Opening an online bakery shop is a new trend in China.
More and more young people are starting their own businesses online, where stores don’t require as many documents or approvals as actual stores. Online stores are easier to open for people who don’t have much money or enough experience to get started on their careers.
Baking is also becoming becoming popular in China. Unlike kitchens in the west, most Chinese kitchens don’t have baking ovens. Baking is new and interesting to young people.
Rongrong Fan is one of the online bakery shop owners in Beijing. As with many other online store owners, Fan has a day job, as a government employee. Working for the government is considered a good job in China, and many of these small business owners are like Fan: They have a good job and have plenty of free time.
Fan and her business partners, who were roommates in college, came up with the idea idea for their business at a reunion party.
“We want to do thing that we really like and make ourselves feel better,” said Fan.
Fan’s online bakery shop takes order for customized cakes and cookies, birthday cakes, and especially weddings. Fan and her partners do the baking in their spare time.
“We found that wedding is very important for young people,” Fan said. “They want their wedding to be beautiful and perfect. As long as our cakes are beautiful and live up to their standard, people don’t care for paying extra money.”
The partners are currently closing a deal with an event-planning company for co-operating on weddings.
“We understand there are a lot of stores that are similar ours, however, we are confident that as long as we have our own character, we can be successful,” Fan said
Fan’s little bakery shop is doing fine, but she and her partners have no intention giving up their day jobs.
“We still like to do our actual job first for now. We’ll see how it goes,” she said.
