The title picture comes from: Figure Worm
Spring couplet, the cultural heritage of every Chinese. Every time the Spring Festival comes, every family will paste the Spring Festival couplet to create a festive atmosphere.
On the 29th day of the lunar calendar, A Cai and her mother came to the supermarket to buy the Spring Festival couplets. Compared with the traditional spring couplets in the past, the modern spring couplets are more “upscale and luxurious.” Coated paper bronzing couplets, coated paper full gold couplets, coated paper calligraphic couplets, flocking couplets and flannel couplets are numerous.
Most of these couplets come from the same village-Dongli Village, which is known as the “Hometown of Spring Couplets”. Dongli Village is located in Xiazhuang Town, Gaomi City, Shandong Province. It is the first Spring Lianlian production base that has received attention from the outside world.
The region has a century of history in processing Spring Festival couplets. Against the background of increased demand and improved production efficiency, the output of the Spring Festival couplet in Dongli Village has reached a new high this year, increasing from the previous 6,000 tons to 8,000 tons.
As the production and sales volume of the Spring Festival couplets in the top three in China, the development history of Dongli Village is the history of the entire Spring Festival industry, so it reflects the overall situation of the industry to a certain extent.
Spring Festival production is scheduled
“This year’s shipments were completed as early as a year ago, and the overall impact has not been affected.” Akin said that the sudden epidemic did not cause him losses.
As usual, the sales volume of this spring couplet manufacturer in Heze, Shandong, which is called “Chun Yi Nong”, still reaches 70 to 80 million yuan this year. Its products are sold from Shandong to all parts of the country, with the largest sales in Northeast and Hebei.
Unlike many small producers, which adopt the “order + spot” production method, large factories like “Chun Yi Nong” have almost completely abandoned the current production and sales model. This means that there is very little chance that large manufacturers will have a product backlog.
“Basically there will be no backlog of products. Today’s manufacturers are no longer behind closed doors, they are all processed according to orders,” said Akin.
But everything has two sides. Although the lack of stock reduces the probability of product backlog, it also causes the factory to face the situation of rushing work in many cases.
This is in stark contrast to small producers. However, completely abandoning the current production and sales model has also caused troubles.
Akin said that each year from April to June, “Chun Yi Nong” will receive customized orders from large distributors. The factory starts mass production at this time of the year and unified delivery in September. “Because the number of orders is large and the logistics has downtime, if you do not produce and ship early, the products will not reach the customers.”
But not every dealer will place orders on time. Although the Ajin factory can produce 400,000 couplets per day, many orders have been pushed out this year. “Logistics are generally closed on the fifteenth of the first month of the lunar month, so I didn’t dare to take orders early.”
Orders can be pushed out too late, but some dealers often get stuck in the middle of ordering time. Especially when such orders are piled up, manufacturers often get stuck in a state of burnout.
“Spring is strong” generates 70 to 80 million yuan in sales every year, and the factory is facing huge production pressure. But it is sometimes in the state of not receiving orders for more than half a year, which means that a large number of orders will flock in the second half, which often makes large manufacturers without stocks busy.
In Akin’s words, “I am too busy when I am free, and I can kill people when I am busy.” Facing this situation, Akin believes that the entire industry needs to improve its production management.
Also, although the current market prospects for the Spring Festival couplet are broad, compared with the development of mature packaging production lines and book production lines, the entire Spring Festival couplet industry still needs to further improve the efficiency of the technology and industry chain. Technology is also relatively complete. “Akin said.
Xiao Ling, who is engaged in spring couplet processing business in Zhejiang, also thinks that improving efficiency is the most effective way to solve the problem. “We are still semi-mechanical printing, and we will definitely develop it in the future. When the efficiency improves, it will naturally reduce the burden.”
Due to the difficulty of controlling the order receiving time and the excessive demand for orders, large manufacturers are facing great production pressure, but this also ensures the continuous operation of the factory.>. In contrast, small producers ca n’t continue to rely on Spring Festival sales such as Spring Union, which is one of the reasons for the diversification of this type of manufacturers ’business.
Because of the small order, the production of annual products such as couplets and red envelopes is not the only business of small manufacturers. Akin said: “Some small factories like workshops will be idle for half a year, and some will print some maps to do some chores.”
Bullet Finance found on Aibu.com that such manufacturers are basically involved in printing products such as cartons, cartons, gift boxes, handbags, picture books and color pages, and call it one-stop purchasing.
Spring Festival also needs innovation
In the entire Spring Lianlian industry chain, the production and sales links are interlocked and coordinated closely. It is understood that some large producers wholesale the Spring Festival couplets to dealers at low prices, and dealers then sell at high prices. Manufacturers earn small profits but sell more, and sellers at all levels earn income through price increases.
A dealer who has purchased goods in Dongli Village for many years said that near the Spring Festival, his income can reach 100,000 yuan a day. But this is not the case. Earlier, “China Research Network” reported that most of the hot stamp spring couplets on the market currently cost 1-2 yuan, while the retail price of a single pair is about 10 yuan, a rate of up to 10 times. Handwritten Spring Festival couplets are more expensive, often at 15 yuan and above.
This is a conservative estimate. Xiao Ling provided her own quotation form, meanwhile, she said, “This is only approximate pricing, the larger the order quantity, the lower the unit price. The more the quantity of goods, the higher the profit of these dealers.” p>
That’s true. Xiaoling’s products are wholesale by box. Different sizes and styles have different wholesale prices. Taking the special coated paper mixed gold flocking couplet as an example, the wholesale price of the product size 107X19 is 1.96 yuan / box. In its Taobao store, a couplet is priced at 6 yuan.
In addition, it can be seen from the output of Dongli Village that this year exceeded 8,000 tons that the industry has great room for development. It is worth mentioning that the Spring Festival couplet is not only popular among consumers in China, but also has a low sales volume abroad.
According to data released by Tmall Overseas on the New Year’s Festival, as of January 8, 2020, its website has a total of more than 7.3 million overseas Chinese buying new products. In one day alone, 240,000 sets of red envelopes, 30,000 sets of paper-cut windows and more than 9,000 pairs of spring couplets were bought.
The Spring Festival couplet will go to sea or become another outlet of the industry in the future. But whether it is sold domestically or abroad, meeting the diversified needs of consumers has become the core of the industry.
Therefore, the Spring Festival couplets come out endlessly, even iterating every year. From the past, there were only black characters on a red background to different styles, such as golden pink paper and golden red paper.
“Not only the size, but the couplets of different papers and different fonts have different pricing.” At present, the main production styles of Xiaoling’s factory include high-grade coated paper bronzing couplets, high-grade coated paper full gold couplets, and high-grade coated paper calligraphy couplets. , High-grade flocking couplets, high-grade flannel couplets and annual red paper bronzing / black letter couplets. The size is divided into 1.1m (length) , 1.3m (length) and 1.6 meters (length) .
However, these spring couplets are not only sold to market distributors, but the advertising distributors are also one of Xiaoling’s customers. “Products produced are mainly distributed to these two types of dealers, and market dealers have larger orders.” Xiaoling said.
Both types of distributors are a major source of customers for all large producers. As far as Akin’s “Spring Yi Nong” is concerned, its advertising dealers mainly include advertising companies, gift companies and printing plants.
“They took the order and forwarded it to us.” Akin customized the Spring Festival couplet for major companies because of this resale order. Banking, insurance and mall companies are his indirect customers.
“These companies usually send spring couplets to their customers, and take this opportunity to promote the platform.” This is only a type of spring couplet customized by advertising dealers, except for this partIn addition, Akin will also produce some spring couplets for non-commercial purposes such as promoting traditional culture according to its requirements.
Like market distributors, advertising distributors also provide significant profits for factories. Ajin’s annual sales income of 70 to 80 million yuan, 30 to 40 million yuan comes from advertising dealers. This may be the reason why many manufacturers scream for their advertising spring couplet business every year.
Although the production and sales of Spring Festival couplets is a seasonal business, under the huge demand for orders, large manufacturers can rely on this business alone to ensure that the company can continue to operate well.
Clash of Tradition and Trendy
Not only the older generation loves the Spring Festival couplets, but now many young people are also looking to the Spring Festival couplets.
At present, the traditional Spring Festival couplet is still the first choice of most domestic families, and young people have set their sights on the Spring Festival couplet with personal characteristics. We found on Taobao that some Spring Festival couplets printed with cartoon images and using network languages and fonts are being loved by young people.
According to the data released by Taobao Tmall on January 18, , the spring couplets such as “food full of cans and doors full of doors, Tianzeng years and meows and longevity” are very popular this year. strong>. In the past month, the sales volume of such spring couplets has doubled compared to last year, and more than one million personalized spring couplets have been sold. The search volume for the keyword “sand carving spring couplets” has increased by 5000% year-on-year.
(Picture / Taobao)
A Taobao shop owner said that this paper came from a small shop selling painting tools, and the Spring Festival couplet content was written by himself. Although this original Spring Festival couplet is expensive and lacks traditional cultural charm, it may become a trend because it meets the values of young people.
This may be related to Ali’s promotion of traditional culturerelationship. In early 2019, Tmall launched the “Tmall New Culture and Innovation” plan. Tmall stated that it hopes that new IP products will promote cultural heritage and continue to carry forward and promote Chinese traditional culture.
But it is clear that this is very different from the traditional Spring Festival couplets. As far as the content of the Spring Festival couplet is concerned, there is an essential difference between the simple and straightforward language of the Internet and the style that pays attention to the battle between the couplets.
In this way, the Spring Festival couplets are constantly rejuvenating in the collision between tradition and trend. Sublimation in tradition has created a new trendy style for Spring Festival couplets.
The position of the Spring Festival couplet in the Chinese New Year is unusual. The festive Chinese red and the stable graphite black make up the Chinese Spring Couplet culture, and it is the year-end taste that everyone has been waiting for.
Although it is not possible to visit relatives and friends during the Spring Festival this year due to the epidemic, this is the only way to allow a long-awaited family to sit together, look back and look forward to the future. When people put on the Spring Festival couplet, they can feel the cohesion of the local people’s feelings, and also keep the last year’s taste in the fading firecrackers.