In the past week on social media, many people have been discussing whether it is time to buy another freezer, and a frantic rush to buy refrigerators and freezers is taking place across the country.

/ Author of "Financial World" Weekly Zeng Guang

Editor / Chen Fang

They are all "stocking up on freezers"

On social media in the past week, many people have been discussing that it is time to buy another freezer, and there has been a mad rush to buy refrigerators. , the craze of freezers is happening all over the country.

Xiaomei is a post-90s generation. She rented a house in Ziru in Beijing. There are six people living in four rooms, and everyone shares a refrigerator. Although it was not enough before, she had never considered buying a refrigerator by herself, mainly because she was afraid of the trouble and tried to buy as little as possible in her daily life. But on April 12, Xiaomei couldn’t help but participate in the “Ten Thousand People Group Purchase” of a small refrigerator on Pinduoduo.

The biggest feature of this refrigerator is that it occupies a small area and has a capacity of only 68 liters. It is very suitable for people who rent a house and the price is not expensive, only 390 yuan.

Compared with those who do not own a house, those who own luxury homes can afford to buy them more lavishly. In recent days, a business owner in Beijing who is responsible for purchasing household necessities, even though he already had a refrigerator at home, urgently placed an order for a Haier Tongshuai double-door refrigerator on Jingdong . The biggest feature of this refrigerator is The capacity is large, 601 liters, and cost the boss nearly 4,000 yuan.

Fuyue, born in the 1980s, lives in Yizhuang, Beijing. Her family has a relatively large family, with six people in total, five adults, one child and a dog. She usually consumes a lot of food, so her family bought it a long time ago. She bought two large refrigerators with double doors, but even though she was not used to stocking up on things before, she still felt that they were not enough.

In the end, Fuyue placed an order online for a small freezer with a capacity of 143 liters. She originally wanted to buy a larger size, but she couldn't fit it in her home, so she purchased this freezer after specifically measuring its size.

Currently, as a storage supplement to the refrigerator, the freezer has become a necessary "second refrigerator" for some families due to its relatively small footprint.

Mengjie, born in the 1980s, who lives in Beijing, is a full-time housewife who has to worry about food and drink for the four members of her family. Originally, she already had a five-door refrigerator at home, which could meet her daily needs. But recently, she felt that it was not enough. The freezer area was full and the limited area of ​​her home could not accommodate a second refrigerator. So she took out her mobile phone and placed an order online for a Aucma freezer with a capacity of 143 liters and cost 800. Diverse.

After buying it, Mengjie felt at ease. She also recommended this freezer to her friends. On April 11, after receiving the goods, a friend told her that the delivery man said that many people were buying freezers recently, and he delivered 12 freezers of the same style that day. A consumer living in Chaoyang, Beijing, revealed that his community recently placed an order for 400 freezers, and the courier boy delivered them by the truckload.

An express vehicle is transporting refrigerators. Picture/Interviewee

Thousands of miles away in Hangzhou, many people are also rushing to buy freezers. On April 11, after Junjun came home from get off work, she found that her mother had just spent 500 yuan to purchase a 100-liter small freezer. She was surprised and immediately posted on WeChat Moments. What she didn’t expect was that not only her mother, but also three people A friend left a message saying that he had bought a freezer, and another replied that he was making a selection.

Lina from Guangzhou regrets that she placed the order late. There are three people in her family, and there is only one single-door refrigerator at home. She placed an order for a 100-liter small freezer online on April 8. In order to make room for the freezer, she also made room for the snack rack. Unexpectedly, Guangzhou began to lock down the day after the order was placed. The freezer was stuck on the road and has not been delivered yet.

Compared with refrigerators, Lina feels that small freezers are very practical, because she usually goes to large supermarkets to buy a lot of meat. The original freezer area of ​​the refrigerator cannot fit in it, so she needs a place to freeze meat. And after the epidemic in Shanghai, some friends in Shanghai told her that small freezers are very practical, so they placed an order specifically.

"Little Indian Spring" is rare

"Financial World" weekly learned that most people's sense of urgency to buy freezers and refrigerators comes from Shanghai.

Because it is relatively close to Shanghai, there have been a lot of people stocking up in supermarkets in Hangzhou recently. After Junjun bought some meat at home, she found that the freezer space was not enough. "I originally thought about forgetting it, but my mother thought it was necessary to have a sense of urgency, so she placed an order. It was not expensive." Junjun told Caijingtianxia Weekly.

Mengjie's sister lives in Shanghai, and she still likes to stock up on goods. She has a very large refrigerator at home, "I wish it was twice as big as mine", and it is always full. "On the day of the lockdown, she took out the frozen things from the refrigerator and set up a table, and took a video for me. There were a lot of things." Mengjie said, even so, now more than ten days have passed, and her sister's supplies have It also started to become scarce.

Seeing the current situation at her sister's house, Mengjie, who had never liked to stock up on goods, finally bought a freezer to be prepared.

Fuyue’s purchase of freezers was also influenced by Shanghai. "After becoming a parent, you will have more things to consider. The first level of Maslow's hierarchy of needs is survival needs, especially when there are elderly and children at home." Fu Yue told Caijingtianxia Weekly.

Xiaomei was also inspired by Shanghai to buy a small refrigerator and had to make long-term plans. Xiaomei said, "I'm not afraid of 10,000 yuan, I'm just afraid of what might happen. Now my mentality is completely different from before. I'm very anxious. I have to stock up to feel at ease."

The price of a small freezer ranges from a few hundred to a thousand yuan. . Picture/Jingdong

The sudden enthusiasm for buying has caused rapid growth in the sales of freezers and refrigerators in the past two weeks.

Suning.com told Caijingtianxia Weekly that its sales of high-end refrigerators and freezers have increased by more than 70% since 2022. The refrigerators favored by consumers are based on basic fresh-keeping functions, and can also achieve intelligent temperature control, partitioned storage, Energy-saving and power-saving, especially those with "small size and large capacity" are more popular. The surge in sales of

is not an isolated case. Gome revealed that due to the recent surge in consumer demand for food storage, refrigerator products with large capacity and refrigeration functions have received unprecedented attention, and the sales of refrigerators and freezers have increased significantly. Taking Guangzhou Gome as an example, its ice-wash sales increased by 133% year-on-year, among which Tianhe , Haizhu , and Liwan placed the most orders. The same is true in Beijing. Overall sales of refrigerators and freezers increased by 40% in April.

On the JD.com platform, Guangdong, Shandong, Sichuan, Jiangsu, Zhejiang and other places have placed the most orders for refrigerators in the past week. The top five cities are Beijing, Guangzhou, Chengdu, Chongqing and Shenzhen.

Not only at the channel level, major refrigerator and freezer manufacturers also sense that the market is changing.

Midea Group told "Financial World" weekly that the demand for refrigerators and freezers has increased significantly recently, and the search popularity in the industry has been as high as Tmall Double Eleven. Especially since April, sales of Midea refrigerators and freezers have increased by 45% year-on-year, and user demand for refrigerators and freezers has increased significantly.

According to data from GfK, in the 15th week of 2022, the national offline freezer category sales increased by 19.9% ​​year-on-year, and sales increased by 29% year-on-year. Among them, sales in Shanghai increased by more than 150% year-on-year. At the same time, offline sales of the refrigerator category also increased by 3.7% year-on-year, and sales increased by 17.7% year-on-year.

Picture/Zhongyikang Mini Program

Haier revealed that due to the recent surge in user demand for fresh food, the demand for large refrigerators and freezers has increased. Coupled with the impact of the Qingming Festival holiday, the overall market retail sales of refrigerators in the 15th week of 2022, Retail sales showed significant growth. Among them, the retail sales of the refrigerator market were 199.11 million yuan, and the retail sales of the freezer market were 10.75 million yuan, with growth rates above double digits. The retail sales of refrigerators and freezers were 37,187 units and 4,675 units, respectively, an increase of 6.7% and 24.4% month-on-month.

Generally speaking, compared with large refrigerators, small freezers are growing at a faster rate. The main advantages of their products are that they are convenient for storing long-lasting food, are cheaper, and occupy a smaller area.In this round of epidemic, most people mainly store frozen products and meat. Because vegetables are difficult to store for a long time, freezers are more practical.

For the refrigerator and freezer categories that have become saturated in the past few years, this is a typical "Little Indian Spring" market. Especially in the context of the continuous decline of the entire home appliance market , this growth achievement is extremely difficult.

cannot reverse the decline

But this round of "Indian Spring" market does not mean that the spring of the refrigerator industry has really arrived.

From a data perspective, the overall sales growth of refrigerators and freezers in my country has been very weak in the past few years. The latest data provided by CMM shows that my country’s refrigerator retail sales from 2019 to 2021 were 31.65 million, 32.57 million, and 32.61 million units respectively, and sales growth has almost stagnated. In fact, this is already the result of the demand for stockpiling since the epidemic in 2020. In the previous five or six years, the refrigerator market was often in a state of negative growth.

The coldness of the refrigerator market is just a microcosm of the saturation of the entire major appliance market. Especially since entering 2022, the growth situation of the entire home appliance market is not optimistic. According to data provided by CMM to Caijingtianxia Weekly, domestic offline retail sales of TVs fell by 41% in March, air conditioners fell by 43%, refrigerators fell by 27%, and freezers fell by 17%.

"The overall consumption is very weak now. From a horizontal perspective, the refrigerator and freezer categories are already very good. In March, the entire large appliances dropped by more than 40%. If there was no need to hoard food due to the epidemic, refrigerators and freezers are estimated to have dropped by 40%. ." Peng Xiandong, general manager of CMM's home appliance business unit, told Caijingtianxia Weekly.

Experts generally do not believe that this round of "Little Indian Spring" can save the major appliance industry.

Home Appliances Industry Analyst Liu Buchen told Caijingtianxia Weekly that the driving effect of recent home quarantine on freezer sales is temporary. "The driving effect should not be exaggerated. Do not think that there will be a big explosion in the refrigerator market. This is impossible."

Another home appliance industry analyst Liang Zhenpeng also believes that although the market for freezers and large-capacity refrigerators will have a certain improvement in the short term due to the epidemic, the overall refrigerator market is now seriously saturated. Growth is difficult to sustain.

"The golden age of China's home appliance development has long passed." Liu Buchen believes that the major appliance market and the real estate market are highly related. With the increase in the real estate market peaking, major appliances have also entered the stock market in recent years, and refrigerators , air conditioners, televisions and washing machines are the traditional four-piece set of large appliances, and they have already entered the saturation stage.

In the capital market, the current stock prices of the two giants Haier and Midea are still hovering at low levels, falling 27% and 30.8% respectively compared with the peak period. On April 12, each share closed at 23.44 yuan and 57.44 yuan respectively.

But one fact is that after experiencing material shortages in the post-epidemic era, the Chinese have picked up the habit of "accumulating grain widely" again, which has reshaped the entire refrigerator and freezer category to a certain extent.

On the one hand, today's refrigerators are getting bigger and bigger. Both Haier Group and Midea Group told Caijingtianxia Weekly that current refrigerators as a whole are showing a trend of becoming larger. A refrigerator dealer from Suning said that most families now purchase refrigerators as "standard equipment." Double doors, 500 litres."

Peng Xiandong said that the large-volume expansion of the refrigerator industry has been obvious since the beginning of the epidemic in 2020, and consumers are buying larger refrigerators.

The large-scale refrigerator has led to an increase in unit price and profit margins in the entire industry. Haier Group told Caijingtianxia Weekly that although domestic refrigerator sales have declined in 2021, sales are continuing to rise. User demand for large-capacity refrigerators has directly promoted the hot sales of mid-to-high-end refrigerators with more than 8,000 yuan.

Picture/Visual China

On the other hand, second refrigerators and freezers have begun to become standard equipment in many families, which to a certain extent has brought a certain amount of incremental space to the entire refrigerator market.

is not strictly necessary.

However, those who have stocked up on refrigerators and freezers may not really need it.

After recently purchasing a new freezer, Mengjie's refrigerator did not stock a lot of fresh vegetables. Because the vegetables were stored for a short period of time, she still maintained the habit of buying and eating one meal at a time.

"Now the food delivered by Hema and Dingdong is very fresh, and the delivery is also very fast. I prefer to eat fresh food every day." Meng Jie told Caijingtianxia Weekly.

However, due to the impact of the epidemic, Mengjie filled up the freezer section of her home refrigerator and the newly purchased freezer. She froze a lot of meat and fast food products, including pork belly, ribs , minced meat, beef and mutton. Meat slices, lamb chops, shrimps, fish balls, frozen dumplings, wontons, glutinous rice balls, etc.

"I even froze vegetables, such as cabbage and Chinese toon . I blanched them in hot water and then dried them and froze them. I also froze slices of lettuce and the like. I even bought ice cream." Meng Jie told Caijingtianxia Weekly.

The small freezer was filled with Mengjie. Picture/Interviewee

However, Mengjie currently has no plans to stock up anymore, because her relatives and friends in Shanghai sent her a stocking list before, and she has already "overfulfilled the task" and even stocked up on cans and snacks.

Compared with meat, which is easy to freeze, it is more difficult to preserve leafy vegetables. Even if you buy another refrigerator, it will be difficult to solve the problem.

In order to solve the problem of insufficient vegetables that may occur in emergencies, Mengjie specially bought multivitamins and prepared to grow vegetables on the balcony at home. She recently placed an order for soil for growing vegetables. The seeds Mengjie bought were coriander and pakchoi . Since the space for growing vegetables on the balcony is relatively small, she planned to mainly grow pakchoi because the growth cycle of pakchoi is relatively short.

Like Mengjie, Fuyue has not stocked too many vegetables at home for the time being. She mainly stores some products that are convenient for freezing. She also feels that vegetables are relatively easy to spoil.

Fu Yue’s house is in Yizhuang, Beijing. It has its own yard and can grow vegetables by itself. Since the outbreak of the epidemic in 2020, Fuyue's family has maintained the habit of growing vegetables. They have grown tomatoes, potatoes, cucumbers, etc. before, and the list of vegetables to grow this year is still under consideration.

Xiaomei, who just placed an order for a small refrigerator, recently stocked up on packaged corn, soba noodles, instant food, sausages, and frozen green beans and corn kernels. But she also mentioned that she actually doesn’t like eating dry products, which are not only unhealthy but also unpalatable. She prefers fresh food.

In fact, for most consumers, an additional refrigerator may not be a necessity.

Mengjie told " Finance World " that if it were not for the Shanghai epidemic and if she had family members in Shanghai, she might not have even thought of buying a new freezer. "In fact, it is completely unnecessary."

Fu Yue also mentioned that the two double-door refrigerators he had in his home were actually sufficient. Although the freezer area was a little smaller, they were basically sufficient. After the newly bought freezer arrived, Fu Yue didn't know what to put in it for a while. It was still empty for the time being, and he planned to discuss with his colleagues what to put in it later.

Xiaomei feels that there is basically no epidemic in Beijing now. On the premise of having a certain ability to resist risks, there is no need to force yourself to eat some dry goods and frozen food. You should still prepare for a better life. "Don't fight without a fight." Prepare for war."

Compared with Beijing, which has not yet been under control, Lina, who lives in Guangzhou, has more confidence in the local area. She only keeps a few days' worth of dishes at home, and then updates them dynamically. The refrigerated area of ​​the 33-liter refrigerator is even partially empty.

After the lockdown in Guangzhou, Lina found that she could still buy groceries very conveniently, and nearby supermarkets could also deliver them. Although the newly purchased freezer cannot be delivered, the refrigerator at home seems to be sufficient. Now she not only does not plan to continue stocking up, but wants to use up the inventory in the freezer area.

"I feel that the supply is better this time and I am more confident in Guangzhou, so I am not in a hurry to stock up." Lina told Caijingtianxia Weekly.

(the names of consumers in this article are pseudonyms)

This article was originally produced by AI Finance and Economics, an account of "Financial World" weekly. Please do not reprint it on any channel or platform without permission. Violators will be prosecuted.