The success of the first-launch economy lies not only in its ability to provide consumers with new shopping experiences and choices but also in its capacity to stimulate the vitality and innovation of commercial areas. As the only national central city in the northwest region, Xi'an has explicitly listed the creation of an international consumption center city as an important work item, continuously exploring new consumption scenarios, new carriers, and new business formats to activate consumer potential. The first-launch economy is becoming a new driving force for urban economic development.

Gathering Advantageous Resources

The opening of flagship stores by brands is a crucial part of the first-launch economy. The Xiaozhai business district, located in the Yanta District, is one of the most popular business districts in Xi'an, known as Xi'an's "trendsetting landmark." The Xiaozhai business district offers not only shopping but also leisure, entertainment, tourism, and dining functions. The Xiaozhai Yuanli Field is one of the commercial complexes where young people in Xi'an gather, and many consumers can be seen coming to check in at around three or four in the afternoon.

Advertisement

Walking into the BASEMENT FG Xi'an flagship store, located in the Yuanli Field, vintage plaid shirts are hung at the entrance of the store for display, with a beverage bar and fabric sofas creating a leisurely atmosphere for customers. The store offers a variety of clothing styles, a wall full of metal accessories, and an entire wall of hats in dopamine-inspired colors, making it an excellent background for photos.

"The store focuses on controlling design details such as lighting, music, the texture and material of decorative items, and clothing display, striving to provide customers with a relaxed and casual immersive shopping experience through simple, warm, and retro interior design, as well as an integrated layout of product display and storage," said Zhang Guixun, the executive director of the BASEMENT FG brand. They have optimized the stairs from the entrance to the basement level of the store, added an elevator design, and adjusted the decoration and lighting of the basement, reducing the lighting intensity and color temperature values, and replacing white decorative panels with wooden ones.

The comfortable shopping experience has been affirmed by customers. "Since the opening of the Xi'an store, the daily customer flow is about 6,000 people, and it can reach about 10,000 people during holidays," said Zhang Guixun. The reason for choosing to open a store in the Xiaozhai business district is that it is a consumption gathering area in Xi'an and even the northwest region, and it is also a national key demonstration business district with high daily customer flow, especially attracting young people, which is very much in line with the brand's target customer positioning.

"Young consumers pursue fresh shopping experiences and are keen on exploring fashion trends and personalized brands. The first store cluster of Yuanli Field, with its trend culture and differentiated brand structure, has met consumer needs, attracted a large number of customers, and provided new momentum for the prosperity and development of the business district," said Wang Xin, assistant to the general manager's office of the shopping mall. Yuanli Field has introduced 41 flagship stores, including various formats such as catering, retail, and experience. "The opening effect of these flagship stores is very good. For example, Domino's Pizza achieved a sales volume of 320,000 yuan on the opening day, setting a new record for single-day business in Domino's Pizza stores worldwide. In just 18 days, the sales volume has exceeded the highest monthly record of global stores, bringing 30,000 customers to the mall," said Wang Xin.

The success of the first-store economy is not only in its ability to provide consumers with new shopping choices and experiences but also in its ability to promote the vitality and innovation of the business district. There are 14 large commercial complex projects within the Xiaozhai business district, with a total commercial area of more than 4.3 million square meters. Currently, the daily average flow of people in the core area of the Xiaozhai business district has reached 500,000 to 700,000 people.

"The three new concepts of new consumption experience, new business model, and new industrial format have taken root in Xiaozhai," said Xie Tianji, secretary of the Party Working Committee of Xiaozhai Road Street in Yanta District. In the future, the first-store economy will continue to be an important way to drive commercial traffic and stimulate consumption potential, continuously exploring new consumption scenarios, new carriers, and new business formats to unlock the urban consumption code. So far, through the "first store + business district" model, Xiaozhai Road Street in the jurisdiction has attracted 66 types of first stores in commercial complexes such as Xiaozhai Intime City, Seg, MOMOPARK, and Yuanli Field, with 29 new first stores added in the third quarter, including 1 national first store, 20 northwest first stores, and 8 Xi'an first stores.Experience the Ancient Capital's Cultural and Commercial Tourism

Xi'an, a city with a long history, is attracting a variety of brand flagship stores with its unique charm. Relying on its profound cultural heritage and vast consumer traffic, Xi'an has formed a cultural, commercial, tourism, sports, and science and technology integration development mechanism with "cultural tourism + first release", creating personalized consumption scenarios to enhance the city's competitiveness and brand competitiveness.

On September 27th, the highly anticipated first-ever super-large Qin culture-themed performance "JuJu DaQin" premiered in Xi'an. As the curtain slowly rose, the 200-meter-long stage seemed to span 2000 years of history, with dreamlike palaces and the smoke of war unfolding before the audience's eyes.

The performance takes the earliest existing Chinese family letter, "Yunmeng Sleep Tiger Qin Tomb Heifu Wooden Slab," as its creative origin, depicting the rise of the Qin Dynasty from the perspective of small characters. As the plot develops, scenes continuously change, from archaeological sites to palaces, from craftsmen building a new capital to the Terracotta Army guarding the Huaxia like rocks and stars through generations. The delicate emotional portrayal and grand scene settings make the entire viewing process highly immersive, engaging, technological, and experiential.

The "JuJu DaQin" theater is the world's first through-walking theater, featuring the world's longest and fastest track-based super-large mobile audience seats and the largest indoor aerial mobile stage装置 in Asia, providing a unique viewing experience for the audience. There are over 600 computer lights and more than 1000 other controllable effect lights in the theater, with the total number of stage decoration lights exceeding 30,000. The fully concealed dynamic stage machinery and the 45-meter flight stage technology create the largest indoor aerial mobile stage in Asia. The integration of various technical means on the stage, the use of dynamic stages, projections, and dynamic lighting, turn the performance into a "spectacle"; the use of holography, water curtains, and video tracking systems create a sensory experience of water, electricity, mist, and wind, stunningly recreating the grand unification of the Qin Dynasty.

This performance is not only a visual feast but also provides the audience with an exploration and innovative experience of culture. After watching the performance, the audience member Zhang Jie said, "It's too shocking! This is my first time experiencing this form of performance. The immersive audio-visual feast allows me to appreciate the profundity of historical culture and deeply understand the magnificent unification of Huaxia."

In recent years, Shaanxi Province has actively responded to the national cultural digitalization strategy, taking the promotion of the digital economy as a breakthrough to deepen the integration of culture and tourism. By accelerating the digitalization process of the cultural and tourism industry, it has also promoted the iterative upgrading and chain development of the cultural and tourism industry, forming a modern cultural and tourism industry system.

At present, Xi'an is fully promoting the cultivation and creation of an international consumer center city. Through "new" to promote excellence, "first" to lead the overall situation, Xi'an is committed to creating a virtuous development path of "first release," "hit," and "boutique." The "JuJu DaQin" performance project is one of the important measures of the Shaanxi Cultural Investment Group under this strategy, deeply exploring cultural connotations, incubating original cultural brands, and promoting the creative transformation and innovative development of excellent traditional Chinese culture. During the National Day holiday, "JuJu DaQin" has been at the top of various lists in Xi'an's cultural and tourism performance market, with every show being sold out, and has received more than 40,000 viewers. The project is expected to attract 1 million tourists per year, with cultural and commercial supporting annual business revenue exceeding 200 million yuan, and creating more than 2,000 jobs.

Enhancing the City's Attraction

In recent years, Xi'an has attached great importance to the development of the first store economy, providing comprehensive support and services for brand flagship stores through a series of policy measures and incentives, including settlement rewards, decoration subsidies, rent subsidies, and publicity and promotion support, enhancing the city's commercial primacy and successfully attracting a large number of brand flagship stores, including global flagship stores, national flagship stores, and northwest flagship stores. These flagship stores not only provide consumers with a brand-new shopping experience but also enhance the city's commercial primacy and brand image. The "traffic" of the first release economy is transformed into a lasting "retention," enhancing the city's attractiveness and competitiveness, and promoting high-quality economic development.According to statistics, in 2023, Xi'an saw the opening of 349 new brand flagship stores, including 1 global flagship store, 15 national flagship stores, 95 northwest flagship stores, 7 Shaanxi flagship stores, and 231 Xi'an flagship stores. In the first half of 2024, Xi'an has cumulatively added 153 new brand flagship stores, with 5 new national flagship stores, 56 northwest flagship stores, 4 Shaanxi flagship stores, and 88 Xi'an flagship stores. In terms of industry proportion, these stores cover a range of sectors including catering brands, retail brands, lifestyle service brands, children's and parent-child brands, and cultural, sports, and entertainment brands. The Xi'an Huiju Center, which opened in April this year, saw over 230,000 visitors on its first day, setting a new commercial record for Xi'an. The center has gathered numerous flagship stores, including 22 northwest flagship stores and 20 Xi'an flagship stores.

Building on the vigorous development of flagship store economy, Xi'an City has also integrated nighttime consumer resources to add "nighttime" to the deep integration of "culture, commerce, and tourism," promoting a new upgrade in the consumer market. By launching night tours represented by the Datang Everbright City block and Yishe Cultural block, which are national-level nighttime cultural and tourism consumer aggregation areas, as well as night performances represented by the "Song of Everlasting Regret" at the Huaqing Palace scenic area and "Dream of Chang'an" at the Xi'an City Wall scenic area, along with cultural and tourism products such as light shows, night shopping, night banquets, and night runs, a diverse and distinctive Xi'an "play + entertainment + consumption" nighttime economic development pattern has been formed, further enriching the city's economic activities and the nightlife of its citizens.

At present, the flagship store economy has become a new force in Xi'an's economic growth, stimulating consumer enthusiasm and business vitality, and enhancing the city's commercial vitality and innovation capabilities.