Business can buy convenience, but can’t buy loneliness.
Editor’s note: This article is from WeChat public account “investing in the network” (ID: China-Venture), author Xue Ying, editor Han Honggang.
Single life is becoming a mainstream.
The Civil Affairs Bureau recently released statistics showing that there are currently 240 million single adults in China, which is more than the combined population of Russia and the United Kingdom. Among them, 77 million people are living alone and are expected to rise to 92 million in 2021.
This has also become a trillion business opportunity.
One-person home promoted the popular sales of single-person appliances. The number of people who bought mini-microwaves and mini-washers on Tmall increased by 970% and 630% last year, and the sales of mini-voice smart speakers increased by 160 times. One person eats 100 grams of rice and 200 ml of red wine quickly blush. One person traveling, one person watching a movie is also a commonplace. The data released jointly by the Taobao ticket and the Lighthouse Professional Edition show that nearly 30% of the 95s bought movie tickets alone.
Note: Mini KTV
The Japanese management scientist Daisaku Kenichi sees the “single economy” as a gold mine in the consumer market. In big cities such as Tokyo, where solitary societies are prevailing, large-scale commercial supermarkets are shrinking, and convenience stores are becoming more and more. One-person restaurants, mini-KTVs, mini-home appliances, and small-sized apartments are also becoming more popular. Similar things are happening in China.
“I eat and travel alone, stop and go around, and read letters and talk to myself.” Today, there is a huge market behind the lyrics of single people.
One, pleasing, convenient, companionship, one person will not be
“I have been unable to understand the pursuit of another human being for the rest of my life. Perhaps I am too interesting to be alone, no need to be accompanied.”
Sheldon vs. HolderThe marriage speech speaks the voices of many single people, and a lot of people are willing to “single” themselves.
The old concept of marriage and love is being deconstructed. As women have more voices in the economy, women are more and more dissatisfied with the situation of raising a family and returning to a full-time nanny. Men are forced to make money for their own women, and they must force men to make money and take care of their families.
In addition, the macroscopic reasons such as the price of the three generations of short-selling, the population movement brought about by urbanization, and the imbalance of males and females have added resistance to finding love.
The report of Guojin Securities shows that more than half of the single youth are concentrated in the first-line and new-tier cities, of which the Internet, automobile and real estate industries are single towns. 40% of single youths in first-line, new-tier, and second-tier cities are moonlight families. Among the single people born between 85 and 95 years, 52% of the population earned between 3,000 and 10,000 yuan per month. In the new first-tier cities, the monthly disposable income of some single youths is between 2,000 and 5,000 yuan.
Note: The screenshot is from Guojin Securities “Single Economic Report”
It’s better to be alone than two people. In business, this directly promotes the popularity of “happy consumption”.
After the 80s, Fu Peng had already taken up his bag and implemented his plan to travel around the world when his friends were called “four-legged swallowing beasts”. In terms of quality of life, Fu Peng also lived very delicately. He wore a famous brand to drink afternoon tea, regularly went to the gym to lift iron, and went to the beauty salon to do anti-aging projects.
Pei Pei, who graduated for two years, bought Apple’s latest mobile phone and was free from interest for 12 months. She observes that her married colleagues around her use old mobile phones and can’t keep up with the fashion of electronic products: “They all have families, not like I have no burden.”
The “China Single Report” shows that among 1024 single samples in 16 cities, 28.6% of those who did not consider purchasing luxury goods; 16% went to bars, KTV and other entertainment venues at least once a week; 31.6% The maximum monthly expenditure for a person is social consumption such as self-entertainment consumption or gatherings, all of which are higher than married people.
“Want to be a young man, always go down.” Enjoy the convenience of the business world, and the modern people who hold the “marriage system will eventually collapse” doubt the ultimate meaning of marriage, although the intergenerational conflict remains. Intense, the older generation believed that singleness was a disease, and many young people in this generation had given up treatment.
In addition to spending money to spend money, spending money lazy is another “single economy”Key words.
“Life 996, don’t say love, the strength of brushing your teeth at home is gone.” Li Wei said aloud.
Busy has become a norm. Researcher DeMarcus’s 2014 study found that more and more people are using their work as emotional sustenance, they are not looking for a life partner, and they are not investing in the family. The “needed feeling” in the workplace makes people busy and cherish the pursuit of meaning. According to a survey conducted by the Shanghai Survey Team of the National Bureau of Statistics, the average time spent by the Modu Youth (15-34 years old) for offline social interactions is only 16 minutes per day.
Life can be handled by business. As long as you work hard to make money and press the phone, people can be taken care of, but loneliness will still be unsolicited.
When you are in the wind, you feel like you are invincible. When you are vulnerable, you want to have a companion.”
Sun Li is one of the white-collar workers in a million-dollar city. Although she thinks so, she is not easy to talk about. The screenwriter Yagi Yako said: “We are buried in everyday life every day. Even if we encounter romance, it is just a moment of fragmentation. As we get older, it will become more and more difficult to like others.”
What about single loneliness? Spend money!
With chat, play games, accompany good night, accompany dinner, all kinds of services emerge one after another. When the lonely became the background music of the city, some people smelled the business opportunities in this rhythm.
Two trillion single market
The “single economy” was first proposed by the economist McCarthy in the 2001 The Economist. At first, the concept was only for “single women”, and that “single-person and high-income single women are advertising and entertainment. The most ideal customers in the industry.”
In the trillion-dollar “single economy” market, which covers hundreds of millions of consumers, eating, wearing, living, traveling, and playing, each segment has a large scale of 100 billion scale.
A person who eats hot pot can spawn a tens of billions of markets. Last year, the number of fast-food hot pot purchases increased by 208% year-on-year. Brands such as Haidilao, Shabu Shabu and Mo Xiaoxian joined the battle.
One-person packages on the line are commonplace, and the next line has begun to promote one-person food. In February of this year, a hot pot restaurant was opened in Wuhan, China. The diners had their own separate cubicles. If one wants to eat hot pot, they will not encounter embarrassment. If you want to eat friends, you can open the special switch on the table, if the other party Also, you can have a shackle with a stranger and meet a new person while eating a hot pot.
Note: One personHot pot restaurant
The frequent visits to Japan and South Korea are not unfamiliar to such a small restaurant. In many Japanese and Korean restaurants, there are single rooms, partitions, single tables, etc. Single-friendly restaurants such as sushi are also becoming commonplace.
At the same time, singles have promoted the rapid growth of convenience stores close to home and high quality control, in addition to supporting the half-day of take-away. According to the “2018 China Convenience Store Development Report”, the growth rate of China’s convenience store industry reached 31% in 2016, with a growth rate of 23% in 2017, market sales of 190.5 billion yuan, and more than 100,000 stores. Up to 13%.
Innocent life can’t find people to go shopping, it doesn’t matter, clothes are well matched and sent to you at home. The startup company Jinyi box provides 99 yuan lifetime membership service, and sends 3 sets of matching clothes to you every month. It also comes with a wearing letter. If you like to buy it, you don’t like to return it for free. There are more than one startup company that targets clothing subscriptions, from the positioning of men’s makeup, to the deer forest of children’s wear, TheLook, Soda style, secret box fantasy, Abox box, etc.
Not only eating, but also being single and friendly.
The Lonely Economy White Paper shows that a small apartment of about 40 square meters has become a single apartment for real estate developers to launch for young people. Japan’s Spilytus has also launched a “super-mini” apartment in Tokyo, which is generally less than 10 flats. The sparrows are small and complete, combining kitchen and bathroom, water, electricity, coal, internet, refrigerator, color TV, access control and monitoring touch screen. It is all right. There are also properties to clean and manage. The rent is equivalent to RMB 5,000, which is very popular among young people and the occupancy rate is over 90%.
Note: The picture is from the official website of Spilytus.
Shenzhen has launched a similar ultra-small apartment, and the promotion page introduces the ultimate small household of 6 square meters of hardcover, a price of 880,000 for promotion.
If you can’t afford a one-family house, then come on a trip that says you can go. This year’s Tanabata one person who traveled on Ctrip to travel to the group increased by 48% compared with last year. The number of tourists who traveled alone accounted for 9%, only one percentage point less than the travel of couples. If you have to travel hard, then the mini KTV is still there. If one wants to sing, they will sing, and if they sing loudly, they will not be embarrassed.
After many single-track economic related tracks, the pet industry has become a new enthusiasm.
There is a sentence from American Stark in the circle of pets.Words: Keeping a dog is the only love that can be bought with money. Among the pet owners, unmarried people accounted for 41.4%, and more than half of the single people used pets as relatives to ease loneliness.
It’s not easy to find a lover, and the cat and dog have become the new ideals of many people. The evolution of singles and aging has driven the pet industry. The White Paper on China’s Pet Industry in 2019 shows that China’s pet market reached 202.4 billion yuan in 2019, with a compound growth rate of over 20% in the past three years.
After years of development, the pet industry has formed a complete industrial chain covering the whole process of pets from birth to death. The upstream includes pet feeding, food, daily necessities, pet medical, beauty, training and insurance. Wait for the plate, where pet food and pet medical are the two largest sections.
Note: The screenshot is from Guojin Securities “Single Economic Report”
It is generally not cheap to treat a pet. It is reported that the price of a single nuclear magnetic resonance in a pet hospital is around 3,000, while the average price of nuclear magnetic resonance in a provincial hospital is only about 1,000. However, for the “relatives” to spend money, the pet owners generally reluctantly, 18 years of cat and dog owners have a single pet annual consumption of more than 5,000 yuan, an increase of 16% over 2017, an average of more than 400 yuan per month.
Mainstream capital has also invested a large amount of money in the pet industry, of which more than 100 pet-related companies held by Gaochun Capital include projects in the entire industry chain. In 2017, Gaochun Capital and Sequoia Capital jointly invested in VetFirstChoice, a veterinary online pharmacy and home delivery service company. Two years later, the company was ringing the clock on Nasdaq with a market capitalization of $4.5 billion.
Business empowers single people and makes one person live decent.
Eric Clinnenberg, a professor of sociology at New York University, mentioned in “Single Society”: “The massive urbanization accommodates a rich variety of values, allowing those in one aspect to be in the ‘village society’. ‘The people who are monitored and oppressed re-implement themselves in this area. The diverse layout and facilities of the city, from gyms, cafes, to bars, restaurants, clubs, etc., also find teams for solitary people with different values. Collectively, providing strong material security.”
The more developed the business society, the more individuals do not have to rely on interpersonal relationships to survive. While bringing freedom, it has further broken the material cornerstone of marriage and family.
Germany’s single population is 54%, Japan is over 30 years oldThe number of unmarried men is 47.1%, and 50.2% of Americans over 16 are single. Japan, South Korea, North America, and Western Europe are also facing a single age of marriage and fertility.
In other words, society is irreversible atomization.
As early as a century ago, German sociologist Zimmer predicted: “The urban residents have been in a state of intense excitement and constant change for a long time, which has led to a lack of passion, over-sense, high professionalism and interpersonal Atomicization between.”
For the 240 million “atoms”, business has given people the economic basis of multiple choices, making singles a dignified lifestyle. But after all, business can buy convenience, but can’t buy loneliness.