This is a submission from a young man in a small city, invited by Long Mao Jun. It contains no dramatic plots or stories, only ordinary ramblings, but from these authentic ramblings, we can see some consumption patterns and opportunities in small cities. We hope readers will enjoy it. The following is the account of Xiao Z, a special author invited by Long Mao Jun: I am a young man living in a third-tier city in central China. Recently, my friend told me that Beijing is talking about a term called consumption upgrade. I didn't quite understand it, so I looked it up. It roughly means the upgrading of consumption levels. Based on my 30 years of experience living in a small city, I think consumption upgrades have been ongoing in our city. Let me talk about the changes in consumption upgrades in our third- and fourth-tier city from the perspective of my consumption views on clothing, food, housing, and transportation. First, let me introduce our city. If classified according to China's city hierarchy, our city is roughly in the third tier. It is the provincial sub-center of our province, with a population of about 600,000 to 800,000, and it administers a county. In my view, the biggest changes in consumption over the past 10 years have been the most significant. After introducing our city, I'll get to the main topic. 200 Yuan for a Full Outfit Let's go through clothing, food, housing, and transportation one by one. First, clothing. I remember when I was in high school (around 2007), my monthly living expenses were about 500 yuan. At the cafeteria, I could buy two liang of rice and a chicken leg, which cost 3 yuan each at that time. I remember that classmates from poorer families wore clothes without brands, mostly from a large clothing wholesale market in our city. I learned from chatting that most clothes were bought from an even larger wholesale market in the provincial capital, and they were not mainstream brands. The price of clothes was generally 30-50 yuan per piece. At that time, we had a saying: "200 yuan for a full outfit" (including pants, a jacket, and a knit top), which was relatively cheap consumption. For those with better family conditions, there were more brand choices. At that time, the brands we considered as real brands were mainly Yishion, Meters/bonwe, and Semir. Their T-shirts were mostly priced between 49 and 99 yuan, and knitwear ranged from 99 to 199 yuan. These were basically affordable for the general public during our student days. I remember Yishion often had promotional items at 9.9 yuan. We used to call these brands "branded clothes." One level above these brands were Li-Ning, Anta, and Xtep, which sold clothes and sports shoes. At school, we often checked what brand clothes others wore. When a particular style was on sale, we often saw people wearing the same outfit. I had several instances where classmates from the next class wore the same clothes as me because we all bought the 9.9 yuan Yishion items. Above that level were Nike and Adidas. Generally, in our era, those who could afford these brands were from relatively well-off families. After all, a pair of shoes costing 800-1200 yuan was definitely unaffordable for us unless discounted, because our monthly living expenses were only about 500 yuan. At that time, there was no concept of e-commerce, and we didn't know we could buy clothes online. Later, I attended university in this city, around 2009. I remember seeing Vancl's advertisements in my first year. Vancl was promoting its "talent plan" and mainly its canvas shoes, so we started buying clothes on Vancl, books on Dangdang, and also used Taobao, but mainly my girlfriend used it more. After graduating and starting to earn income, I didn't buy all my clothes online anymore. Although the mall near my home had poor business, I could now enter and buy from brands like HLA. After all, in a small city, with a monthly salary of 3000 yuan, plus parents' support and some online part-time income, I could reach 5000 yuan per month. Since I didn't have much pressure from rent, I had relatively more disposable income. Mid-Range Dining Gradually Becomes Mainstream That's about clothing. In terms of food, the changes and upgrades have been the fastest in recent years. There are several notable features: shifting from eating at small restaurants and street stalls to dining in restaurants in shopping malls. I remember that during high school and university, I hardly dared to eat in shopping malls. At that time, there weren't many shopping malls in our main city; there was only one core business district and a traditional department store, with only one floor for dining, offering very limited choices. But in recent years, the changes have been obvious. Our city added two shopping malls within a year, and Wanda Plaza also opened. These new shopping malls have changed more significantly. In the past, shopping malls were really for shopping, mainly selling clothes, jewelry, and other physical goods. But these new malls have dining taking up more than half the space, with very few clothing stores, and many experiential consumption spaces like children's hair salons and SPA centers, which require in-store experiences. Dining brands are also constantly upgrading. In the past, most were local self-created brands, but later a boss told me that local brands didn't sell well, so they started introducing well-known dining brands through franchising. Especially in recent years, Western restaurants have surpassed Chinese restaurants, and buffet restaurants have begun to rise on a large scale, with business getting better and better. I remember three or four years ago, there were no decent fast-food restaurants in our city; we mostly had local brands like Wallace burgers. But in recent years, they have generally become McDonald's and KFC. It should be noted that locals don't consume McDonald's and KFC as fast food; we treat them as a trendy reward-style consumption. Pizza Hut, which is very common in Beijing, Shanghai, and Guangzhou, is a top-tier brand in our city. Although we can't afford to go every day, since it's the only brand of its kind in the city, Pizza Hut's business is so good that there are almost daily queues. So, fast-food brands that may be declining in first- and second-tier cities still have great opportunities in cities like ours. This can also be understood as consumption upgrade. Coffee shops are gradually emerging and extending to high-end brands. Although we don't have big brands like Starbucks, brands like Coffee Bene have begun to appear in our view. I have a very deep impression: in places like Beijing and Shanghai, people politely order a cup of coffee in a low voice. But in our city, every time I go to a coffee shop, I see a person leading a group of people in and directly saying, "Give us one of each coffee on the menu." Why does this happen? It shows that third- and fourth-tier cities are treating coffee as a conspicuous consumption product. So when people go to drink coffee, they might not be drinking coffee anymore; they are drinking loneliness. In addition, milk tea shops are also upgrading and changing. In the past, milk tea shops were mainly stalls for takeout, but now these businesses are also focusing on experience, decorating the space more beautifully to allow customers to stay and chat. These are significant changes. I have also raised my consumption budget from the original 50 yuan per person to about 100 yuan, and mid-range dining has gradually become mainstream. Those who feel the changes more deeply are probably the business owners. A friend of mine used to make a living by acting as an agent for clothing brands, but in recent years, clothing business has declined, so he timely switched from clothing to dining, franchising several Western food brands. According to his own calculation, last year his three restaurants brought him over 3 million yuan in profit. He feels this deeply. Although rent and labor costs are rising, they are not rising as sharply as in Beijing, Shanghai, and Guangzhou. Basically, as long as you franchise a well-known brand in a suitable location, the chance of making money is relatively high. Correspondingly, the small restaurants we used to talk about are becoming fewer and fewer. The open-air barbecue stalls we used to see are also decreasing, gradually being concentrated into specialty food streets, and are not as common elsewhere. I remember about three or four years ago, there were many mobile barbecue carts, which were almost all our childhood memories of delicious food. Now they are indeed increasingly rare. This may also be related to stricter city management and food safety regulations. After talking about clothing and food, there is another major expense: children's consumption. Since having a child, I've found that spending on infants and children has greatly increased. For example, the most obvious is milk powder. We basically don't buy local brands anymore; we mainly buy Australian milk powder. Even when going to the supermarket, we only buy imported milk powder. Speaking of supermarkets, I'll mention a bit: now we buy most things at the 24-hour convenience store downstairs. It's called a convenience store, but it's actually a bit larger than a convenience store, smaller than a supermarket, and has basic daily necessities. Besides milk powder, there are children's clothes. I remember when I was a child, I basically wore hand-me-downs from my older brother. But now that I have a child, we buy branded clothes. We don't really know which brands are big; we occasionally buy online. Most of the time, we buy from a one-stop children's shopping mall in the city center, where the clothes are branded. This was unimaginable three years ago. At that time, we never thought we would mainly buy foreign milk powder. More Opportunities for Consumption Upgrade in Small Cities Finally, let's talk about transportation. Buying a car is now a standard for small city residents. In the past two years, I've felt this very clearly. Previously, our main urban area never had traffic jams, but now it does. Of course, most of the time we still use public transportation, since it takes less than half an hour to traverse the whole city. As for ride-hailing services like Didi, which you have in big cities, we basically don't have them here. Let me summarize the characteristics of our small city's consumption life and see if it meets your definition of consumption upgrade: 1. We have fully branded our food consumption. Eating out is no longer just for festivals and holidays, but a choice at any time. We now also check Dianping and see if a restaurant is a well-known brand. If it is, we feel more trust psychologically. Especially the emergence of coffee consumption formats, which was unimaginable before. 2. For clothing, we either buy on Taobao or go to larger offline stores. For example, I now basically only wear clothes of the HLA level, because I still hope to be respected by others. 3. I have a 5-year-old child, a car worth over 100,000 yuan, and a house I just bought with a down payment. On average, I go out to eat with my child's mother about four times a month. Cooking at home has become less frequent. About three or four years ago, we basically cooked at home, but that habit has gradually changed. We eat at Pizza Hut once a month, and when we have nothing to do in the evening, we stroll to a coffee shop on the street and buy a cup of coffee. 4. For shopping, we go to the city center's RT-Mart less and less. Basically, except for buying milk powder at RT-Mart or Walmart, we buy other daily necessities at the convenience store downstairs. Other consumption includes watching movies and singing karaoke. Apart from that, spiritual consumption is relatively low. This is also an opportunity I see in our city: there are too few spaces and places to go on weekends. In short, our consumption is indeed upgrading. The consumption upgrade you mentioned will have more opportunities in cities like ours, because we have more time and theoretically less pressure on disposable income, unlike you who might still be working overtime on weekends. -END-