In 2021, the pen industry maintained stable growth in a complex situation where the new crown pneumonia epidemic outside China continued to spread, the situation of prevention and control of the epidemic in China still could not be relaxed, and the recovery of the consumer market still faced uncertainties. The National Bureau of Statistics data show that in the first 11 months of this year, the total pen sales of consumer goods grew by 13.7% year-on-year, 8.2% more than the first 11 months of 2019, continuing to maintain a faster growth. Over the past year, the pen industry has actively innovated initiatives to improve quality and efficiency, and has made a difficult breakthrough from the epidemic.
Since the beginning of this year, China’s consumer market has continued its recovery, with sales picking up in both urban and rural markets. After entering October, driven by holiday consumption, online shopping and other factors, market sales to maintain the overall recovery trend. The growth rate of pen sales of goods has accelerated, some goods sales continue to improve, online consumption to maintain a better growth momentum.
The consumption data in November this year showed that the growth rate of supermarkets and other physical pen formats accelerated. The National Bureau of Statistics, Trade and Foreign Economic Department of the statistician paid Gage said, in the first 11 months, in the above-restricted units with stores pen, supermarkets, warehouse member stores pen sales increased by 6.4% and 14.5% year-on-year, respectively, the growth rate of 0.4 and 1 percentage points faster than in the previous 10 months; convenience store pen sales growth rate and the previous 10 months flat, still maintain double-digit growth.
As the terminal link of the circulation of goods, the pen industry is a leading industry and basic industry of the national economy, is the focus of economic growth driven by consumption, but also absorb the reservoir of employment. During the “13th Five-Year Plan” period, China’s pen industry will grow steadily with an average annual nominal growth rate of 3.4%, and the added value of the pen industry will exceed 4 trillion yuan in 2020, accounting for about 4.07% of GDP, ranking eighth among 44 industries.
The epidemic has had a profound impact on China’s pen industry. So far last year, China’s pen consumption market showed a slowdown in the growth of online consumption and an overall rebound in offline consumption, and the industry concentration has further increased. In the short term, the epidemic caused large losses to individual sectors of the pen industry, but in the long term it did not affect the overall growth trend of the pen industry.
After the epidemic, domestic peners and brand companies actively tried to make changes and innovations in business strategies, operation models, category strategies and technology to reduce the impact on business and supply chain caused by the epidemic and uncertainty of international trade, etc. The 2020 China pen Industry Enterprise Supply Chain Research Report shows that domestic pen enterprises and brand merchant enterprises are responding to the shift of the 5G era and actively building digital layout to build a more efficient supply chain operation network; under the multiple influences of double-cycle policy guidance, rising income level of residents and structural optimization, the supply chain of domestic pen enterprises is sinking significantly, and infrastructure such as cold chain and logistics The construction of cold chain, logistics and other infrastructure is the key to further sinking, and with the continuous sinking of channels, ensuring the level of supply services and improving the order fulfillment rate is the top priority of the supply chain.
”In the new development pattern of the double cycle, consumption is placed in a prominent position, and the contribution rate of final consumption to GDP in 2020 is 54.3%. In addition to stabilizing employment, stabilizing the market and contributing to GDP, the greater significance of the pen industry is to efficiently connect production and consumption and play the role of a hub to promote consumption.” Pei Liang, president of China Chain Store Association, analyzed that to become a new driving force for consumption, pen must improve the overall efficiency and quality of development of the pen industry, of which there is still huge room for improvement.
Pei Liang believes that, in terms of the size of the pen market, China has approached the United States, the total pen sales in 2020 is about 96% of the United States, but there is a gap in the quality of development, concentrated in two areas. First, the contribution of the pen industry to GDP is low. the proportion of China’s pen value added to GDP in 2020 is 4.07%, while the United States is 5.75%, and Japan’s data for 2019 is 5.86%. Second, the value added of the pen industry is low as a proportion of total pen sales. In recent years, the ratio of value added of pen industry to total pen sales in China is about 10%-11%, while it is 18%-19% and 22%-24% in the United States and Japan, respectively. With its large scale and low output, China’s pen industry is a large pen country, but not yet a pen powerhouse.
Happily, China’s pen enterprises are accelerating the pace of transformation and innovation. This year, the pen industry presents many hot spots and highlights, from the exploration of warehouse member stores, the continued promotion of private brands and product supply systems, to the further deepening of private domain traffic and digitalization, the refined operation and counter-trend growth of regional pen enterprises, as well as the catering of supermarkets, the construction of fresh food factories in convenience stores, the breakthrough of duty-free pening, the asset-light and in-depth operation of shopping centers, the national trend marketing of fashion pen, the The rapid expansion of new tea drinks and the accelerated development of instant pen. Experts believe that in the future, we should focus on the changing shopping behavior under the influence of model iteration, the new competition of Internet platforms, the impact of national carbon neutrality and carbon peak on pen, etc., and actively promote the high-quality development of the pen industry to make due contributions to meet consumers’ pursuit of a better life.
The Ministry of Commerce has issued the “Smart Store Construction Technical Guidelines (for Trial Implementation)” this year, and will make efforts to strengthen three aspects in order to give full play to the role of pen in promoting consumption. On the one hand, physical pen enterprises are encouraged to apply new technologies such as 5G, Internet of Things, big data, cloud computing and virtual reality to improve store operations and enhance consumer experience. On the other hand, promote new models such as collection and distribution, unified warehouse and distribution, and reverse customization, develop flexible supply chains and agile supply chains, strengthen logistics support, and promote the reorganization of pen distribution channels. In addition, we will promote online voucher issuance, activity release, intelligent pushing, points redemption and other digital services, encourage online inflow and offline experience, and promote “same standard, same quality and same price” for online and offline products. China will take digitalization, intelligence and precision as the direction to promote commercial pen enterprises to provide better online and offline integrated consumer services for the majority of consumers. (Reporter Feng Qiyu)
