Many young people working hard in big cities have thought about returning to the "small place" in their hometown to open a store of their own. However, very few people actually do this in the end. After all, there are too many things to hesitate.

Many young people working hard in big cities have thought about returning to their hometown to open a store of their own in the "small place".

However, in the end, very few people actually do this. After all, there are too many things to hesitate. In imagination, life in a small town is leisurely and comfortable, the relationship between neighbors is cordial and close, and every street and every building is familiar. But is it really feasible to bring popular business forms in big cities to small towns and support themselves by opening stores?

We found four young people in the Yangtze River Delta who returned to small towns to open stores. They sell hand-brewed coffee to grandparents, find young people on the island to play script killing games, and sell jewelry, hair ropes, and socks that girls like in the noisy alley next to the building materials market. There is also one who went to the countryside to open a bookstore, claiming We do not sell teaching aids, best-sellers, or chicken soup articles.

They tell stories about courage, compromise and pursuit. As time passed, the town changed, giving them space and opportunity to experiment.

Why not open a tea room?

"It's really willful. What's the difference between this and losing 300,000 yuan?" 300,000 yuan is the price Xu Chao paid to open a coffee shop in Xinshi Ancient Town, Deqing County, Huzhou City. Since the coffee shop opened its doors in the town in May 2017, doubts have not stopped for a moment.

Old people in the town often come to "watch" and poke their heads in from the window. They ask without scruple, "We are all tea drinkers here. Is there anyone drinking coffee?" Why not open a tea room or soy milk shop? Xu Chao posted his store opening experience on social platforms, but young netizens also didn't understand, thinking that he was a "player" and not a serious businessman. Some people also concluded unceremoniously that young people starting a business are guaranteed to lose money.

Every once in a while, Xu Chao (left) and his wife would stand in front of their store and take photos holding hands. It has become a habit and ritual. Although

is sharp, this evaluation is not completely unreasonable. Xinshi Ancient Town Although it has the beauty of a water town, more than 40 kilometers away, the Mogan Mountain Scenic Area is more popular, and the ancient town cannot attract too many tourists. Most local young people go to study abroad after graduating from high school. Almost only those who choose to take the establishment examination and become civil servants after graduation will come back. Therefore, things that are popular among young people are taken for granted and have no market in small towns.

Previous experience also told Xu Chao that it is difficult to do business in small town coffee shops. The store he took over has two floors, which was renovated from an old tofu grinding house. Before him, the store had experienced three owners, and the last one's main business was coffee drinks. There is no successful coffee shop in the town. People who want to drink coffee can only go to teahouses or milk tea shops and buy a cup of brewed instant coffee.

Soon, Xu Chao realized the hardships involved. He wants to recruit a barista to help in the store. No experience is required, but it is best to be young. Even if the conditions are relaxed and the threshold is lowered, we still can’t recruit people. Xu Chao persuaded a friend who often visited the store, and finally turned the "regular customer" into a "clerk". The clerk made coffee for his grandma for the first time. When grandma took a sip, all the features on her face were squeezed together: "It's so bitter, can it be sold?"

Coffee shops are not the only ones who are not optimistic about it. In Changle Town, Haimen District, Nantong City, Chen Song opened a bookstore that did not sell teaching aids. During the preparation period, no one around him supported his idea. Chen Song is a native of Nantong. He used to work in a traditional media company in Wuxi. His wife and children are all in Wuxi. His family thinks it would be great to work in a city like Wuxi or Shanghai. "Only those who can't survive will go back to their hometown." When it came to opening a bookstore, everyone asked which school it was opened next to. After finding out that Chen Songsong's bookstore was not close to the school and did not sell teaching aids, they all expressed regret and advised him that it is difficult to open a bookstore now. You can make more money by setting up a tutoring class to teach a few children.

Chen Song's bookstore is located in Changle Town .

A store that may not be considered popular in the eyes of others, but in the eyes of those who open it, is a dream lifestyle. Chen Song likes paper books. When visiting a city, he always visits a bookstore first. If I can open a bookstore, I can choose books and create freely. This idea is like a seed that has been buried in my heart for a long time and gradually grows. But more practical problems lie ahead.Chen Song is 40 years old this year. His child has just entered junior high school, his wife is still in Wuxi, and his parents have to support him. He cannot "act recklessly."

Chen Song’s idea is very clear, and the logic of is self-consistent with : He does not have strong financial support, so he can only enter the bookstore market at a relatively controllable cost. There is no shortage of bookstores in urban areas, with many competitors and high operating costs, but bookstores in small towns are feasible. He firmly believed that there would be commercial returns in opening a bookstore in a small town.

Indeed, compared to opening a store in a big city, the cost of opening a store in a small town is lower.

The young girl Tao Zi majored in art. After graduation, she worked as an content operator for a small Internet company in Hangzhou, Zhejiang. Later, she worked as an editor and fashion blogger at an Internet celebrity incubation organization. In 2021, she quit her job, returned to her hometown of Xuyi County, Huai'an City, Jiangsu Province, and opened a grocery store. Her shop is rented in an alley next to a building materials market. It is located in the commercial center. There is a food street not far away. It is a very lively area in the county. For a two-story building, the decoration fee is 20,000 yuan, and the annual rent is 20,000 yuan. In the initial stage, she purchased gadgets that were not too expensive and were therapeutic, such as canvas bags under 100 yuan, socks for 10 yuan a pair, cups that were cheaper than online shopping, and cute pendants that could be hung on schoolbags and keys. , Lin Lin finally calculated that the total investment in Taozi’s store was about 60,000 yuan. If you use this money to open a store in a big city, you may only be able to pay 2 months' rent.

Taozi's grocery store opened in Xuyi County.

Can this be called a coffee shop?

He and his wife both worked in Hangzhou before. He was in the advertising industry and his wife was a wedding planner. Xinshi Ancient Town is where my wife grew up. Xu Chao visited the ancient town for the first time as a tourist. When he saw the clothes drying along the eaves, the toilets being cleaned by the river, and the old-fashioned detachable door panels for the doors of the shops along the street... he was sure: "We want to open a shop or live there." This is what a place is like. "

A town like this may be suitable for living, but it may not be suitable for opening a coffee shop. He not only sells coffee, but also steaks, pasta, cocktails, and even cucumbers and crayfish. His flagship products are salads and frozen lemon tea. Coffee is actually the worst-selling item, with only two or three cups sold a day. Neighbors often come to the shop to play cards, and unmarried men and women who have returned from the city on vacation have blind dates in the shop. In the evening, they are all people who come to the coffee shop for dinner, with seven or eight people eating around a table.

Xu Chao hesitated, can this still be called a coffee shop?

Xu Chao's coffee shop is located in the ancient town of Xinshi. There have been many guests coming for dinner in the evening.

He gradually understood that he could not use the consumption habits and thinking of big cities to make judgments in small towns. In cities, some festivals have almost become "consumption festivals" and shopping malls are particularly lively, but small towns do not pay attention to these at all. For example, at Christmas, Xu Chao specially advertised discounts, prepared sufficient materials in advance, and launched newly designed set meals. The number of customers visiting the store fell instead of increasing. Also, his coffee shop has the worst business on Thursdays. Why is this day? Xu Chao couldn't figure it out.

When a small store opens in a town, the pricing needs to be considered.

Hu Zhenwei studied in Zhengzhou. After graduation, he returned to his hometown of Daishan County, Zhoushan City, and wanted to open a script-killing shop. In the past few years, script sales have become very popular in big cities. There are even several stores on each floor of a commercial office building. After Hu Zhenwei tried it once, he planned to open the first store in Daishan . He went to Ningbo to investigate the market. The luxurious store decoration and handsome host are the core attractions. In Ningbo's cheapest script-killing store, the average per person for a play is 98 yuan, and 138 yuan and 158 yuan are normal. This kind of pricing is impossible in Daishan! Daishan County is located in the middle of the Zhoushan Islands, with a permanent population of only 200,000. The Zhoudai Bridge was opened just last year. In the past, residents could only go out to the island by boat. In a county like this, it is impossible for people to spend more than 100 yuan on an entertainment activity they have never heard of. Hu Zhenwei's script-killing store sets the price of a single play at 60 yuan, which is a low price that cannot be found in big cities.

The scripts available in Hu Zhenwei’s store are all the cheapest ordinary ones.

The town is not big, and everyone has visited most of the stores many times. Newly opened stores are always curious. No matter what they sell or how they are sold, people spread the word and go to "check in" to explore the store. Hu Zhenwei encourages customers to repost on social media, and if they "collect likes" in their circle of friends, they can get 10 yuan off. Not long after the store opened, the coffee shop's social media group has an influx of hundreds of people, with a wide age range, ranging from junior high school students in their 10s. , to stay-at-home mothers in their 40s.

However, this trend soon passed.

Xu Chao’s coffee shop in Xinshi Guzhen officially opened in May 2017. During the summer vacation and then National Day, it was very busy in the first half of the year, with a monthly turnover of 20,000 yuan. By November, the situation took a turn for the worse, and the store's monthly turnover dropped to 2,000 yuan. For a long time afterwards, no matter how Xu Chao adjusted the menu or offered discounts and promotions, the business never improved. Sometimes there were only three or two customers in the store a day. "It was quite embarrassing at the time. Although I couldn't make any money, it wasn't a sustained loss, so I was reluctant to transfer it," Xu Chao said.

Xu Chao (right) and his wife live a life of "two people, two cats and one shop" in Xinshi Ancient Town.

At the beginning of 2020, Xu Chao left his wife to look after the store and went out to find a job. He just started running express delivery, driving a van to deliver goods back and forth between cities and small towns. He earned a basic salary of 5,000 yuan and some commissions. Later, he went to the next town to find an advertising-related job. This is his old profession, with a monthly salary of nearly 10,000 yuan. He barely kept the coffee shop afloat with his salary. In May 2020, there were more tourists and the store's business gradually improved. Xu Chao was called back to the store by his wife and never went back to work - he still couldn't let go of his store.

After calming down, Xu Chao made a clear calculation: There are less than 100,000 people in the town. Even if everyone's business is done one by one, it will not last long. Many of them are elderly or have no money. A few children with pocket money may have less than 50,000 people with real spending power.

Where to find customers?

A coffee shop cannot survive as a small town business. "If the guests don't come, we will go find them." Xu Chao said. Chen Song, the owner of

small town bookstore, also began to understand this truth. Why are bookstores scarce in small towns? This just goes to show that the book-buying consumption of town residents alone cannot support the long-term operation of a bookstore. Chen Song’s idea is that bookstores must be integrated with culture and tourism.

Changle Town, Haimen District, Nantong City, where he now opens a bookstore, is the birthplace of the famous industrialist and educator Zhang Jian. When Chen Song selected the site last year, a replica of the old street "Liuxi Ban Street" was under development, and shops were attracting investment. The developer's plan left a place for a bookstore, but the developer and several well-known and established companies in big cities I contacted a large bookstore, but due to various reasons, we couldn't reach an agreement. Chen Song went to talk with a few slides and communicated back and forth many times to finalize the cooperation plan.

The interior layout of Chen Song’s bookstore.

On November 15 last year, Liuxi Ban Street officially welcomed customers. Chen Song’s bookstore opened on the same day and was full of tourists. In the past six months, the bookstore's operating conditions have exceeded Chen Song's expectations. The supporting facilities for tourism in the town are gradually being developed. The Zhang Jian Memorial Hall and surrounding areas have their own traffic, and the catering, B&B and other businesses are relatively complete. People who visit the town will visit the bookstore.

At the small town coffee shop, someone invited Xu Chao to Hangzhou to participate in an off-site event at the coffee market. After communicating with his peers, Xu Chao returned to the small town and cut off 80% of the product categories in the store, leaving only Coffee, soda drinks and cakes, he made up his mind to return to the starting point and build a real coffee shop.

He borrowed money to upgrade the domestic single-head coffee machine in the store to a second-hand double-head coffee machine worth 80,000 yuan. He also spent 40,000 yuan to buy a roasting machine and started researching on the roasting of coffee beans. The production areas are put together, from raw to cooked, and you can smell every flavor at every stage; the resources of the town are limited, and some suppliers of fresh beans are not happy to make a separate trip for this small business; he visits stores everywhere , communicate with more peers; practice continuously following videos online. Half a year later, Xu Chao figured out the store's signature "No. 1 bean." He believes that coffee shops have core competitiveness.

Xu Chao makes coffee on the spot at the coffee market.

In order to survive, Xu Chao stuffed his "possessions" into the trunk and ran to various markets. He gradually gained some confidence. Xu Chao learned to prepare special drinks, such as selling "Sakura Latte" at the Cherry Blossom Market. At the Xuanwu Lake Coffee Festival in Nanjing, he developed a "City in the Sky" that was well received and even had customers ordering it for him. Came to the ancient town for coffee.

Xu Chao’s online store is also online, selling coffee beans and hanging coffee . He has done an inventory in 2021: the farthest order came from Xinjiang, and the coffee beans took 10 bumps on the road before being delivered; the most expensive order From Huzhou , a customer placed an order for a pack of each of the store's single-product beans; the customer who made the most repeat purchases was a Guangdong customer who purchased 36 times, an average of 1.5 times a month.

What can you do to retain people?

In this small town, "compromise" is still happening. Many small town residents have never had hand-brewed coffee or drank coffee without sugar. When ordering, they will ask for a little milk to be added to hand-brewed coffee, a little sugar to Americano coffee, and a spoon to stir it. . People passing by the coffee shop are very curious about the roasting of beans. They have never seen fresh coffee beans, and they think it is similar to roasted tea leaves. They ask whether the roaster can roast peanuts and make popcorn.

also has unexpected surprises. Most of the time, when Xu Chao was unloading goods from the express truck, he would just shout on the street and someone would come over to help him. The grandparents walking by passed by and poked their heads in through the window again, saying that the coffee smelled really good. Xu Chao would give the coffee grounds to them and use them as fertilizer when they went home. After the store was upgraded, his coffee prices were in line with those in downtown Hangzhou. Occasionally, there were customers who thought it was expensive, but when they heard that a coffee machine cost nearly 100,000 yuan, they didn't say anything. There are various signs that small town residents are beginning to accept coffee, coffee shops are slowly starting to make profits, and local consumption can account for 40%.

Chen Song held several reading activities in the store, and the results were good.

In another small town, Chen Song felt that the bookstore's revenue in the past six months was good. Although he could barely make back the rent and utility bills, he was already very satisfied. More than a month after it opened, a friend of his had published a collection of poems. He invited his friend to the store and held a sharing session. The author is not well-known, and the appearance fee is too high, so I can't afford it. Chen Song was very worried, fearing that no one would attend and the event would be awkward. Unexpectedly, nearly 30 readers came, and the event went smoothly. Later, it was discovered that there were many local people who loved reading. Chen Song joined a reading club. The founder was a middle school teacher and there were more than 60 club members. The members were very surprised to find that there was such a bookstore in the town.

The small town on the island, Hu Zhenwei’s script-killing shop, has become the best place for young people in Daishan to open up their social circle. High school students and college students returning home during the winter and summer vacations most like to "share tables" because they can make more new friends. The door of the store is never locked. Customers who come to the store outside of business hours can pour themselves a glass of water and sit down to rest. "We want our customers to feel that this store is like an old friend," Hu Zhenwei said. There was a female junior high school student who was a frequent visitor to the store. There was an art performance at the school, and the store clerk went to school to help her put on makeup. There are also teachers and students who met in the store after school. They joked that it was just a good time to help with homework. In big cities, everyone disperses after the game, but in small counties, there is a little more belonging and warmth.

Customers who went to Hu Zhenwei's store to play script killing took photos in disguise. One year after

opened the store, Hu Zhenwei has already recovered his capital, and the price of the game has increased from 60 yuan to 68 yuan. He plans to keep doing it for a long time and is optimistic about the future development of Daishan. Close to the sea, it has unique fishery resources and the petrochemical industry is booming. The Zhoudai Bridge makes communication between Daishan and the outside world much more convenient. After the script shop was destroyed, there were taverns, animation cities, karts, clubs, etc. on the island.

After that, more young people will be willing to return to the small town and start a new story. Editor-in-chief of

column: Kong Lingjun Source of title picture: Picture provided by interviewee All pictures in

 article are provided by interviewee. 

Source: Author: Gong Chiping Liu Chang