China’s Gen-Z, millennials embrace on-demand home services as manicures to personal chefs flourish
- Chinese are increasingly embracing convenient on-demand home services, a phenomenon reflected in surging advertisements on social media
- Online services have sprouted up as China’s internet economy has grown and young people’s spending power has increased, say analysts
For the past few years, Jojo Wang has been enjoying services at home that she would have otherwise procured at spas, nail salons and restaurants.
“The key is the convenience … and the time it saves. In fast-paced, first-tier cities, young people are busy and often don’t have time for a lot of their personal activities,” said the 33-year-old media specialist based in Beijing.
From manicures to personal chefs, Chinese are increasingly embracing convenient on-demand home services, a phenomenon reflected in surging advertisements on social media.
On Little Red Book, one of China’s most influential lifestyle sharing platforms, both the number of searches and posts tagged with home services at the beginning of this week was about four times higher than the same time last year, data from the company showed.
I don’t really care about being labelled lazy, so long as it gets the job done
Content on in-home cooking started surging last June and peaked in November, with daily searches roughly 69 times higher than five months earlier. The number of posts offering home cooking services was 77 times higher over the same period.
Another user of home services, August Hu, has paid for masseurs, dog walkers and a personal trainer to come to his home in Beijing. For him, convenience is the main attraction.