Shulou(Shulou.com)11/24 Report--

Wen, Tu Huan, Review (Qianli)

Typesetting (Lu Jiu)

Preface: for Liu Yixuan and he Hongyu, the three years of the epidemic have spanned their store opening process. And its state itself is like a sword of Damocles, you know he is on top of your head, and your survival often depends on his acceleration.

Liu Yixuan's mother could not understand why he chose to open such a store in a small town, nor did she know what her son meant by "3A", "Sony" and "Nintendo". She only knows that for most of the people in this small town, food, clothing, housing and transportation is the basic idea of doing business. Now that she is back here, it is best to do some business according to the population structure here, at least so that she can support herself.

The town of Linshu is small, and it takes 40 minutes to drive around the rectangular city. Further west is Linyi City, and eastbound is Lianyungang, Jiangsu Province. The Cangyuan River made a bend in the east of the city, dividing the small town in southeastern Shandong into two.

This is the third year that Liu Yixuan has opened a shop here. Today, he is used to opening the shop at ten o'clock every morning and then staying until ten o'clock in the evening to go home. Day after day, there are few exceptions.

Before moving his mainframe store, called salted Fish, to this bustling pedestrian street in the center of the city, Liu Yixuan opened a grocery store not far from a middle school in the county. It is said that the grocery store, but in addition to the campus store standard stationery snacks, occupy more than half of the store is all kinds of animation surrounding: hand, poster, bar.

Just like the name of the shop at that time, the old second-dimensional "salted fish" Liu Yixuan paid tribute to the "everything house" in the Silver Soul that could provide all kinds of help as much as possible, and worked hard to run this small shop for young people of the same age in the small town.

Liang Jie still remembers the evening when he saw Liu Yixuan's painful car, so much so that the huge letters Ayanami Rei and "EVA" on the car door were like a flash bomb, causing his brain to pause for more than ten seconds.

"you can't imagine seeing a painful car here. I was shocked by that moment." It was also from here that, like many young people in Linshu County, Liang Jie stepped into Liu Yixuan's shop for the first time because of the "advertisement" parked in front of the store, and opened a friendship with him for three years.

"the passenger traffic at that time was very scary." Liu Yixuan said frankly. Compared with the animation stores in big cities, the best sellers in the stores at that time were cheap periphery such as paper posters for a few yuan. But even if it is nearly 100 yuan of goods like the scenery manual, many students are willing to exchange their pocket money for a few weeks. Hand-made orders generally start at a few thousand yuan, but you have to order the next batch in a month when you catch up with the peak season. Every school time, the 30-square-meter shop is often crowded with middle school students who are on the way or even not on the way. Liu Yixuan, the only employee, is always packed into the cashier to scan the code as quickly as possible.

The two-dimensional concentration of the small town exceeded his imagination, and the popularity of the business also let Liu Yixuan sprout the idea of expanding business, and the development of the outside world also quietly affected the small town at this time. Liu Yixuan heard about the new mainframe store for the first time from a video from a Qingdao up owner in Station B. driven by curiosity and reality, Liu Yixuan boarded a train to Qingdao and made a special trip to visit the mainframe store in the main video of up.

Liu Yixuan likes the atmosphere in which many people gather on the sofa to play video games. And this is also a part of Linshu commercial plate that has never been seen before. There are KTV cinemas and four or five screenplays in the town, but there is not a single mainframe store.

Both Liu Yixuan and Liang Jie feel that it is time for the "salted fish master house" to become bigger, and the 30-square-meter cabin cannot hold the dreams of young people after all. They think that if they have a chance, they should do it.

In January 22022, Liu Yixuan moved the storefront to a 120-square-meter two-story facade room.

For Liu Yixuan, although the experience of running a shop by hand is valuable, it is unclear whether the same people can accept this kind of payment model in this slow-paced town. He first tentatively picked up two PS4 and two Switch from the Internet, and kept the mainframe space and the manual area as balanced as possible. A month after the arrival of the machine, he almost played most of the popular games in the store, and picked out a few that he felt good and put them in a more conspicuous position in the store.

Shortly after the opening, it will be the Spring Festival holiday. During the Spring Festival in a small town, there are always a lot of new faces that have not been seen for a long time. With the help of the old customers and the new ones, the business was much better than he expected, and at one point there was the phenomenon of waiting in line for the machine. It was also from this time that Liu Yixuan shared his daily life of opening a shop with bilibili. The master room in Linshu had no Bai Yasha or tatami, but to his surprise, the number of broadcasts exceeded 10,000. People in the comment area, through the gap of big data, were curious about Liu Yixuan and his small town mainframe store where he had just reached a full moon.

The milestone came a few weeks later, when Liu Yixuan's own daily vlog on Saturday was miraculously pushed to popularity. The powerful force behind more than 500,000 broadcasts made him meet a large number of people who came to tour after the winter vacation, and even many of them drove here specially from Zaozhuang, Linyi to play two games.

Playing video games comes second, and the villagers who want to support the "bosses" seem to be the main goal for them.

But most of them are local people in Linshu. Liu Yixuan found at this time that there were so many two-dimensional "electronic Viet Cong" ambushed in every corner of the county.

"I feel that Linshu, a small county town in Shandong Province, is not as different from a big city like Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou as I had imagined." In this month, Liu Yixuan found that this small town has playing music games, spelling up to high, and even playing music MAD. Later, they simply regarded Liu Yixuan's shop as a two-dimensional stronghold, and even if they did not play games, they would come to sit down specially.

Liu Yixuan is also very happy, Linshu is so big, it is not easy to meet people who have a common language.

(gathering people to play cards in the store is nothing new for Liu Yixuan.) in March 2022, Linshu closed the city.

After this moderate epidemic passed, the road in front of Liu Yixuan's store began to be built. The combination of the two almost broke Liu Yixuan, even if he started business on the first day after returning to work, the cruel pressure of life still did not give him any respite in those months.

"Linshu is different from a big city. Just after the epidemic, no one went out at all, and no one came along this road." Liu Yixuan, who was born and raised, knows very well what people in his hometown are worried about, but not opening the door is a complete loss. Liu Yixuan would rather sit in the shop.

In that month, he was very glad that he still sold some snacks in his store, otherwise he would not have earned dozens of yuan every day.

(compared to the mainframe store on the second floor, this row of hands on the first floor is more like the reconciliation between Liu Yixuan and himself.) the aftershock of closing the city lasted until the Dragon Boat Festival holiday in this small town, and people in the store slowly began to come. the old customers who came to play the game also picked up the handle again. Many shops on the street failed to make it through the month, and notices of subletting abound. But fortunately, that June, MasterCard still struggled to balance the numbers on the books. It's not much, but it's relieved enough.

Liu Yixuan often thought that it seemed remarkable that he could make it through those months.

At the same time when Liu Yixuan opened the door to welcome guests every day, in Chizhou, more than 620 kilometers away from Linshu, he Hongyu was also poking the key into the door lock, and then entering the store from the corridor, opening each machine skillfully.

He Hongyu's shop is located in the center of Chizhou City. In 2021, the small town of GDP on the south bank of the Yangtze River has just stepped into hundreds of billions. In all kinds of rankings, Chizhou is always stable, together with more than 100 other prefecture-level cities, at the end of the classification.

They have a common name: fifth-tier cities.

(he Hongyu's shop is on the fifth floor of this building) it is said to be a small town, but Chizhou is still much bigger than Linshu.

But like Liu Yixuan, this is not the first time for he Hongyu to start a business. A few years ago, he opened a hot pot restaurant on the other side of the city and the business was booming. During those four years, he had countless dealings with beef, duck, blood, Chinese cabbage and crispy meat.

At that time, he Hongyu was 26 years old and used the money earned by the hot pot restaurant to get married, get married and have children.

If there had been no epidemic, he Hongyu didn't think he would have had these stories.

In the most frightening months of the 2020 epidemic, fate threw a coin at he Hongyu. The residents after the epidemic seemed to have an inexplicable estrangement from the restaurant. He Hongyu's shop no longer saw the flow of people in the past, but the rent did not fall much. As soon as he woke up every day, money became a dilemma he couldn't get around. After helplessly holding on to the end of the year, he Hongyu personally posted the word sublease on the door of the store.

But the other side of the coin is that he Hongyu, like many netizens who discovered the new world because of the "Animal Forest Society", bought a switch.

He Hongyu still remembers the moment when he first came into contact with console games more than a decade ago, when he was 15 or 16 years old and saw the machine called "PS2" for the first time in a video game store near his home. He even remembered that he had played several "dragon balls" on it that day, and his heart could not be at peace for a long time.

The video game store in his student days undoubtedly shocked he Hongyu a little bit. Although the store was shut down soon, and he didn't have a chance to pick up the mainframe for many years, it didn't affect the surprise he felt when he started switch many years later.

"you can obviously feel that kind of iterative feeling, whether the picture quality is good or playable, it is much better than we were then." The charm of switch undoubtedly made he Hongyu less sad at that time, and also opened the door to a new world for him.

(he Hongyu will also play games with his family in his spare time.) the pain probably ended a few months later, the day before he Hongyu traveled to Wuhu next door. When he was browsing the travel guide in Little Red Book, he heard for the first time that the concept of mainframe store was quite trendy at that time. With curiosity, he Hongyu took the time to play in that store.

He Hongyu did not expect that the video game store has evolved into this. For him, this is a new thing, but since this kind of store can continue to open in Wuhu, he Hongyu feels that there is naturally soil for his existence, or that it should also be possible in Chizhou.

He also believes that he will live up to his trust in his hometown.

Before opening the shop, he Hongyu specially went to a cinema with a mainframe in Chizhou to inspect it.

A special main computer room has been set up in the cinema, which may be a microcosm of many absurdity under the epidemic, but it has become the best way for the cinema to save itself. And the conversation with the boss also gave he Hongyu confidence, at least in terms of the acceptability of young people, there is still a lot of potential to be developed.

He bought fifteen machines, twelve PS4, two PS4 pro and three Switch in one go. He has also considered opening a platter-style integrated game store like Liu Yixuan, at least the cost of trial and error will be lower. But in the end, he decided to be professional and take a chance and only play console games.

"if you fail, you fail. If you worry too much, I think it will create obstacles for myself." He Hongyu said.

At first, he Hongyu paid for talent to visit the store, and also sent a lot of coupons on Meituan, but the results were not very good.

"this kind of traffic. many people come just for fun or clock in, and they don't know much about console games. It's fun to play for a while, but he won't come a second time, which is different from the logic of the catering industry." He Hongyu admitted that he was a little confused at the beginning. Although there are still many people, familiar faces do not account for a large proportion. The conversion rate of membership card is not as high as he thought. He knows very well that only repeat customers can let him continue to open the store, but he Hongyu still has no answer in his mind how to keep them.

Bored, he Hongyu also began to share his daily store opening on Douyin. Although the effect is still not very good, it is always more cost-effective than spending money on advertising. He Hongyu also tried his best to shoot his own store in the video, just like the name of the store "Flamingo", trying to be imposing.

The transfer came on the evening of a month later, when he Hongyu accidentally glanced at his mobile phone notice flying up and down the lock screen interface like a waterfall while cooking. He hurriedly opened the backstage and found that the number of video views just sent out today had reached more than 100,000. In more than 1,000 comments, many people were calling friends, and many people were asking he Hongyu's specific address, planning a "Holy Land Tour."

He Hongyu was a little shocked, but he also felt that God was blessed with his efforts.

He Hongyu was woken up by the phone the next day. Since eight o'clock in the morning, there has been a constant call to tell him that he is already in front of the store and asked him what time to open. He Hongyu had to explain over and over again that they were open at ten o'clock in the morning, and then rushed to the store to open the door ahead of time to pick up customers.

On this day, he Hongyu's store was really full for the first time, with people waiting in line on every machine. This is something they have never thought about before.

"the business of that day. It can be said to have given me a lot of confidence." He Hongyu joked. "at that time, I almost had an impulse to dish down the room at the opposite door in one breath."

"I hope that one day, this thing will no longer appear in an impulsive manner." He Hongyu said with a smile.

5 he Hongyu's shop is a standard mom-and-pop shop, and he and his wife work shifts at the front desk. "it is said that the shop closes at 10: 00, but if the customer hits the head, we will wait for him to finish the call before closing the shop." He Hongyu said.

After the video went viral, he also became the one who was learned by others. Many people from local and surrounding cities, and even as far away as Shanxi, came all the way to ask he Hongyu's experience after browsing the video.

Business is also slowly moving up. This past January, many young people who had not returned home for a long time returned to Chizhou just after the epidemic. And this has also brought a new peak season for he Hongyu. He Hongyu roughly estimated that the net profit could reach 50,000.

He feels that for Chizhou's entertainment industry, this is already a very bright achievement, even inferior to his counterparts in many first-tier cities.

"now Chizhou. There are about four mainframe stores like me, all of which I learned from me." He Hongyu said with a smile.

"but they don't seem to do as well as me. One is the first-mover advantage, and the other is the game that can be put on the shelves in my store. I have played it at least several times or gone through customs once. I know which game is fun. Which game is suitable for young couples and which one is suitable for friends, and then based on the proportion of customers, I will prepare some more games myself."

"I think many people who open stores on Douyin don't understand games themselves. what they want is to make quick money, and the game experience is the user's own business. in the final analysis, most of the time the shopkeeper only needs to prepare a few popular models."

"but I always feel that this is not the right attitude towards my work." He Hongyu said.

(in he Hongyu's store, "double trip" and "fooling around the Kitchen" are often games that customers must order.) the two-dimensional desert in the small town seems to be just a superficial layer of sand. And the vitality contained under the sand is also being found by more Liu Yixuan and he Hongyu.

In October 2022, Liu Yixuan made up his mind to move the store to the second floor of the pedestrian street in the center of the county.

In view of the fact that many people are a little confused about the name "salted fish master house", Liu Yixuan changed the name of the shop to the current "salted fish play coffee". After three years as a store manager, Liu Yixuan still thinks he is a salted fish. He didn't even dare to hang his own store on Meituan. He always feels that the current store is still a little arbitrary, if people come to play games to see that the store is like this, more or less sorry to others.

"when you have money in the back, buy more machines, and then you can do Meituan or something." Liu Yixuan said.

(for the model pedestrian street, "salted fish playing coffee" is still a special existence.) in December, like most areas, Linshu also entered the Yangkang cycle. But miraculously, this time people are more willing to go out after the sun. It also coincides with the Spring Festival holiday, January store business has also reached a new peak. Liu Yixuan also found a very interesting phenomenon, offline mainframe has to queue up, but can not sell manually. As a result, the mainframe time fee of 8 yuan per person per hour accounts for a large portion of the profit of 10,000 yuan per person in January.

Liu Yixuan's shop also inadvertently changed the entertainment style of many young people in this small town. After getting to know Liu Yixuan, Liang Jie, who works in the hospital, also said bluntly that he had only one day off every week, Linshu was so big, and he had been to interesting places here since childhood. Playing with salted fish has now become his obsession, and he has to go in and have a look at everything.

"it would be nice to be able to go out once or twice during the holiday in the previous month. After getting to know him, I would go to his place to play a few games."

"I have never played the mainframe before, and many people, including me, began to get in touch with him slowly." Liang Jie said.

Just after the New year, many people in Linshu County flew back to all parts of the country. On the fifteenth day of the first lunar month, the town has returned to its former calm, and the students are also preparing for the offline start of school. For Liu Yixuan, this peak season has passed.

Liu Yixuan also told us about his QQ group: "there were more than a thousand people in it before, but I don't know which sentence was wrong and blocked the group directly, so it was useless to appeal. It took two groups to bring back 500 people."

"seriously, it's a pity."

"how many locals were there?"

"at least more than seven hundred." Liu Yixuan paused. "I think my hometown is much more than I expected in this respect."

"at least not in vain. I've been ploughing for so many years." Liu Yixuan smiled and said

He was also trying to digest the last bit of hand-held inventory in the warehouse, thinking that he would clean up the warehouse separately and try to make a private room.

"in this way, the salted fish also looks more like a mainframe store." Liu Yixuan said

(Liu Yixuan, Liang Jie and he Hongyu are aliases in the article)

This article comes from the official account of Wechat: ID:paperji, author: Tu Huan

Welcome to subscribe "Shulou Technology Information " to get latest news, interesting things and hot topics in the IT industry, and controls the hottest and latest Internet news, technology news and IT industry trends.