China may replace Japan and usher in an era in which the "cat economy" will become popular.
Sayoko runs a small "rental cat house" that specializes in renting out cute cats to lonely people. Through contact with cat rental owners, Sayoko learned many unknown stories about them. At the same time, the cat rental shop run by this young girl has also allowed many "tenants" to find their way in life.
This is a true story told in the Japanese movie "Cat Rental". Around us, businesses similar to renting cats have begun to sprout recently, and are soliciting business on major e-commerce and social platforms. You may not have noticed the rise of the cat rental business, but in your daily work and life, you must have seen many people who are addicted to "cat sucking". Why are cats so popular?
At the beginning of last year, Starbucks launched a "Cat Claw Cup". On the first day it was launched, it was snapped up by netizens. Some people rushed to line up at 5 a.m. in order to rush to buy, and some even fought over the cups. On Taobao, cups with an official price of 199 yuan have been sold for more than 500 yuan, and some sellers have even listed prices as high as 1,000 yuan.
The popularity caused by the “Cat Claw Cup” is no accident.
People’s love for cute things, or cats, is growing, which has given rise to the concept of “cat economics”.
The term "cat economics" was born in Japan in 2015. It means that no matter how difficult the economy is, the public's enthusiasm for cats and related products will always be high. As long as businesses use cats correctly, they can attract attention and benefit from it.
It is understood that in 2015, cats contributed more than 2.3 trillion yen to Japan’s GDP. In sharp contrast, the female idol group AKB48’s GDP contribution that year was only 56.5 billion yen. In other words, the economic benefits cats bring to Japan far exceed that of national idols.
In recent years, “cat economics” has also begun to spread in our country.
In fact, due to the long-term influence of traditional culture, most Chinese people prefer dogs. Dogs are considered to have a series of beautiful qualities such as "loyalty" and "braveness". On the contrary, cats are considered to be a symbol of "insidious" and "cunning". In ancient Chinese literary works and customs, cats even represent "unlucky".
However, today, this situation is also changing.
Whether it is in daily life or on social networking sites, the number of people who "suck cats" and "play cats" is growing exponentially, and their market size is also expanding year by year.
Relevant organizations have estimated that as of the beginning of 2018, there were approximately 50 million "cat-sucking" people in my country, and the number of consumers reached 30 million. The consumer conversion rate of cat-sucking people was 65%.
To answer this question, we can start from the attributes of people who like cats.
Lonely people love cats more
The development of the pet industry is usually considered to be closely related to the aging of the population. This is indeed true in regions with the most developed pet markets such as Europe and the United States: nearly half of the pet owners in the United States are over 45 years old. The aging of the population and continued income growth have become important factors driving the development of the pet market.
But this is not the case in our country.
The main force of pet consumption in my country is young people. Data show that in 2018, the main consumers of my country’s pet market were those born in the 1980s and 1990s, with this group accounting for 83%.
As a generation that grew up under my country’s family planning policy, those born in the 1980s and 1990s appear to be relatively “lonely”. They grew up alone, and then struggled alone in big cities when they grew up. The prosperity and survival pressure of big cities made them even more lonely. This group of people is the "empty nest youth". A survey showed that 74.3% of the respondents said that there were many "empty nest youths" around them, and 57.9% believed that the lack of emotional sustenance was the life dilemma they faced.
Loneliness breeds people’s love for cats.
Some experts pointed out, "China has a unique family structure, that is, the elderly, office workers and only children. For the elderly, keeping pet cats plays a key role in alleviating loneliness and enriching spiritual life. And raising cats can also teach only children to take responsibility. For office workers who live a fast-paced life, pet cats can provide companionship and help relieve stress."
The latest report released by e-commerce giant JD.com and global data analysis company Nielsen also confirmed this view.
The report states that young people born in the 1990s, especially those who live alone, are now the core group of pet owners. On the one hand, because young office workers do not have the time and energy to walk their dogs. Many of them love cats because they are more independent. Compared with dogs, cats do not take up much space and do not consume too much time; on the other hand, cat owners are mostly young women, who are more likely to buy some expensive high-quality products for their pet cats.
In addition, the economic benefits that cats have brought to our country have also begun to appear in various aspects.
Derivatives are blooming everywhere.
According to statistics from Frost & Sullivan, China's pet industry market size was 172.2 billion yuan in 2018, which is three times the market size of 49.4 billion yuan in 2013. Among them, the market size of pet cats has reached about 60.2 billion yuan. Among the 60.2 billion pet cat market, the food market occupies the first place with a scale of about 22.3 billion yuan; followed by the medical service market; the scale of pet cat supplies, services and live sales are all about 8.5 billion yuan. The survey shows that the average consumption of a single pet cat is 3,117 yuan, of which food consumption is 1,340 yuan, accounting for about 43%.
In addition to raising cats, the most traditional way of "cat-absorbing", cats also bring a series of derivatives.
“Cat Café” is one of them.
Located on Tangfu Road, Southwest Street, Liu Zhiyi runs a store that combines board games, shooting, and cat cafes. He said that at the end of last year, in order to expand the sales range of female customers, the store opened an independent space of 40 square meters to operate cat cafes. "Cat cafes contribute at least 30% to 40% to the store's business."
In December last year, when Liu Zhiyi was inspecting opening a store in Sihui, he came across a cat cafe and learned about the cat cafe's business model by chance. Soon after, Liu Zhiyi quickly found a pet shop in Sanshui to cooperate with him to open a cat cafe. "Many people like cats but do not have the conditions to keep cats. For example, the landlord does not allow it, roommates do not like it, etc., so there is a lot of market space in this industry."
Liu Zhiyi's cat cafe set a minimum consumption of 25 yuan, which is not a high consumption threshold for many cat lovers. "25 yuan is equivalent to a cup of drink, and you can spend a day playing with cats. It's a good deal." Consumers generally accept this consumption threshold. According to them, since their families do not agree to keep cats, cat cafes are a place that can satisfy their needs for cat sucking.
Not only offline, cats also have considerable influence online.
Economic Benefits of Kittens
When the Internet first emerged, cat sucking and showing off cats were just a few people trying to "enclose their own cuteness". With the development of the Internet, cat culture expanded rapidly, and cat sucking once became a global trend.
A small number of early Weibo users relied on cats to attract a large amount of traffic, and the first batch of cute pet bloggers were born. Subsequently, the "cat effect" gradually penetrated into Internet platforms such as WeChat and Douyin, and the number of people who like cats expanded rapidly. The Internet celebrity cat Loulou had 680,000 fans at that time. When he passed away, he caused hundreds of thousands of condolences, and many self-media posted condolences.
Not only that, cute cat emoticons spread faster, making the cat-loving community grow even faster. According to statistics from Shanmeng, as of 2018, the number of cat emoticons on the Internet was 30,076. Occupying 4% of the total, this number is twice that of dogs. In 2016, cat emoticons were used 114,061,308 times. In mid-January 2018, this number quickly increased to 120 million times.
The growth of user fans has allowed many investors to see business opportunities. Among them, WeChat and Weibo are important bases for "cloud cat raising". Take "Memory Vest" as an example, which has become crazy on Weibo with its cat "Dragon Boat Festival" and dog "Niuniu" Fans. As of now, the number of fans of this account has reached 40.26 million, exceeding the population of many countries. In 2018, it ranked first in China’s internet celebrity rankings. It is understood that the Weibo’s annual advertising revenue reaches seven figures.
Weibo traffic is diverted to the WeChat platform through the WeChat official account, and the “shit shovelers” who follow also bring considerable commercial value. Data shows that the market value of the WeChat official account “Vest for Memories” is already over 235 million.
In addition, the food Weibo account "Eclipse" relies on a cat named "Cake Master" to attract traffic. Its company, Canning Farm, received tens of millions in Series B financing led by Volcanic Rock Capital in 2017.
The comic image of the cat "My Emperor" was voted by netizens as a popular IP among the "Top Ten Original IPs on Taobao". A series of peripheral products such as "My Emperor Sleeps" are highly praised on Taobao and have achieved considerable sales.
Not long ago, a comic book movie "Luo Xiaohei Zhan Ji" with a cat as the protagonist cost about 30 million to produce, but the box office exceeded 300 million...
There are too many to mention.
While these traffics bring economic benefits, due to the following effect and herd mentality, the love for cats spreads "virally" among the people, which is transformed into more traffic.
The artist Giacometti once said: "In a fire, between Rembrandt and a cat, I chose to save the cat." We don't know the story between Giacometti and Rembrandt, but for modern people, getting along with cats is probably much easier and more comfortable than getting along with people.
China may also replace Japan and usher in an era in which the "cat economy" will become more prevalent.
Disclaimer: This article comes from Tencent News client self-media. It does not represent the views and positions of this magazine.