---
title: "The Underestimated County-Level Market Is Starting to Boom!"
description: "“Our business was exceptionally booming this Spring Festival, open even during the day on New Year's Eve, and we couldn't keep up with stocking the shelves...” Returning to the county town for the New Year, the author not only noticed many new snack stores but also received similar responses when visiting several. Rather than returning young people driving snack store business, it's more accurate to say that snack stores are well-suited to the soil of lower-tier markets. Of course, it's not just snack stores—Mixue Ice City, Luckin Coffee, KFC, and even Starbucks are blossoming across county-level markets, showing that brand supply is rapidly converging between lower-tier and first- and second-tier cities, reflecting the vigorous consumption power of county markets and the new reality of Chinese consumption: the democratization of mass consumption."
author: "张振宇"
publisher: "New Distribution"
email: "zhaobo258@gmail.com"
telephone: "+8615854817671"
published: "2026-03-27"
categories: "Consumer & Categories, Industry Trends"
language: "en"
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original_source: "https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/tiVv0R1b5d1d4-L1txlW5g"
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citation: "张振宇. “The Underestimated County-Level Market Is Starting to Boom!.” New Distribution, 2026-03-27. https://xinjignxiao.com/en/articles/the-underestimated-county-level-market-is-starting-to-boom-28267024/"
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---

# The Underestimated County-Level Market Is Starting to Boom!

> “Our business was exceptionally booming this Spring Festival, open even during the day on New Year's Eve, and we couldn't keep up with stocking the shelves...” Returning to the county town for the New Year, the author not only noticed many new snack stores but also received similar responses when visiting several. Rather than returning young people driving snack store business, it's more accurate to say that snack stores are well-suited to the soil of lower-tier markets. Of course, it's not just snack stores—Mixue Ice City, Luckin Coffee, KFC, and even Starbucks are blossoming across county-level markets, showing that brand supply is rapidly converging between lower-tier and first- and second-tier cities, reflecting the vigorous consumption power of county markets and the new reality of Chinese consumption: the democratization of mass consumption.

“Our business was exceptionally booming this Spring Festival, open even during the day on New Year's Eve, and we couldn't keep up with stocking the shelves...”
Returning to my hometown county town for the New Year, I not only noticed many new snack stores popping up but also received similar responses when visiting several.
Rather than returning young people driving snack store business, it's more accurate to say that snack stores are well-suited to the soil of lower-tier markets.
Of course, it's not just snack stores—Mixue Ice City, Luckin Coffee, KFC, and even Starbucks are blossoming across county-level markets, giving returning young people a familiar feel.
It also shows us the rapid convergence of brand supply between lower-tier markets and first- and second-tier cities.
This supply convergence reflects not only changes on the supply side but also demonstrates the robust consumption power of county-level markets.
It further reveals a new reality of China's consumer market—**the democratization of mass consumption.**

**County-Level Market:**
**A Consumption Hub That Cannot Be Ignored**
If “going down-market” was a brand's grasp of market trends a few years ago, now the county-level market has become a consumption hub that brands must take seriously.
**Such a supply-side response must be driven by a completely different demand-side landscape.**
Counties are fundamental units of China's urban modernization. The country's 1,813 counties (including 397 county-level cities, 1,299 counties, and 117 autonomous counties) have a permanent population of 450 million and contribute 33% of China's total economic output.
Key data description of county-level cities from “Returning to County Markets: Reason and Emotion in the New Cycle | Black Ant Capital”
According to McKinsey's forecast, by 2030, **over 66% of China's personal consumption growth will come from lower-tier markets, including third-tier and below cities, counties, and townships.**
The consumption power of county-level markets will undoubtedly become a strong engine for consumption growth in the coming years.
This release of consumption power stems more from consumers' confidence in the future. Lower living burdens, more leisure time, and more modest aspirations for upward mobility provide a huge guarantee for this consumption confidence.
From the survey “Chinese Consumption in the New Normal | McKinsey,” it can be seen that optimism about the economy in markets below third-tier is significantly higher than in higher-tier markets.
In the current environment where FMCG is generally anxious about growth, such certain opportunities are bound to attract retail and brand attention. As they begin to penetrate, they greatly promote the richness of supply in county-level markets.
From a certain perspective, this supply-side change **makes up for the long-standing problem of lagging supply, greatly narrowing the gap with mass consumption in first- and second-tier cities, and represents consumption upgrading in county-level markets.**
This is also the most counterintuitive aspect of China's consumer market: **on one hand, we feel the market is too competitive, with many practitioners anxious about where consumption growth will come from; on the other hand, one-third of China's market is still undergoing consumption upgrading.**

**County-Level Markets Have Their Own Consumption Upgrading Characteristics,**
**Not Suitable for Everyone**
But this consumption upgrading will differ from what we have seen before, at least not all the same, because county-level markets have their unique structural elements.
Unlike first- and second-tier cities, **county-level markets have distinct characteristics:
> 1. Small urban logistics space, with residents' activity distances and ranges more concentrated;
>
> 2. No subway network, with commuting mainly by motor vehicles, making travel convenient.**
Moreover, consumers generally do not have high living costs or debt, nor the 996 work rhythm, and they have a sense of well-being and more leisure time.
This leads to the fact that in the consumption upgrading process, the “more, faster, better, cheaper” demand we often mention—**“faster” does not seem to be particularly needed in county-level markets.**
**The demand for speed is a result of social division of labor brought about by high urbanization and industrialization, and it seems to be a false proposition in county-level markets.**
This is also the most typical problem encountered in the downward expansion of instant retail.
In first- and second-tier cities, due to the fast pace of life, ordering online and having purchases delivered to the door within 30 minutes saves a lot of time, which fits the demand trend.
This can be seen from the fact that several major instant retail platforms have upgraded to “flash purchase” platforms, where fast delivery is key to instant retail.
As can also be seen from Meituan's past slogans,
speed is the most prominent feature of instant retail.
But **when consumers in county-level markets have a relatively leisurely pace of life, time is not a scarce element for them,** and travel is convenient, “speed” becomes less necessary.
In addition, the consumption upgrading demand for “more, better, cheaper” has obvious traces in the consumption upgrading process of county-level markets, but the forms may differ from first- and second-tier cities.
Take the most representative example: due to consumption upgrading demand, many county-level markets have spawned a very special and large consumer service group—Sam's Club purchasing agents.
A search on WeChat public accounts shows a large number of Sam's Club purchasing service providers in county-level markets.
**Where there is a solution, there is native market demand.** The quality products and unprecedented variety represented by Sam's Club are also needed in county-level markets.
But unlike first- and second-tier city household consumers who can buy directly, county-level markets do not have the same conditions, often requiring round trips of several hours by car, which is extremely inconvenient.
So to meet the same consumption demand, the market has given birth to unique forms in counties.
There are many other similar phenomena.
All of these repeatedly emphasize the same reality—**the same mass consumption demand is gradually being met in county-level markets, and consumption is democratizing.**

**Final Thoughts**
This democratization of mass consumption often harbors greater opportunities than we imagine.
To borrow the words of Starbucks Global CEO Brian Niccol when selling Starbucks China: “We have been a bit slow in these cities. We have done extremely well in first- and second-tier cities. We need a partner to **help us figure out how to expand into third-, fourth-, and fifth-tier cities, where there is enormous opportunity.** ”
When international brands have already seen the development opportunities in China's county-level markets, it is destined that China's county-level markets will undergo profound structural changes in consumption development.
There is also reason to believe that in the current highly competitive market, there is still a lot of unmet consumer demand, and domestic development is still worth looking forward to!


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## Citation metadata

- Publisher: New Distribution
- Author: 张振宇
- Published: 2026-03-27
- Canonical: https://xinjignxiao.com/en/articles/the-underestimated-county-level-market-is-starting-to-boom-28267024/
- Original source: https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/tiVv0R1b5d1d4-L1txlW5g

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