Videos of street vendors are becoming increasingly common after Chinese Premier Li Keqiang calls for more support for small retailers. (Picture: Douyin)
The story of China’s economic success has often been told through rags-to-riches tales about famous tycoons and tech billionaires. Now as hundreds of millions of Chinese people try to weather a shrinking economy shocked by the coronavirus pandemic, some are hoping to find a small fortune in a humble place: Roadside market stalls.
Chatter about street hawking has soared online after encouragement from the Chinese premier, who saw it as a new source of income for workers who lost their jobs over the last few turbulent months. Videos under the hashtag #SettingUpStreetStalls have been viewed more than 760 million times on Douyin, the fenced-off Chinese version of TikTok, and some 19,000 times on rival Kuaishou.
The hype around street stalls, fueled by reports that some part-time vendors could make US$140 a night, has spawned a slew of content aimed at helping newbies get into the game. Some advice is reassuring, and some more wry.
“Can you get rich being a street vendor? You can’t, it’s entirely impossible,” said one vlogger whose explainer has drawn over 99,000 likes. “But it can be a practical business lesson for beginners to understand their competitors, the market and human nature -- all with an investment of just 1,000 to 2,000 yuan [US$140 to US$280].”
“Everyone has been talking about the street stall economy recently, that’s just right because my family runs a street stall,” another vlogger said. “My mom went from a rural village to the city when she was just a teen, all by making a living from street stalls.”
Videos of street vendors are becoming increasingly common after Chinese Premier Li Keqiang calls for more support for small retailers. (Picture: Douyin)
There’s no shortage of people experimenting with this potential new source of income. Many are documenting their new gig, offering a glimpse at the stark reality of life on the street.
One young man said he made 38 yuan (just over US$5) on his second day hawking in Shanwei, a city in the southern province of Guangdong. He spent most of it on a dish of fried rice noodles and a cup of milk tea, saving just 3 yuan (US$0.42). “Jia you,” he wrote, using the Chinese phrase for “add oil,” roughly meaning “keep it up.”
A woman in Guangzhou, another Guangdong city, had a harder time. “Got chased away by urban management authorities on my first day of street hawking. Felt like Fast & Furious,” she said, referencing the Hollywood blockbuster about street racing.
But as the street becomes the hot new destination for China’s freshest batch of grassroot entrepreneurs, it seems like the most successful ones still find the internet an indispensable outlet for their goods. Some run regular live-streaming sessions to show off their products. Others link to their Taobao stores.
(Abacus is a unit of the South China Morning Post, which is owned by Alibaba, the operator of Taobao.)
Yang Yang and Qi Qi, a street hawking duo with more than 168,000 fans on Douyin, suggest hawking on the street could be a way to promote online businesses.
“You have to learn how to use your street stall as a springboard, bringing your traffic online with a marketing plan,” they said. “Only then can you transform your business.”
