On December 26th, two province-wide consumption promotion activities were launched in Sichuan: the 2024 Sichuan Goods E-commerce Festival was a hot opening, with limited discounts on Sichuan goods, 100,000 "red packets of rain" and 1 billion coupons; "Tianfu Boutique" made its debut in the Spring Festival consumption month, with a gift package of over 1 billion yuan for the benefit of the people, as well as iterative upgrades of new products and new scenes in five major consumer areas, such as fashion, intelligence, health, green and digital, which brought "unpacking surprise" to the first exhibition.
The Central Economic Work Conference will put "vigorously boosting consumption, improving investment efficiency and expanding domestic demand in all directions" at the top of nine key tasks next year, and the Provincial Economic Work Conference will also put boosting effective demand in an important position to stabilize the economic market. At the end of the year and the beginning of the year, various consumption activities appeared. The annual activities reflected many "unusual" in this year’s commodities and scenes, and also reflected the new consumption trend in 2025 from different aspects.
New consumption concepts create new consumption scenarios.
Recently, AI glasses have been "out of the circle". As one of the latest popular electronic consumer goods, AI glasses have many functions such as taking photos, translating and recording. At the Chinese New Year Festival held by an e-commerce platform, a variety of AI glasses products priced at 600-900 yuan were robbed in just a few days, and the number of out-of-stock registrations hit record highs.
With more functions and more experiences, intelligent and fashionable new products like AI glasses are becoming a hot explosion that consumers are competing to snap up.
Emotional consumption is becoming a new way of consumption that young people talk about. From "buying a commodity that makes you happy" to "buying a commodity that makes you happy", the younger generation of consumers want not only commodities, but also emotional satisfaction and resonance.
"Good luck spray" appears on the desks of young professionals. "The pace of work at the end of the year is getting faster and faster, and the pressure is also great. Buy a bottle of’ good luck spray’ and spray it at any time. I feel that my mood will be much better. It may be a self-psychological suggestion." Shu Yaxin, an employee of a company in Chengdu, told reporters that not only "good luck spray", including flower arrangement and decompression toys, is very popular among the post-00 generation.
On a social platform, tree hole listening has become a popular way of service consumption. Young consumers are keen on the new consumption concept of paying for emotional value, constantly creating new consumption scenarios, and at the same time giving birth to a series of new offline formats represented by healing and manual DIY.
According to the data of Meituan, since 2023, the search volume of the word "healing" has increased by 256%. At the same time, the supply of healing services has risen rapidly, and new supplies of multiple services have continued to go online. Since October 2024, the number of Chinese massage shops on the Meituan platform has increased by 77% year-on-year.
Consumption upgrade, rejuvenation "running forward"
Located in the business circle of Jianshe Road, Chengdu, the 3000-episode Longhu has revolutionized the traditional shopping mall format. It introduced Papara, Asia’s largest pet retail supermarket with an area of 4,200 square meters, and its business covers pet product sales, pet care services, pet clinics, pet hotels, pet swimming pools and dog training schools, attracting a large number of pet lovers to spend money by punching in.
"There is both a wandering experience and a circle of traffic, and at the same time it has a considerable customer unit price, which has been very popular since its opening." A staff member of the pet shop introduced. According to the data of the third-party platform, the unit price of the store remained at 123 yuan/person, ranking first in the popularity list of similar consumer stores.
According to Zhang Yufang, the head of Jones Lang LaSalle’s strategic advisory department in Chengdu, in addition to the upgrading and rejuvenation of traditional consumption, there is another trend of consumption, which is that the dual influence of technology blessing and online consumption will further profoundly change the habits of young consumer groups, big data screening, intelligent customization, and two-line life will undoubtedly accelerate the birth of a segmented consumer track with room for growth. "For example, the secondary format driven by IP consumption, night consumption driven by high-quality event performances, etc."
The "millet economy", which has nothing to do with agriculture, is being broken recently, and "eating valley" has become a popular new consumption punching place.
The so-called "millet" refers to the derivative periphery of IP copyright works such as animation and games, such as badges, billboards, posters and pendants. These exquisite "millet" are becoming popular consumer goods sought after by young people.
In Chengdu Tianfu Red Shopping Center, a shop specializing in selling "millet" has a large number of young people coming to buy it every day. From badges to standing cards, from posters to pendants, some of them are really expensive. For example, a limited edition of Detective Conan’s Haibara Ai "Baji" (badge) was fired to a high price of 27,000 yuan online. Even so, many young people are willing to pay for it.
In addition, the new consumption potential is also worth looking forward to. Not long ago, the Central Economic Work Conference proposed "actively developing the starting economy, the ice and snow economy and the silver-haired economy". The just-concluded Economic Work Conference of the Provincial Party Committee pointed out that it is necessary to "consolidate traditional consumption, tap emerging consumption, cultivate and expand the first-time economy, ice and snow economy, night economy and silver-haired economy, and release more consumption potential".
From the present to the future, it remains to be seen what kind of situation consumption will take in 2025.
□ Sichuan Daily All-Media Reporter Chen Bihong
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