The B-side of Consumption｜Pet Economy: How much does it cost to raise a "hairy child"?
The Paper Journalist Ma Yiming
Not long ago, the topic of "#上海民带上宠物中ISO#" appeared on the Weibo hot search list.
On January 21, Shanghai immediately carried out centralized quarantine of the residential areas where the confirmed cases lived after reporting 3 local confirmed cases. The live video showed that many residents brought pets when they went to the centralized quarantine point. This kind of attention to details The humanized management method has been praised by a large number of netizens.
The attitude of city managers towards pets reflects the temperature of the city, which shows that pets have become more and more important to modern people.
In recent years, pets have long become regular members of many families.
According to the White Paper on China's Pet Industry in 2019, the number of pet dogs and cats in China's cities and towns reached 99.15 million in 2019, and the total resident population of mainland China's cities and towns was 84.43 million. If calculated proportionally, one in every ten people will have one A pet dog or pet cat.
The increase in the number of pets has brought about the growth of the pet economy. In 2019, the overall scale of the urban pet consumption market reached 202.4 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 18.5%.
Among them, the per capita annual consumption of a single pet dog reached 6,082 yuan, and the per capita annual consumption of a single pet cat reached 4755 yuan.
Netizens joked that they might be reluctant to buy a down jacket on "Double Eleven", but they will definitely remember to stock cat food and litter for the cat owner at home.
Behind the year-on-year increase in the market size of China's pet industry is supported by pet food.
Euromonitor's statistics show that the average annual compound growth rate of China's pet food market sales from 2016 to 2019 was 30.86%, far exceeding the world average (3.77%).
However, according to Taobao’s Double Eleven in 2020, although the sales of cat food and dog food are still growing, the proportion of total pet supplies spending has fallen from 47% in 2019 to 39%. For the first time, our "Engel coefficient" has dropped significantly.
In addition to food, pet toys, pet health products, and pet accessories have also become sales champions.
There is also a tendency towards parent-child consumption in pet consumption. Pet milk tea, pet companion robots, pet training classes, electric blankets and cat litters have all become the fastest-growing commodities.
How much does it cost to raise a "hairy child"?
The average lifespan of domestic pets is about 10 years. Investopedia, a financial information media platform in the United States, calculated an account for domestic pets based on this cycle and found that food consumption only accounts for about 20% of overall consumption. Other expenses are mainly concentrated in medical and leisure. aspect.
The pet penetration rate of American households is as high as 68%, and the pet penetration rate of China is close to that of Japan (28%), about 22%. From this perspective, the scale of pet consumption in the United States is much larger than that of Asian countries.
However, it seems that the direction of China's pet consumption upgrade is basically consistent with the development direction of the United States.
It can be seen from a media interview that the basic cost of raising a small pet includes vaccines, food, accessories purchases, etc. The average monthly expenditure can be controlled within 200 yuan, and the real large expenditures are concentrated on medical treatment, sterilization, and sterilization. Physical examination, deworming and various snacks and toys.
Some analysts believe that there is still a lot of room for growth in the pet economy in the future, because the pet owners as a whole show younger characteristics, one-third of the monthly income is more than 8,000 yuan, and the pet owners are also concentrated in undergraduate and graduate education. .
The above characteristics can clearly show the consumption potential of this group. At present, pet consumption in China is still dominated by commodity purchases. With the continuous growth of demand in the future, the possibility of service purchase growth cannot be ruled out.
The pet economic boom is closely related to the trend of pet "personification".
Some pet industry experts divide pet raising into three eras. Before 2000, it was the 1.0 era. Pet raising was mostly for instrumental purposes, such as letting dogs look after homes and letting cats catch mice.
From 2000 to 2015, we entered the 2.0 era, and people's purpose of raising pets began to shift to interaction and companionship.
Since 2015, the pet economy has entered the 3.0 era, the trend of pet "personification" is obvious, and the demand for pet consumption has become increasingly diversified.
Researchers at the University of Vaasa in Finland believe that the above-mentioned "changes" are due to the consumption of pets, to a certain extent, that supplements the identity construction of modern consumers.
In a society where consumption and material desire are paramount, consumers always need to choose between themselves and multiple social identities, and spending money for their own pets can be based on personality development, sources of happiness, relationship bonding, status communication, self-dedication, etc. Many aspects help consumers maintain psychological balance, making it easier to obtain self-identification in the personal, social, and emotional attachment dimensions.
However, the rising pet economy has also attracted the attention of criminals.
Frequent accidents caused by pet hospitals with lack of professional qualifications and poor-quality pet food have become social news. Recently, some businesses have even begun to sell "live pet blind boxes" on various online shopping platforms taking advantage of the rise of the blind box economy.
The emergence of the above-mentioned chaos is not unrelated to the current lack of relevant social policies in the pet industry. The existing laws and regulations on compensation clauses related to pet medical accidents are no longer fully applicable. The improvement and improvement of pet laws and regulations can not only regulate the pet service agency market , It can also respond to China's growing pet economic needs.