Senior gym program

At present, the annual net profit rate of a single store of the elderly gym projects that have been successfully launched in China is generally between 12% and 22%, which is much higher than the 3% to 8% of traditional commercial gyms. However, the fault tolerance rate for location selection, customer group positioning, and product design is more than 30% lower than that of ordinary gyms. Entrepreneurs without community resources or elderly service experience rush into the business, and the failure rate exceeds 70%.

Last year, I investigated a 180-square-meter shop in Hemu Community, Gongshu District, Hangzhou. The owner used to be a staff member of a community elderly care service station. The total initial investment for the opening in 2022 was only 280,000 yuan, half of which was a subsidy from the civil affairs government for aging-friendly projects. Now he can earn a stable income of more than 20,000 yuan a month. When you open the door, you can't smell the smell of sweat and protein powder that is common in ordinary gyms. What's on the wall is not a poster of a muscular man, but a slogan in vernacular that "walk ten more minutes today, and it will be easier to carry groceries tomorrow." All the equipment is hydraulic with rounded corners. You don't have to twist iron knots to adjust the resistance, just press a button. There are also handrails welded next to the elliptical machine, so that the elderly may not be able to stand firmly. I stayed for half an hour that afternoon and saw Aunt Zhang walking slowly with her knee pads on. After Uncle Li finished shoulder and neck training, he asked the little girl at the service whether yesterday's blood pressure data was acceptable. Before leaving, he also gave me a free cup of chrysanthemum and wolfberry tea.

In comparison, the 400-square-meter store opened by my friend in 2023 next to a high-end senior citizen apartment in Pudong, Shanghai, was much worse. It invested 1.2 million yuan to look like a private club, and hired a certified rehabilitation therapist to work. However, it closed after 8 months. The elderly people around it were either sent to specialized rehabilitation institutions by their children, or they preferred to go for a walk in the park and dance in the square. No one was willing to spend thousands of dollars to get a fitness card that "seems very expensive".

There is actually quite a quarrel in the industry now. One group of people thinks that the elderly gym should not follow the market-oriented route at all, and must rely on the community to receive policy subsidies. The venue is rent-free, the equipment is provided by the civil government, and only charges a monthly service fee of 39 yuan. It is very stable to make a small profit. I have seen several places like this in Gusu District, Suzhou. You basically don’t have to worry about customer sources. The community will help attract people, and you can get hundreds of thousands of people in a year. The only threshold is that you must be able to get a spot in the community. Ordinary people without resources can’t squeeze in. Of course, some people look down on this way of making small money and turn to the high-end track. There are several companies in Nanshan, Shenzhen, that specialize in retired intellectuals. The membership fee is 3,980 per year, which comes with one-on-one exercise prescriptions, regular physical examinations and nutritional consultations. The price per customer is high, and the loyalty of members is also high. The problem is that the site selection requirements are too stringent, and there must be enough high-income retired groups within 3 kilometers of the surrounding area. If you switch to an ordinary residential area, no one will pay.

Don’t think that putting the two models together will make it stable. I have seen a boss in Xi’an who was even weirder. Half of the 150-square-meter store had a fitness area and the other half had four mahjong tables. It was euphemistically called “fitness and social integration.” In the end, no one used the fitness area. A bunch of old people came to play mahjong under the air conditioner every day. Occasionally someone complained about the noise. There is also an extreme one. The boss in Zhengzhou insisted on doing "pure fitness" and refused to even put a bench for resting. He said he was afraid that the old people would be in vain after sitting for a long time. As a result, the old people left after practicing, which was not sticky at all. The repurchase rate was not even 30%. Later, he was forced to add a small tea table, cook some barley tea every day, and set up a convenience corner to store reading glasses and umbrellas. The repurchase rate directly increased by 32%.

To be honest, before entering the market, many people hold the idea that "old people can make money easily". Only when they actually do it will they realize that old people are much smarter than young people. If you once charge opaquely, or skip one training session for Aunt Zhang, in less than three days, all the old people in the community will know about it and will never step foot in your door again. There is another pitfall that is the easiest to step into: Don’t buy ordinary commercial equipment at a cheap price. If an elderly person drops or bumps it, the compensation will be enough to replace ten sets of aging equipment. All the stores I have contacted that have been open for a long time will buy an additional public liability insurance, which only costs a few thousand yuan a year, so you can buy it for peace of mind.

Last month I saw an even wilder idea in Wenjiang, Chengdu. The owner tied the senior gym to peripheral tours and senior college classes. Members who exercised 30 times a month would get a free one-day trip to the surrounding areas, and could also take free calligraphy and smartphone usage classes. Now I have more than 400 members, and people are dragging old sisters to sign up every day. In fact, there is no standardized correct answer. To put it bluntly, don’t treat the elderly as leeks waiting to be cut, and don’t treat them as a vulnerable group that needs special care. You really know what they want—not to develop eight-pack abs, to be able to buy groceries and climb stairs without breathing, but to have a place to chat and have people who care about you. This business will naturally continue.