Behind the single economy, what can’t be ignored is the shackles and resistances to the real world hidden in the virtual network.
Editor’s note: This article is from WeChat public account “Koi Finance” (ID: Jinlifin), the author of the Koi Finance team.
Some people say that from the moment the world is no longer afraid of loneliness, everything will become more and more interesting. Let’s look at the surroundings according to this logic. It seems that there are also some places that make sense.
The change that is no longer afraid of loneliness is first reflected in consumer behavior. According to the latest data report released by Tmall, the “one-person economy” is strong. In the past year, the sales of mini-microwave ovens and washing machines increased by 970% and 630% respectively. The sales volume of “one person” was significantly increased. The sales of micro-packaged rice and red wine were the fastest, and the hot pot with the strongest social attributes shrank significantly. The number of fast-food hot pot purchases increased by 208% year-on-year.
Today, the single economy is no longer a strange concept. According to statistics released by the Civil Affairs Bureau in the near future, there are currently 240 million single adults in China, with an average age of 27 years old, and the first-tier cities are postponed to nearly 30 years old. More than 77 million people are living alone and are expected to rise to 92 million in 2021.
Under the situation, all walks of life are taking advantage of the trend, actively embracing singleism, regardless of clothing, food, housing and travel, are subdivided into a number of “small and beautiful” branches. Always trying to change the Internet at the top of every slogan, also played a dramatic scene when embracing the single economy.
Single group “feed back” Internet
“Is the game not fun? The phone is not easy to brush? The drama is not easy to catch? Or the love beans are not good? Life is good, why should I fall in love?” This is the 27-year-old hotel lobby manager Xiao K refuses family Arrange the reasons given when you are dating. Jokes are jokes, but in recent years it has become the standard answer for many people to enjoy singles.
The Internet dominates the majority of people’s spare time, and it is logical to squeeze out the loneliness. Previously, the National Consumers Research Center released the “Single Economics Analysis Report of 2019”, which pointed out in the report that the e-sports, the second-element and the short-length video generated by the Internet have become an important part of the spiritual consumption of single people, fearing free time. Reduction is the main reason for singles to give up marriageone.
The unmarried person Xiaowei is a resident singer of a bar. “Many people now admire singleism, plainly, or because today’s daily life is not as boring as before! As long as a mobile phone, anyone can pass Why do you have to get married for a lifetime?”
Busy, full, interesting, rich in amateur life and other factors constitute a singleism system. The Internet does not forget to embrace the single economy. As everyone knows, the lifestyle that has been subtly changed by the Internet is also “assisting” singleism compared to social and economic factors.
Perhaps it is the relationship between the Internet and the single people that is special and intimate. The single economy that has formed a certain scale effect is also “rephasing” the Internet, which has become an inseparable part of the portraits of certain product users.
Ai Media Consulting survey shows that the top ten APPs most popular among single users in 2019 involved a wide and uniform industry, including retail distribution, social networking and online travel. The top five are “Hungry?”, “Mei”, “soul”, “Zhenai.com” and “Mo Mo”.
On the other hand, Microsoft released a robot called “Little Ice”, which is popular among single people and is a typical example of virtual service. In 2017, among Chinese mobile game users, singles aged 25-35 accounted for 45.88%, contributing more than 53 billion yuan in sales; It is reported that from the 2018 take-out data released by the US Mission Review, in 2017, the single population of 20-30 years old contributed 65% of the order volume, and the take-away food consumption became the mainstream.
In addition, it is worth mentioning that single people are gradually becoming the main force of financial management. Ai Media data shows that in 2019, 62.4% of Chinese single netizens have financial habits, 11.9% higher than non-single netizens, more than half The monthly average financial investment amount of a single netizen is 3001-9000 yuan.
Obviously, this is a broad group. Their appeals are very extensive, and they can even indirectly derive the next single-dimensional economic group, such as the pet economy. According to the 2017 Pet Master Portrait Report, The proportion of single people in the pet population is as high as 41.4%, which also strongly suggests that their creativity has unlimited possibilities.
In turn, the Internet often pays a lot of attention to current consumer trends. Sometimes it will ferment a group and penetrate its demands. The single forces are clearly ahead of maturity, and a wide range of high-efficiency feedback is a good proof.
“Single Body” on the Internet
When the mighty single army was flooded with the Internet, there was a corner that was forgotten by “love”, online marriage market. According to conventional logic, this should be the most intuitive industry under the expansion of the single-person population. However, the facts are quite interesting.
Before, Ai Media data survey shows that with the continuous growth of our single people, the size of China Mobile’s social network in 2016 reached 2.804 billion, an increase of 36.1% compared with 2015. It is expected that the overall market size will exceed 5 billion in 2019. Although the market has been warming up for a long time, industry participants are struggling in the cold winter, the overall level is still in a state of failure, and even the outside world is marked with a “mourning” word.
In other words, the broad economic coverage of the singles does not seem to have shaded the industry.
The relevant data shows that Lily Net continued to lose money during the period from 2013 to 2016, and the loss amount increased from 33.06 million yuan to 114 million yuan. During the period from 2015 to 2016, Zhenye.com, the industry leader, was still losing money, with losses of 141 million yuan and 125 million yuan respectively. In 2018, the IPO prospectus of the company has shown that the number of users of the company has fallen from “over 8 million” to “nearly 5 million”.
In fact, in addition to the continued high losses and the serious decline in the number of users, the cost of obtaining the marriage platform is also increasing year by year. In the three years from 2015 to 2017, the customer acquisition cost of the company has increased from 50 yuan to 100. yuan. According to the data released by Analysys, the average number of open marriage apps in the user within 3 months is only about 60, and some small dating apps are opened at a lower frequency.
Maybe, on the one hand, the potential user group is expanding, on the other hand, the social marriage and love concept tends to be fragmented and the consciousness is weak. In short, the target customers’ precise online marriage platform has not been stimulated by the prosperous single economy. When the sales volume of “one person eats” is high, singleism has become the trend of young people chasing. Looking back at the online marriage market at this time, I am afraid that every step must be more cautious.
Of course, if the online marriage is a big regret in the current single economy, then the “single singularity” in the Internet is far more than this. After all, the industry downturn is also inseparable from the platform itself. Aside from the commercial level, the virtual world created by the Internet has become a passive sin.
The experience of Japan shows that young people are increasingly reluctant to fall in love because in a virtual environment such as animation, games or chasing stars, it is easier and more straightforward to get emotional satisfaction. China is no exception. The survey data from 36Kr shows that the proportion of married people in the second-yuan population is only 11.06%. According to a survey conducted by the Shanghai Survey Team of the National Bureau of Statistics, the average time spent by Shanghai youth (15-34 years old) for offline social interactions is only 16 minutes.
In addition, in August last year, BOSS directly released the “20”The 18 China Workplace Youth Emotional State Survey shows that the Internet industry has a single rate of 44%. It is worth noting that the reason why Internet people are single is almost the same, 70% of people are not good at communicating with the opposite sex, and the communication circle is too closed.
Lifestyles bring about changes in the concept of life, but on the other hand, we have to admit that behind the single economy, what cannot be ignored is the shackles and resistances to the real society hidden in the virtual network. Perhaps this is the “single singularity” in the true sense.
Capital value, social value, self-worth…
At present, the single economy seems to have become the trend of “the stars to hold the moon”, business opportunities will follow, and consumer services will move toward “small times”. The trend of micro-hot pot is particularly obvious. Haidilao, Ziqiang, Mo Xiaoxian and other brands have launched new varieties. In February of this year, Wuhan, China opened a lattice hot pot restaurant, and diners have their own separate cubicles. The white paper on loneliness shows that the real estate industry has launched a small apartment of about 40 square meters for solitary people.
In recent years, when capital chasing singleism, there is no shortage of “singing bad” in the outside world, which is largely due to the consideration of social values. According to the comparison of long-term and short-term benefits, the side seems to have a single economy. Advance is retired.
In 2016, a famous Japanese management scientist, Daisaku Kenichi, published “Low Desire Society”, and the subtitle was called “The Age of Undaunted Chest”. The book highlighted the reality of the expansion of the Japanese single population and the impact of the birth population on the economy. On the other hand, the value of the single economy is mixed.
Dr. Zhang Ning of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences said: The negative impact of more and more single people on the economy is greater than its positive impact, because single people face less responsibility than married peers, so it is easy to form an idle The attitude of life, this can easily be transformed into a lack of motivation.
And Guotai Junan analyst Yan Meng believes that from the domestic single-person portrait, high disposable income, high consumption propensity, and personalized consumption demand are its main characteristics, and its annual consumption scale can reach 13 trillion yuan. Come, the single economy contains huge consumer opportunities.
Sincerely, the two positions are different. We have no direct evidence to prove that we are right and wrong, but think carefully about the singleism that is highly respected. What kind of reality is reflected? Previously, Zhang Ning’s remarks caused a lot of dissatisfaction on the Internet. The cost of marriage and the economic pressure after marriage further promoted the escalation of the contradiction between the pros and the cons, and it was a matter of reality.
Observing the single people around, under the premise of “one person is full, the whole family is not hungry”, the consumption behavior naturally diversifies. According to the “Single Economics Special Analysis Report of 2019”, the consumption characteristics of single groups are summarized as the convenience of spending money, spending money to please themselves, spending money to buy and trust and spending money to buy the next four points.
Perhaps, as Yan Meng said, there is a huge consumer opportunity in the single economy, and the shift in consumption trends gives the market unlimited imagination. However, this is only from the perspective of capital. We cannot afford to leave the big picture and simply look at this social phenomenon from a certain angle. For single people, despite the tolerance of society, even the harshness of the economy has also created them.
As it is, this is the best era and the worst.