'." Wu Xianji said, "At the same time, we must strictly prohibit shortcomings and shoddy products, and build a good old store to facilitate regular customers."
[Reporter’s Comments] The customers walking leisurely, the merchants shouting in earnest, the delicious food that is memorable, the comfortable and pleasant environment, and the crowds and selections in the wet market all have a real sense of happiness.
The new year brings new passenger flows to new markets, bringing new consumer demands. Traditional wet markets meet new consumer demands through micro-updates. This is actually the inevitable result of upgrading the supply side to match the people's needs for a better life.
(People's Daily)