There is only one internet cafe and one board game store in Florence. The operation is so bad that I want to do it myself.
Editor’s note: This article is from WeChat public account “Fueling Finance” (ID: rancaijing ), author Guo Yanbin, editor Wei Jia.
I have been studying in Italy for more than a year. As a person who has been immersed in the rapid development of China Mobile Internet, I feel very unaccustomed to the food, clothing, housing and transportation in Italy. The water and electricity bills can not be registered by online mail or medical treatment. People are mad, and using one word to sum up is — “backward.”
I live in Florence, a city in central Italy. It used to be a famous European art center. The poet Xu Zhimo gave it a beautiful translation titled “翡冷翠”.
Before I came here, I was full of embarrassment. I felt that the speed of the developed countries must be very fast. The streets and alleys are WiFi, and the tariffs are cheap. You can just brush your mobile phone and you will find that it is not the case. According to data at the end of 2018, more than half of the urban residents in Italy do not have broadband, and network development lags far behind other developed countries.
However, this backwardness has allowed me to see potential business opportunities. I am researching and preparing to open a GAME CLUB (Game Club) in Florence.
01 Sending a residence card depends on sending a letter
If you only use one word to describe the Italian Internet, what I can think of is “backward.” To what extent is it behind? I said that the two pieces almost brought a “fatal” blow to my study abroad career.
Envelopes, mailboxes, popular communication tools of the last century are still in the mainstream in Italy, and each household has its own mailbox. The first thing an international student can do in Italy is to apply for a residence card. The Florence I live in is a second-tier city. The process of applying for a residence card is to fill in a large envelope and send a registered letter to Rome at the post office. A few months later, there will be a mailbox that says you need to go to your home in a few months to go to your immigration office.
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Email address of the author’s place of residence in Florence, photo / Guo Yanbin
For me, someone who has never used a mailbox in China, I am really afraid that the letter will be lost. So I developedThe first thing to go out to go home every day is the habit of checking the mail at the door. At this time, I especially miss the domestic express delivery, at least I can check the movement of my letter.
I was about the envelope sent in October last year. I received a reply in December, telling me that I can go to the fingerprints in May this year. After one month of printing, my mobile phone received a message on August 13th. Go to the immigration office to get a text message for the residence card. On October 31, two months later, the residence card will expire, and I will start a new round of applications.
When I was telling my friends that the efficiency of doing things in Italy was too low, I didn’t expect my friend to say, “You’re already fast, and many people have expired when they get a residence card.”
According to my observation, there are long queues every day at the entrance of the Immigration Bureau in Florence. Because there is no online booking channel for business, everyone can only send emails to the Immigration Bureau, but when can they reply, it is true. Can only take chances.
The good news is that the Immigration Bureau has just launched an online service, and can make appointments and announcements of contact information such as telephone calls, but everyone is still accustomed to going offline to make appointments and ask questions.
Compared with the domestic, passports, Hong Kong and Macao passes can be booked online in advance, and the materials are reviewed on the spot. The documents can be delivered directly to the home, and even the endorsement can be made on the automatic endorsement machine. This is not to think about it in Italy.
The other thing, I accidentally cut my finger a month ago, when the blood flowed, I was a little nervous. I went to a private small hospital first. After the emergency doctor gave me a cleanup and bandage, let me change the medicine three days later. I think it was just a change of medicine. I went to a small clinic closest to my home. As a result, the doctor said that I needed a needle and asked me to go to the big hospital.
When I arrived at the big hospital, the emergency nurse looked at my wound and I fell into a long wait. After seven or eight hours, I saw the emergency doctor. When the doctor gave me a needle debridement, I found that my tendon was damaged. I made an appointment for the specialist who looked at the finger the next day. I went there early in the morning, but the hospital said that the specialist who looked at the finger did not go out and could only wait another day. I really collapsed. The hospital does not have an online registration system. The doctors do not know the doctor’s visit information.
I was very anxious at the time, because I consulted the information, and it is the best time for the tendon injury to be surgically sutured within 8 hours. I didn’t see a specialist until the sixth day after the injury. The whole process was desperate.
Now, my wounds are growing fast, but my fingers are still red and swollen and unable to stretch freely. I originally wanted to go to the hospital to find a specialist to see the rehabilitation situation, but I was told to go to the emergency doctor to open a list, and it took a day to see the emergency, and most of the time was waiting.
Finally, I suddenly thought of an APP that used online consultation in China, so I hung a number and passed the photo of my finger to ask a specialist in the top three hospitals in China. The doctor said that my tendon is probablyThe rate is damaged and needs to be fixed with a finger splint for 8 weeks and slowly recovered.
I started to worry again, where to buy the splint? This kind of thing is bought on Taobao, but not on Amazon. I didn’t find the pharmacy near my home. Finally, my classmates helped me with a cotton swab and tape.
Maybe these two cases are not enough to explain the backwardness of the Italian Internet, but the data is very telling.
As of November 2018, only 63.6% of Italy’s population can enjoy high-speed Internet (bandwidth over 30MB) connection service. More than 50% of urban residents are still unable to enjoy high-speed Internet access services. Not all of these areas are remote and remote areas in the south, Piedmont, Lombardy and Veneto in the economically developed regions of northern Italy. Many cities also do not have Internet broadband connection services.
02 “Focus Village” lets me see the sinking market
In my daily life, the presence of the Internet is really low.
Italian people use mobile phones to access the Internet and pay attention to practicality. They will open the data traffic when they need to use the Internet, such as sending emails and checking information. After each use, they will habitually close the mobile data. Unlike domestic WeChat, which is almost always online 24 hours a day, data traffic is always on. I still have a lot of classmates’ mobile phone cards just an ordinary phone card, no traffic.
There are very few APP apps in Italy. Young people are watching the news. There are no such apps as today’s headlines and interesting headlines. Most of them are through forums or on the portals like Sina and Tencent. Most of them are middle-aged. People still get news in the form of newspapers and television.
As for the payment of water and electricity, it is still necessary to use the home mailbox, and the hydropower company will send the list of utilities to the home, and then take the list to the post office to pay the money, there is no online payment. Even if the recharge of the phone bill is only slowly changing from offline to online, offline recharge is still the mainstream.
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Florence tickets for Florence trams need to be paid by card or cash, photo / Guo Yanbin
The e-commerce platform is even rarer. My friend once bought a pair of shoes online, the result is small, he wants to change, but checked the freight back and forth, found that it is more expensive than shoes, and finally did not change. This is because Italy is not popular online shopping, many international e-commerce platforms do not have warehouses in Italy, goods may have to be shipped from other countries such as the United Kingdom, postage fromIt is expensive.
In addition, this is not mature enough with the infrastructure and technology of the Italian Internet, and the operating costs such as logistics and manual management are also high.
In the past two years, the term “sinking market” has been mentioned more in China. The platform of the main sinking market has become more and more popular, and the platform of interest, quick hand and other platforms have risen in just two or three years and become stars. Internet company.
China’s sinking market mainly refers to the consumer groups formed by the third- and fourth-tier cities and the residents of the town, and I feel that there are many similarities between the retail groups in Florence and China. There are probably the following aspects:
First of all, the city has a small area and a large population density. There are many offline stores and small commodity markets. European countries are not as sparsely populated as Australia and North America, but are relatively densely populated. Our international students all refer to Florence as “Focus Village” because it is too “earth”. The main theme is some localized small shops. The vegetable market and the market are also very popular, with some domestic third- and fourth-tier cities. The situation is very similar.
Secondly, everyone has a shorter working time, more leisure time, a narrow social circle, and a gathering time is just needed. The Italians are notoriously “lazy”. They are generally reluctant to work overtime for even a minute, and they like the strike very much. I have encountered several bus outages. I only know that the driver has gone on strike. The restaurant here is also closed after a meal. In addition to the Chinese restaurant, it is difficult to find a full-day business. In their free time, Italians like to party and meet new people.
Third, there is a certain amount of spending power. Basically, each family has a house, there is no pressure to buy a house and loans, and the disposable property and consumer confidence index is high. This group of people has the same potential as the low-end urban population in China.
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A self-service shopping machine in a supermarket in Florence, needs to pay by credit card and cannot scan the code,photo / Guo Yanbin
Based on these characteristics, I found that Italians generally prefer the offline mode, and go out without a problem, there is no “Internet addiction.” For example, although the Italian bus and subway have already provided online ticketing services, most people prefer to buy tickets offline; online shopping is not developed, and there are many people who visit the market and small supermarkets. Step is a supermarket; communicate with friends, everyone does not like to chat online, but likes to meet online next week, every weekend, the most popular business is the bar.
So, is it a good direction to open a offline store? I seem to see the business opportunity.
03 There are few entertainment facilities to open their own stores
I have this idea, on the one hand because there are too few things to play, there is only one internet cafe and one board game store in Florence, and more shops are bars. On the other hand, there are many public holidays in Italy. Like our students, half of the time is on holiday every year, and there is plenty of time to relax.
Italian people love the offline party. Unlike the country, a group of acquaintances usually go to a place to meet, and they prefer a group of people to the bar to meet new people. Since the bar can gather everyone with music and wine, can I also use the game to bring everyone together?
So I deliberately visited the two stores. There are about 200 games in the board game store, about 300 square meters, and 85 tables can accommodate nearly 340 people. However, the opening time is very casual, sometimes opening the door late, sometimes closing the door early, and sometimes suddenly not open, completely based on the boss’s mood. It also sells some drinks and snacks, and the business is not warm. At least from the service, I can easily surpass them.
Another café shop has an area of about 350 square meters. There are 25 computers plus 45 tables and a small bar. It costs 3 euros per hour and deducts 1.5 euros in less than an hour. The store is open from 16:40 to 3:00, but it is relatively fixed, but their home is now in the main restaurant. I went to see it a few days ago and found that many machines on the second floor were removed. Most of the guests came to drink and eat, and few people played video games.
I think there are two reasons. First, the computer configuration is poor. The system is not a cloud but a hard disk. There are not a few games to play on a computer, and there are fewer PS4 games. Unlike domestic Internet cafes, the most popular games are updated in real time for customers to choose. Second, the promotion is not doing well. The Internet in Italy is not very developed. The owner has no awareness of marketing and publicity. Most of the methods of obtaining customers rely on offline.
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Front View of the Internet Café in Florence / One Up
When I was in China, I also touched some creative internet cafes and board games stores. The merchants emphasized that everyone should play together and pay attention to the environment and customer experience, but there are very few that can be achieved. I think the main reason is that the format has not yet formed. Most Internet cafes and board games are well decorated, but they are not good at the professionalism of the game. The profitability depends on the tea catering outside the game, which has changed for a long time.
If I comeDo, I want to open a professional game offline club, the main business is video games and board games, create a gamification space, not just to provide games, but also to build an online communication community.
About the offline store, I want to do the professionalism of the game first. Most people go to Internet cafes or board games stores to know what they want to play, but some people don’t know what games are fun. I want to give them an experience to explore new games, a feeling of treasure. I will also be more social, build a team system in the store and often host some parties to create a game club that everyone can quickly integrate into.
On the Internet, I want to build a high-quality social platform in the vertical game field. In the early stage, I will focus on indoor games such as video games and board games. Later, I can add various outdoor games and sports. The final platform is not just to let The user finds the game on the platform, but the platform allows the user to turn anything into a game. The platform will serve offline stores, with cities as a group, and online diversions across cities and offline experiences.
I still agree with Steve Jobs that consumers don’t know what they need until we come up with our own products. I want to break the classification of various games and the classification of people and ages. The essence of the game is to play, so that every user has a sense of happiness.
Finally, I hope that Italy’s Internet infrastructure will develop rapidly. The Italian Communications Authority is also aware that the lag in the update of network equipment in Italy has been around for a long time. They said that in the past five years, the Italian telecommunications market introduced a competitive mechanism to break the relatively monopolization of the industry and promoted the equipment replacement of Italian telecom operators.
In the next few years, under the stimulation of the competition mechanism in the telecommunications market, I believe that the lag in the development of the Italian Internet can be effectively improved. This way, when I graduate, my game club can be opened.
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