November 22, there is still one month left before the 2019 National Master’s Unified Enrollment Examination. Xiao Jiang, who works as an English teacher at an educational institution in Beijing, got up on time at 6:40 in the morning and took a car for nearly an hour to a paid study room in Zhongguancun to prepare for the master's degree in law at Beijing Jiaotong University . He did not return home until nearly 10 o'clock in the evening.
On November 22, a paid study room in Zhongguancun, Beijing, customers are studying in the "dark room". It is the postgraduate entrance examination season, and most customers in the paid study room come for the postgraduate entrance examination.
In order to take the postgraduate entrance examination, Xiao Jiang applied for a seasonal card in the paid study room, and the average daily cost was 33 yuan. In Beijing, more and more young people choose to "spend money to buy seats" like him. It is the postgraduate entrance examination season recently, and most customers in paid study rooms come for the postgraduate entrance examination, with ages ranging from 20 to 35.
Most paid study rooms are located in office buildings or commercial and residential buildings, and a few stores choose to rent lower-floor merchants. In the study room, except for the occasional sound of flipping books, everything seemed to be still. Some study rooms will set up silent reading areas and keyboard and mouse reading areas to meet the needs of different customers; many stores will also provide printers, microwaves, drinks, snacks, stationery, storage cabinets, etc., and some will also provide blankets, baby warmers, and massage chairs. , a study room in Qingnian Road, Chaoyang District, Ms. Liao said, "This is an industry with 'small sparrows, all the internal organs'."
On November 24, a corner of a study room in Dingfuzhuang, Beijing. Here we provide customers with printing services and free paper, and on the side are the canvas bags designed by the store.
Shu Yue, the owner of a study room in Dingfuzhuang, Chaoyang District, said that paid study rooms have emerged in Japan and South Korea and have a history of more than 40 years. In China, the paid study room industry in Taiwan, Shanghai, , Suzhou, , Nanjing and other places has emerged earlier, and the "explosive growth" in Beijing only started in the second half of 2019. At present, there are more than 30 paid study rooms in Beijing, concentrated in Zhongguancun, Wudaokou , Dawang Road, Chaoyangmen and other places.
A quiet and focused learning environment is the main demand for young people to choose paid study rooms. "I can't study at home because my home is very comfortable and I can't do anything." said Yuan Yichen, who is preparing for the second postgraduate entrance examination. Wang Feifei came to the study room to avoid the interference of her children in her studies. She is already working and is preparing for the graduate student at , Beijing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics, .
On November 21, Liu was in a study room in Yizhuang , Beijing. She is preparing for a master's degree in law and studying here for more than 10 hours a day.
There are also some young people who need a "feeling of ceremony" when studying, or to some extent feel pressure from their peers. "When you are studying, you actually hope to see the people around you also study, so that you feel more 'ignited' in your heart." said Liu, who is preparing for a master's degree in law. Xiao Jiang said that he enjoyed the "pressure" of a group of people accompanying him to study, and what he bought was "the learning atmosphere".
Compared with cafes, libraries and other places that are also public learning places, paid study rooms have their own advantages. "The cafe is too noisy, and you need to order coffee and have lunch. It costs 100 yuan a day, which is not as cost-effective as here (paid study room), and the atmosphere here is good." said Li Jin, who is applying for a doctorate. In Beijing, public libraries are often hard to find, let alone encounter noisy "naughty kids". Paid study rooms often offer low-priced trial periods, including hourly cards, daily cards, monthly cards, quarterly cards, and stored value cards. The price of a single-day card is around 60 yuan to 100 yuan, while the daily unit price of a monthly card is between 30 yuan and 50 yuan.
On the afternoon of November 23, many customers were studying on the open area on the first floor of a study room on Qingnian Road, Beijing. The afternoon is often the time when the paid study rooms have the most customers.
learning environment is the biggest selling point of paid study rooms. In response to the phenomenon that affects the self-study environment, the code of a store in Dingfuzhuang, Chaoyang District uses the word "forced return to Kala black". Shao Qiang, the owner of a study room in Wangjing , said: "More than 95% of the customers are of high quality and know how to take care of others."
Shaoqiang said that paid study rooms are a very seasonal industry. In the second half of the year when various exams are intensive, especially the month before a major exam, the attendance rate of study rooms will be significantly higher than the off-season of the exam. According to the observations of many store owners, most of the people who use paid study rooms are students and white-collar workers at work, mostly reviewing and preparing for the exam, and some come to work, read books, and study to recharge. Shu Yue has met parents who come to study with college students, and There is a mother who brings her 10-year-old child to work quietly in the double room.
Like the customer group, many of the shop owners of paid study rooms are also young people between the ages of 20 and 40. He Xiujuan is 26 years old this year. After graduating from undergraduate, she came to Beijing from Fujian to start a business. She partnered with three friends to open their first study room in Yizhuang and is planning to open a chain store. He Jingping and her partners are both in their 30s and have a bachelor's degree or above. Their team has independently developed a reservation and appointment system and is trying to unmanned management of study rooms. Shu Yue and You Yameng are a couple born in the 1990s. They pay more attention to the life atmosphere of study rooms and hope to combine study rooms with fields such as culture and charity. Ms. Liao, who graduated from the master's degree, is under 30 years old. She is not satisfied with being from nine to five. She has always "wanted to find something to do". At the beginning of this year, they conducted field research and distributed questionnaires. , do data surveys and started to contact the study room industry, and opened its first store at the end of September.
The number of paid study rooms in Beijing has rapidly expanded from five or six at the beginning of the year to more than 30 today, and it has shown a trend of continued growth. He Jingping, who opened a study room in Zhongguancun, believes that the replicability of the paid study room model is precisely the reason for its "hotness". "Find a place and buy some tables and chairs to open, but in actual operations, you will encounter many things that need to be refined. "
, as an industry that is mainly operated by young people and serves young people, has particularly outstanding humanized and intelligent characteristics of paid study rooms. In order to choose a comfortable chair for users, He Xiujuan has chosen more than a dozen styles. "Try sitting by yourself, ask friends to try sitting by... There are still 6 at home now. "Shu Yue talked about the design of the study room table: the desktop should not be too big or too small. If the space is small, the space will be limited. If it is large, some debris will be placed, which will affect attention. The partitions on both sides of the table should be moderate in length, so that customers can focus their attention on the desktop when studying, and see the people around them when they are relaxed, so as to motivate themselves. Many study rooms also choose to use online reservation systems, and even use Internet of Things technology: customers can scan the code to open the door by themselves, and the power supply of the seat is connected to the reservation system.
The owners have different opinions on the prospects of paid study rooms. Shu Yue believes that although study rooms are promising as emerging things in China, they are by no means a fast-moving industry. He said that many people in Beijing still do the same thing: "Let the market and the public know us." "Shaoqiang's view is contrary. He believes that paid study rooms have certain requirements for customers' economic level, and "the income ceiling is very low", because the space and service content are limited, the service scope is difficult to expand. For the future, He Xiujuan believes that the peers who operate paid study rooms are in an initial attempt stage, "everyone is exploring."
