It's Not That Products Stopped Selling — Consumers No Longer Accept Being Defined

Baijiu — China’s traditional grain liquor — “can’t get things done anymore.”

That line comes from an article by Chen Siting that our WeChat official account published a couple of days ago. It means that in the past, a round of drinks could get things done — close a partnership, cement a relationship, seal a deal — and now it can’t. Baijiu is no longer the default choice when people give gifts, host dinners, or socialize. Gift-givers once prized its financial properties as a store of value; hosts prized its power to signal deference; social drinkers prized the pleasure it delivered. Now all three layers are coming loose.

Meanwhile, other seemingly unrelated things are happening:

Young people are giving up staple foods. Not because they can’t afford them — they no longer want them. The single population is growing, and people aren’t cooking at home. Grain and cooking-oil companies see stable output and intact channels, yet consumer-end purchase frequency is visibly sliding.

Eight-treasure porridge — the canned sweet congee of mixed grains and beans once standard fare at railway stations and a fixture of the breakfast table — has stopped selling. Young people now file it under “unhealthy,” “too sweet,” and “old-fashioned.” The occasions haven’t disappeared — people still eat breakfast and still catch trains — but this product is no longer chosen.

Soft drinks are being displaced by freshly made milk tea. The functional need to quench thirst is still there, but a cup of milk tea delivers more than liquid: flavor exploration, social check-ins, and emotional comfort. Traditional beverage brands sit in neat rows on convenience-store shelves while consumers walk right past them into the tea shop next door.

Four categories, four predicaments. Each appears to have its own cause — for baijiu, a weakening social function; for grain and oil, shifting consumption habits; for eight-treasure porridge, a reversal in health perceptions; for soft drinks, the rise of substitutes.

But pull the lens back far enough, and you’ll find that underneath, they are all the same thing.

It’s Not a Lack of Money — It’s Indifference

In an earlier piece, “It’s Not That Consumers Have No Money — It’s a Supply-Demand Mismatch,” I offered a judgment: the essence of this round of sluggish consumption is not that consumers “have no money,” but that they “feel nothing.”

It’s not that spending power doesn’t exist; it’s that the supply fails to move them. On one hand, we have the richest, most convenient supply of goods in history; on the other, users are growing ever more detached, ever harder to win over.

In other words, it’s not that consumers can’t afford to consume — it’s that there is nothing worth consuming.

This judgment is especially accurate for baijiu. According to the National Bureau of Statistics and the China Alcoholic Drinks Association, in 2024 China’s above-designated-size baijiu enterprises produced a cumulative 4.145 million kiloliters, down 1.8% year on year; yet they achieved sales revenue of 796.384 billion yuan, up 5.3%, and total profits of 250.865 billion yuan, up 7.8%. Volume is shrinking while revenue and profits grow — which means industry value is concentrating ever more toward the top players, not expanding through broad-based consumption.

The China Alcoholic Drinks Association describes baijiu as having entered a “period of deep structural adjustment,” noting that the industry faces pressure on volume, price, and profit, with consumption scenarios, channel models, and value logic all changing at once. More notably, the industry body has begun explaining the supply-demand dislocation as a rift between “the contraction of traditional other-pleasing social occasions” and “the rise of self-pleasing demand among the younger generation.”

What does that mean? It means the problem is no longer just “how to sell more liquor,” but “what kind of liquor, within what relationships, and for what reasons, is still worth drinking.”

The same is true of the grain and edible-oil industry. Rice output is ample and supply is stable, but Jinjian Cereals, a listed Chinese rice producer, pointed out in its annual report that with the population now in negative growth, demand for rice as a staple will face “the double pressure of population decline and falling per-capita demand.” And that’s before counting lifestyle change: according to the Seventh National Population Census, by 2020 the average household had shrunk to 2.62 people, down from 3.10 in 2010; single-person and small households are multiplying, and not cooking at home — relying on food delivery and ready-made meals — has become the norm. A bag of rice now lasts half a year after purchase. The rice didn’t get worse; the structure of the consumption scenario changed.

Eight-treasure porridge is even more direct. Canned eight-treasure porridge was once synonymous with “convenient + nutritious,” but once consumers began pressing questions like “how much sugar is in this?” and “is it actually healthy?”, the category’s legitimacy began to wobble. The product didn’t change; the consumer’s standard of judgment did. What once needed no explanation — “convenient + nutritious” — must now prove itself all over again.

Soft drinks being displaced by milk tea looks, on the surface, like category competition; at a deeper level, consumers have upgraded their definition of the job “quench thirst” — from “replenish liquid” to “get a cup of something that makes me happy.” China’s new-style tea drinks market surpassed 300 billion yuan in 2023, while traditional bottled beverages have grown mainly on the strength of sugar-free formulas and functional additives. This is not a migration of taste preference; it is consumers assigning new meaning to the act of quenching thirst.

Four categories, four cases of indifference. But look closely, and these indifferences share one trait: the products didn’t get worse, the prices didn’t become unreasonable, the channels didn’t disappear. What happened is that consumers stopped accepting the reason for “worth it” that brands were offering. Baijiu says, “I carry history and confer face”; consumers ask, “What does that have to do with me?” Grain and oil say, “Food is the first necessity of the people” — invoking the ancient Chinese maxim; consumers say, “I don’t cook at home anymore.” Eight-treasure porridge says, “Convenient and nutritious”; consumers ask, “Is it actually healthy?” Soft drinks say, “Thirst-quenching and tasty”; consumers say, “Quenching thirst isn’t all I want.”

The problem lies in the question “worth it — by what right?” And in the past, that was a question consumers never had to ask themselves — brands, tradition, and authority had already answered it for them.

Consumption Legitimacy: What Makes Consumers Feel Something Is “Worth It”

When most people see a category stop selling, their first reaction is “the product has declined,” or “consumers are out of money,” or “a substitute has emerged.”

But none of that explains the following: the product hasn’t gotten worse, the price hasn’t risen, the channel is still there — and yet consumers no longer buy.

It’s not that the product has lost its capability; it has lost its “legitimate justification.” A “worth it” that once needed no explanation must now be proven anew.

I need to introduce a concept to explain this.

I call this change the reappraisal of consumption legitimacy.

Consumption legitimacy refers to the justification that consumers and their relevant communities can accept for a product being considered worth buying, using, displaying, or giving.

Baijiu’s old justifications included etiquette, sincerity, status, celebration, regional identity, collective memory, and relationship maintenance. When those justifications no longer hold automatically, the industry comes under legitimacy pressure even while retaining its production capacity, brand equity, and channel networks.

Eight-treasure porridge’s old justification was “convenient, fast, and nutritious.” Once consumers started caring about sugar content and additives, that justification was no longer enough.

Grain and oil’s old justification was “food is the first necessity of the people — staples are a hard necessity.” When young people don’t cook and skip staples, the “hard necessity” claim loosens too.

Beverages’ old justification was “quenching thirst.” When “quenching thirst” was redefined as “I want to drink a cup of something that makes me happy,” traditional beverages’ legitimacy was carved up among milk tea, coffee, and functional drinks.

Every category once possessed its own logic of “worth it.” That logic once required no explanation, because it was embedded in the structure of consumers’ lives — as natural as air.

But now, the air has changed.

From Physical Value Ranking to Psychological Value Ranking

In an earlier piece, “The PEST Market Growth Strategy for the Age of Surplus,” I proposed a PEST growth compass — Position × Emotion × Scene × Tribe — whose very first judgment was:

Control over the reason to buy is migrating from “physical value ranking” to “psychological value ranking.”

Physical value ranking orders “what’s worth buying” by function, performance, price, and availability. Does it work well, is it expensive, can I get my hands on it — this was the dominant logic of China’s consumer market over the past several decades.

Psychological value ranking orders “what’s worth buying” by relative position, identity narrative, and recognized meaning. Does it suit me, does it respect me, can it help me express who I am — this is the new logic on the rise.

Picture a scene: a consumer stands before a convenience-store shelf. On the left, a traditional bottled soft drink for 3 yuan; on the right, a freshly made milk tea for 15 yuan. For the functional need of quenching thirst, the traditional soft drink is entirely sufficient — and five times cheaper. But they walk toward the milk tea — because what they want is not just to replenish liquid, but a cup of something that makes them happy. Of those 15 yuan, 5 buy the liquid, and 10 buy the feeling.

This migration explains why traditional brands’ playbooks keep losing their effect.

Grain and oil brands are still talking about “good rice, good flour, good oil,” but consumers are already asking, “What does this have to do with my way of life?” Eight-treasure porridge brands are still talking about “convenient and nutritious,” but consumers are already asking, “Is this actually good for my body?” Beverage brands are still talking about “thirst-quenching and tasty,” but consumers are already asking, “Can this cup make me a little happier?”

Baijiu is the most typical case. In the past, the value of a bottle of premium baijiu needed no explanation to the consumer — it was embedded in the structures of business banquets, wedding gifts, and local identity; brand tier was the grade of the relationship, and price was the proof of sincerity. But once consumers begin asking “Why do I have to drink?”, “What does this glass have to do with me?”, “Can I choose not to drink?”, that logic stops working.

The same person picks Moutai — China’s most prestigious baijiu brand — for a business banquet, craft beer for a casual gathering with friends, and pour-over coffee when alone. It’s not that they can’t afford to consume; it’s that in different scenarios, they exercise different powers of judgment. In business settings, they are still willing to accept the old logic of “brand tier = relationship grade”; at gatherings with friends, what they want is “does it taste good, does it feel comfortable”; alone, what they want is “does this cup measure up to my mood right now.”

One person, three sets of value rankings. Brands used to need to win over only one; now they must face all three at once.

The product didn’t get worse, the channels didn’t disappear, brand equity didn’t depreciate. It’s that consumers no longer accept having brands, tradition, and authority define “what is worth it” on their behalf.

They want the final say for themselves.

This Is Not a Problem for Any One Category

Once you understand the reappraisal of consumption legitimacy, you can see a much bigger picture:

Every category that has lived on “relationship binding + authority endorsement + scenario lock-in” is facing the same challenge.

Baijiu bound its product to banquet relationships, used brand tiers as authority endorsement, and locked in business and wedding scenarios — when consumers gained the right to interpret and the right to choose, all three pillars shook at once.

Grain and oil bound their product to the traditional notion that “food is the first necessity of the people,” used “hard necessity” as authority endorsement, and locked in the family dinner table as the scenario — when young people don’t cook, skip staples, and no longer accept that “you must eat rice and noodles,” that structure loosened.

Eight-treasure porridge bound its product to “convenience while traveling,” used “nutrition” as endorsement, and locked in railway stations and breakfast tables as scenarios — when health awareness upgraded and consumption occasions fragmented, its legitimacy fell apart.

Beverages bound their product to “quenching thirst,” used “tastes good” as endorsement, and locked in convenience stores and dining tables as scenarios — when “quenching thirst” was redefined, substitutes marched straight in.

Each of these categories is looking for a way out at the level of product parameters: lower alcohol content, organic, reduced sugar, zero sugar. These moves are not without value. But if they stop at patching product parameters, without understanding the deeper change consumers are living through — from passively accepting definitions to actively exercising the power of judgment — then all that innovation is merely paving roads on an old map.

Consumers haven’t stopped consuming. They are redefining what deserves to be consumed.

And the power to make that redefinition is no longer in brands’ hands.

This is the first installment in the series “Who Defines ‘Worth It’?” In the next one, I will sketch portraits of three kinds of consumers — is the person you’re facing a Role Person, an Achievement Person, or a Sovereign Person?