From selling products to creating scenarios, the consumer industry is seeking new growth points.

China Business News reporter Li Yuan, Beijing report

On March 25, at the “New Quality Consumption · Double Uplift in Quality and Efficiency — 2026 China’s New Consumer Industry High-Quality Development Forum,” hosted by China Business News, business representatives from fields including robotics, the liquor industry, health beverages, wellness consumption, and instant retail discussed “New Quality Consumption: New Scenarios, New Growth.” Attendees generally agreed that today’s consumer market has shifted from single-factor price competition and channel competition to comprehensive competition over health value, emotional value, lifestyles, and long-term trust relationships. To find new incremental volume, companies also can no longer stay at the level of simply selling products; instead, they need to reconstruct product value, communication methods, and user relationships in more granular, more localized, and more closely real-demand scenarios.

A consensus repeatedly mentioned in this discussion is that new quality consumption is not just about launching “new products.” More importantly, it responds to changes in consumers’ decision-making logic with new technologies, new expressions, and new linking methods. Whether it is robotics companies’ observations on the explosion paths of high-tech consumer goods, liquor enterprises’ reassessment of “treating oneself,” “low-alcohol,” and “health-friendly” scenarios, or food and beverage companies’ in-depth research into ingredient lists, nutrition facts, and decision points for instant consumption—all of it shows that consumption growth is moving from “one big flood of demand” to “precise activation.”

From “product competition” to “scenario competition,” the growth logic is being rewritten

At the forum site, many speakers first talked not about sales in a simple sense, but about changes in the underlying logic behind high-quality development in the consumer industry.

Hu Haojie, CEO of Renxin Robotics and Executive President of Renxin Enterprise Group, started from the group’s quartz stone business and talked about how traditional categories can also complete a value reappraisal under the logic of new consumer trends. In his view, health, environmental protection, and sustainability are becoming increasingly important criteria for consumer decisions. In the past, natural materials that were widely accepted may also be replaced by new engineered materials due to factors such as safety and recyclability. “As people around the world have increasingly focused on health, environmental protection, and sustainability—including continuous attention to their own health, I believe these traditional items that people use a lot will be replaced by new, man-made, controllable, and recyclable things.”

Behind this judgment is, in fact, a change in the consumer evaluation system: consumers no longer only look at whether something is “available,” but care more about whether it is “suitable for them,” whether it is “healthier,” and whether it “fits better with long-term lifestyles.” Hu Haojie also mentioned that the group’s quartz stone products take a premium route in overseas markets, and there are obvious differences in how consumers in different places perceive materials, prices, and value. This also indicates that new growth does not come from simple replication, but must be built on a real understanding of different consumer groups.

Unlike Hu Haojie’s observation of consumption upgrading from the materials and manufacturing side, Lin Jie, General Manager of KUIHUA Liquor Industry, discussed another layer of what “new quality” means in the changes of the liquor track—not making micro-adjustments in old lanes, but seeking new category boundaries during an industry adjustment period. He said, “We want it to be more fashionable and more youth-oriented, more in line with young people’s punk-style wellness. While people take a short rest and have a small drink, there are some benefits to the body. We are only talking about adding detox/beneficial effects, and making some subtle improvements and changes—liquor from merely emotional value to something a bit better.”

This means the growth logic in the liquor market is changing as well. In the past, many brands built their layouts around business banquets and high-end dining gatherings. But when the external environment, social relationships, and health awareness change in sync, companies must also rethink what scenarios “drinking” actually happens in, and what emotional and functional needs it corresponds to. Lin Jie said plainly: “Treating oneself is a big scenario, the square table is a big scenario, the round table is a big scenario—focusing on your own health is another big scenario.” In his view, only by first finding the “big scenario,” and then breaking it down into “small scenarios,” can companies truly complete innovation.

Health, self-treating, and trust are becoming key pillars of new quality consumption

Right now, health orientation, self-treating, and relationship accumulation are becoming the most important content supports for new quality consumption.

In her speech, Luo Yujie, Market Director of Junyao Health, mentioned that one of the biggest challenges facing the healthy food and beverage industry today is that consumers’ definition of “health” is constantly being updated. In the past, a sour-sweet flavored lactic acid bacteria product could be considered a healthy drink. But today, consumers will proactively read the ingredient list and nutrition facts, re-examine ingredients, sugar content, and functional aspects. If companies still use old modes of expression, it is easy for users to “classify it as being just tasty but not healthy.”

That is precisely why real innovation is not merely changing packaging or adjusting flavors, but rebuilding the connection between technology and demand. Luo Yujie introduced that Junyao Health regards probiotics as a “health chip,” and develops products around multiple health scenarios such as digestion and stomach management, weight management, oral care, hangover relief and liver protection, among others, and also tries to communicate with consumers in ways that are easier to accept. She admitted that when facing today’s consumers, “if you go and communicate health scientifically with consumers, they will be very resistant,” so brands must find more clever and smarter ways of expression.

She believes that compared with simple age and geographic labels, companies should study what users base their instant decisions on. For example, in juice consumption, more and more consumers will proactively check the nutrition facts. The reason coconut water that is low sugar and contains electrolytes is gaining popularity is not only because it is “tasty,” but because it meets more fine-grained health judgment standards.

Zhang Qian, Director of Corporate Social Responsibility and Media Affairs of Infinitus (China) Co., Ltd., and Chairman of the Sili and Ren Public Welfare Foundation, added from another perspective the core of high-quality development: truly sustainable consumption growth cannot remain only at the product level; it must form a closed loop of experience and trust. He summarized it as the “three good things”—“First, good products. Second, good experiences. Third, good relationships.” In his view, only by gradually sedimenting short-term consumer relationships into long-lasting trust relationships can a brand traverse fluctuations in traffic and truly have the foundation for high-quality development.

Zhang Qian also specifically mentioned that, in recent years, Infinitus has been emphasizing “trust productivity.” This phrase is quite targeted and relevant in reality today. Because in the context where traffic touchpoints are highly dispersed and consumers’ vigilance continues to rise, it is increasingly difficult for brands to win long-term users through single exposure or simple marketing moves. Only by letting the product enter everyday life, letting the philosophy move into practice, and building genuine connections between the brand and communities, neighbors, and daily rhythms, can growth not be a short-term “flash-in-the-pan.”

Technological reconfiguration is reshaping reach; new incremental consumption is appearing more fragmented and more immediate

In addition to changes at the product and philosophy level, technological progress is also reshaping the consumer touchpoint paths and driving continuous scenario branching.

As a representative from the sales side, the top liquor host on Taobao Live, Jiu Xian Liangge, put his focus on the rapid changes in how consumers shop. In his view, technological development has profoundly changed shopping behavior and reshaped the connection chain between brands and consumers. From traditional e-commerce to live-stream e-commerce, and then to AI and big-data driven targeted recommendations, consumer scenarios are shifting from fixed spaces to new forms where things can happen anytime and are satisfied instantly. Jiu Xian Liangge said, “What we want now is instant enjoyment. I want us to get it right away.”

What this “immediacy” brings is not only a channel shift, but also a reorganization of the demand logic. Consumers may no longer be willing to go to a specific offline terminal for a single need; instead, they discover, compare, place orders, and repurchase through their phones, live-stream rooms, and instant retail platforms. Jiu Xian Liangge mentioned that Jiu Xian Group is rolling out offline superstores while also seizing opportunities from instant retail, new shopping methods, and the rise of new audiences, aiming to achieve first-time reach and first-time service to consumers.

Hu Haojie, on the other hand, started from the communication rules of high-tech products and talked about an explosion path that is entirely different. He believes that one of the biggest differences between tech products and traditional consumer goods is that their communication often does not rely on long-term, continuous large-scale advertising spend; instead, it may leverage “black swan” events and conceptual breakthrough points to suddenly go viral. In his view, an environment of AI, self-media, and short-video communication gives many previously complex and unfamiliar tech products the chance to explode overnight, a mechanism that is more difficult to replicate in the traditional consumer goods sector.

Of course, such a burst does not mean that growth can be detached from long-term thinking. Forum guests generally agreed that traffic may bring temporary attention, but whether it can translate into sustained growth ultimately still comes back to product strength, user relationships, and scenario fit. Especially in today’s consumer market, which is becoming more segmented and more fine-grained, companies can hardly rely on simple, broad labels to define users anymore. Lin Jie mentioned that today many brands are discussing Gen Z and the new middle class, but the two are not actually in the same dimension—what matters is not to label a group of people first. “The key is whether they accept the scenario where you are, not whether you create a scenario and then fit it onto them.”

Judging from the signals released at the forum, new quality consumption is not a new buzzword staying at the conceptual level; it is forcing companies to rewrite their growth methodology. On the one hand, products must be more closely aligned with real needs such as health, safety, sustainability, and self-treating. On the other hand, companies must also build more solid user relationships through localized expression, precise insights, instant reach, and long-term companionship. Whether it is liquor served at low degrees, probiotic beverage products, wellness scenarios, or robots and instant retail—at their core, they are answering the same question: as consumers become more rational, more demanding, and increasingly seek experience and their own feelings, how do brands use new scenarios to create new growth?

(Editor: Yu Haixia; Review: Sun Jizheng; Proofread: Yan Jingning)