The Strongest Analysis Report Comes Out! How Much Do You Know About China'S Consumption Trends?

Today's Chinese consumer market ,

Walking in the intersection of traditional consumption and new consumption, consumption diversification and personalized release.

At the beginning of this year, a sudden outbreak of a new coronavirus pneumonia made the consumer market ushered in "cold winter". This is a severe test and challenge for both the physical retail industry and the electricity supplier industry. So what will happen to China's consumer market under the impact of the epidemic? What are the consumption trends in the post epidemic era? How will Chinese enterprises build brand force in 2020?

2019-2020 China consumption trend report

(reduced version)

Xiao Mingchao, founder and CEO of know Meng consulting agency

A kind of One, 2020, the gradual development of desire and rhythm.

This requires a review of the basic market. From 2017 to 2019, what happened to China's entire consumer market? In the past three years, we can see a very important trend: consumers are always upgrading. But to correctly understand consumption upgrading, consumption upgrading does not mean that consumers are buying the most expensive things, nor does it mean higher prices. Consumption upgrading is actually upgrading of quality, upgrading of structure and upgrading of quality are consumers' desire to live better and live more exquisitely.

We see that consumption keywords in 2017 are "upgrading" and "refreshing"; in 2018, consumers are "new refinement"; in 2019, consumers have made a lot of structural adjustment -- consumers think about what is really needed, instead of having more rich and inexpensive products, but to have products with the highest cost performance and better quality. It is necessary to pursue symbols from the past to the present. In the past, many consumers expressed their status in order to have a brand. Today, consumers are exploring themselves, hoping that the brand and themselves are equal, and to show their individuality. Today's Chinese consumer market is in the intersection of traditional consumption and new consumption, consumption diversification and personalized release (Figure 1).

Figure 1:2017 China consumption trend report 2019 (source: China consumer trend report released 3 years by Chi Meng consulting)

Therefore, over the past few years, China's consumption has been constantly changing. Compared with Japan, Japanese society has entered the fourth consumption era they believe is more concise and more spiritual pursuit. The Chinese market is more complex. The second era, the third era and the fourth era all coexist. That is to say, from the five rings to the Fifth Ring Road, from the front-line market, the second line, the three line and the four line to the rural market, the structure of consumption is diverse. Because of the diversity of this structure, the whole consumer market in China will remain the fastest growing market in the world so far.

But over the past few years, the concept of retrospect and regression has gradually penetrated into the upgrading process, and more and more consumers are reducing unnecessary glitz and symbols. So we can see that simple consumption, simplicity and essentials are prevailing. After these unnecessary cuts, the experience really needs to be met, which is truly in line with the pursuit of the ID.

After 2019, the whole environment was not very good. In 2019, he knew that he had voted for a hot social word. By 2020, we all thought 2019 was too difficult. In 2020, we could all get better. But the reality is that we are suffering from an epidemic. Thus, the social emotional map changed from "I was too hard" in 2019 to "we need to live well". In the post epidemic era, we can see that the whole epidemic affects consumption, which is intertwined with rationality and sensibility, and the gradual development of desire and rhythm.

The so-called interweaving of rationality and sensibility is that there may be many trends, many short term consumption will affect, but it can only affect some people, and others may remain rational. This is actually the constant evolution of the consumption concept. This huge energy means that we can find many opportunities for subdividing ethnic groups, vertical categories and subdividing scenes in the whole structure of consumption. This opportunity has great tension, which stems from the evolution of technology, culture and brand. It comes from young people and comes from the creation of "equal rights of consumption".

Thus, in 2020, we could see ten major consumer trends. Behind these trends are the energy consumption that needs to be released. It also implies the evolution of Chinese consumers in the post Black Swan era.

A kind of Two, ten consumption trends in the new era.

(1) trend 1: Jing Zhihui

In 2019, China fully opened the business of 5G and made 5G a hot spot in the industry. The survey shows that consumers are full of expectations for the application of 5G. 50.5% consumers are more interested in family 5G broadband services, 42.1% are interested in the ultimate HD video experience, 39.2% are interested in AR/VR content, followed by 5G smart screen, smart home and automatic driving (Figure 2).

Figure 2: consumer interest in 5G applications

(two) trend two: intensive consumption.

Data show that 88.1% of consumers, even if they are rich, want to spend their money on the "knife edge". At the same time, in order to select the most suitable product / service, consumers should not only focus on quality, price, brand awareness, etc., but begin to explore in depth from product, brand, channel, price, after sale and so on (Figure 3).

Figure 3: five dimensions

In the face of the rise of "intensive research consumption", the brand should exert its efforts from three dimensions: product level, brand building and brand communication: from the perspective of product innovation, enterprises should pay attention to consumers' help in subdivision scenes and provide the ultimate experience; in the stage of brand building, we need to focus on how to culture the brand and establish the emotional resonance of consumers. Offline link marketing promotes consumer collaboration and integration from grass planting, grass growing to weeding (Figure 4).

Figure 4: online platform for consumers to actively acquire information

(three) trend three: new Guofeng movement

Over the past two years, with the help of "national tide", many Chinese brands have upgraded their image. If the "national tide" is more applied to some national elements as the carrier and medium of brand communication, then from the new products to the new national style is the cultural identity and cultural upgrading from outside to inside. The survey shows that 58.1% of consumers believe that traditional culture is not only an idea, but also a way of life. 　　

The new national wind movement, which is different from the symbolization of the national tide and the simple product crossover, represents the deep integration of Chinese aesthetic and cultural elements and the modern front end fashion. It relies on the withdrawal and reconstruction of Chinese cultural elements, creating a stylized new life style and product innovation system. (Fig. 5, FIG. 6).

Figure 5: from the national tide to the new national wind

Fig. 6: what are the elements of the representative country's wind?

(four) trend four: reverse crowd creation

In the era of mobile Internet, the behavior of consumers has changed a lot. The Internet has made consumers' voices an important driving force. C2B business model will be popular, allowing enterprises to "enter the hearts of users". Consumers can customize products and prices according to their needs, take the initiative to participate in product design and pricing, so that the products and prices of consumers reveal their individual needs.

According to the survey, 66.3% of people prefer to share with other people's favorite brands, 75.7% of them are willing to recommend to others, and 78.2% of them are willing to participate in brand creation activities. This means that the brand will be transferred from one way to catch consumers and enter the business era of two-way interaction. The reason why a person is loyal to a brand is that "brand can reflect my attitude towards life" accounts for 46.6%. "Brand values, stories and connotations should arouse my sympathy", accounting for 45.2% and 0.2% for other factors (Figure 7).

Figure 7: reasons for loyalty to a brand

(five) trend five: value potential energy

With the development of mobile Internet, information has shifted from diversification to fragmentation, bringing new information anxiety, but also convincing brand information. People's memory of brand is showing a state of gelatinization. The "short cycle effect" is becoming more and more obvious. It not only challenges the brand's activity, but also drives the brand to think about how to achieve intensity and deep interaction and communication with consumers (Fig. 8).

Figure 8: what kind of advertisement are you more likely to accept?

Every strong well-known brand has a differentiated cognition in the minds of consumers. The most precious thing in a brand's potential energy and vitality is often its most simple side. The longer it becomes stronger, it is the true color of the brand. For Volvo, that is to stick to safety and firmly grasp the core consumer group (Figure 9).

Fig. 9: six potential energy

(six) trend six: light living.

Under the trend of universal health care, attention to sleep, attention to sub-health, health equipment consumption, etc., in the fast-paced work and living conditions, health care has become more lightweight; in a natural, peaceful, balanced, normal state, through some small and small details of life, self-regulation of small initiatives, inadvertently realize the spiritual and spiritual practice and evolution, so that health becomes one. A variety of actions at any time and anywhere have spawned many "light maintenance" products.

According to the survey, 44.2% of people will keep healthy wolfberry tea in their work and study, 37.3% of them will soak their feet before bed, apply facial mask, and 34.3% will only buy low-fat snacks. Health promotion has brought about the growth and upgrading of the market. Therefore, "light maintenance" has expanded from the food industry to more fields, and all kinds of products and services with the theme of "light maintenance" have appeared one after another. (FIG. 10, FIG. 11).

Figure 10: health preserving consumption behavior

chart 11: light maintenance life

(seven) trend seven: virtual empathy.

In the future, a song of "green onion" opens the new era of virtual idols. The younger generation Z after "95 after" and "00 after" has gradually become the main force in the consumer market, deeply influenced by the house culture and the two dimensional culture. They have brought the minority's two dimensional culture into the various social groups. The market potential of virtual idol is rapidly showing up in front of the public under the effect of the big turbine of the Internet. Compared with the real idol stars, virtual idols have 5 core strengths: plasticization, controllability, youth, interaction and daily life. Therefore, their vitality will be more significant (Figure 12).

Figure 12: the characteristics of virtual idols.

While giving young people unlimited pleasure, virtual idols also bring huge consumption power to the market. For example, LV launched the two yuan spokesperson "thunder sister" according to the characteristics of its products, and successfully detonated social media (Figure 13).

Figure 13:LV "thunder sister"

(eight) trend eight: electric business

In recent years, the rapid development of the domestic game market has brought the rapid growth of the electric business. The competition industry has gradually matured in China, and electric competition has become a new social language for young people. Data show that the number of Chinese competition users reached 440 million in 2019. 50.8% of the people watching the competition spent an hour in E-sports every day, and 41.9% spent about 2 hours a day on E-sports. Electric competition is still a new way of life for young people nowadays. Tide cool + honor, pride and solidarity and cooperation become the spirit of young people's competition. (FIG. 14).

Chart 14: the time spent on E-sports every day.

(nine) trend nine: spatial reconstruction

The survey shows that people are busy looking forward to the space of "blank space", and getting the "clear happiness" of ideological leave from different scenes becomes a demand. Many times, a person's energy will be distracted by emotional, family and other trivial things, leading to inability to concentrate on his own life. Therefore, the hope of having a quiet self blank space has become a way to constantly precipitate oneself, enrich oneself and seek spiritual relaxation and sustenance (FIG. 15).

Figure 15: what do you do when you are alone?

(ten) trend ten: vigor and maturity

By the end of 2018, China's population aged 60 and over had exceeded 250 million, accounting for 18% of the total population. Influenced by the Internet culture, the elderly group is also following the culture of young people. The pursuit of young mentality has become a trend. The elderly are also expressing themselves through the Internet, and "young vigor" has sprung up in consumption. They cultivate their children's talents under the drive of self-development, and constantly encourage themselves to make progress. They perfectly interpret what is "live and learn" (FIG. 16). 　

Figure 16: expectations of the elderly for residential patterns

At the same time, new consumption scenes of "vitality years" have sprung up. The emergence of "active years" is the result of the joint development of China Mobile's Internet and population aging. This trend also shows that age is no longer the limit of consumption, and the market sinking is no longer confined to space. New changes will also take place in the market which has not been noticed before in the past (FIG. 17).

Figure 17: market structure of active aging Market