'In the future, we plan to travel the country with our Tesla and sell liquor from the boot of our car in cities we enjoy the most,' said Pan. Pan and Annie ran out of money in their first week, but their determination paid off, with daily revenues since climbing as high as 7,800 yuan. 'My best friend lent me 3,000 yuan, which became the initial investment for our pop-up liquor shop,' Pan said. That was when he saw a couple selling liquor at an outdoor stall, inspiring him to do the same - but from his Tesla. 'I was pretty down, and one night, my fiancée Annie, wanting to cheer me up, took me to a watering hole in a quiet area with warm, faint lights and soft music,' he said. Pan, 25, closed his bar in Shenzhen after a Covid outbreak in March, saddling him with over 100,000 yuan in debts. Youth unemployment has remained high, reaching a record 19.9 percent in July, the fourth month in which the rate had broken records.

'The rising popularity of this car boot sale market has helped me tide over the most difficult of times,' said Wang, who reckons he earns about 1,000 yuan a day.Ĭhina's economy barely grew in April-June. Under a canopy extending from Wang's van, customers relax in camping chairs, with soft lights in the evening completing the glamping experience. Wang started running his mobile coffee booth this summer, after car boot fairs emerged in big southern cities like Chengdu, Chongqing and Guangzhou. This year, the spread of the Omicron variant across China was the final nail in the coffin, making his group tours to the Chinese backcountry impossible. Overseas group tours he used to organize also took a blow that year, with a lucrative trip to see the aurora borealis canceled, costing him hundreds of thousands of yuan in lost earnings. Wang, 40, gave up a bricks-and-mortar coffee shop in Tianjin in 2020 when the pandemic first hit.

Dasboot cheers