Zuma scratching service earns monthly revenue in Shenzhen

The founder, 32-year-old Zhang Xiaoqiao, launched his first “Zuma” outlet in Shenzhen’s Bao’an district in May and opened a second in Futian in June after the first shop drew heavy interest. Each hour-long session costs about 300 yuan, and the business is already running profitably, according to the source material.

What makes it commercially interesting is that the service is being positioned less as a gimmick and more as a stress-relief and sleep aid. In a dense city like Shenzhen, where long hours and pressure are part of the daily routine, consumers are often willing to pay for comfort in forms that feel personal, discreet and different from standard massage. That is a real consumer insight, and those are the kinds of habits that can support small but durable businesses.

The customer mix also says something about the market. About 70% of clients are men, with women making up the rest, suggesting the appeal crosses the usual wellness customer base. That broadens the addressable market beyond a one-off curiosity and hints at a service with enough novelty to win repeat visits.

Still, investors should keep the scale in perspective. This is not a major listed company or a fast-growing national chain yet. It is a tiny, founder-led concept that has found traction in one of China’s most competitive urban markets. The bigger story is how quickly a social-media-driven idea moved from joke to revenue, and how that fits a broader consumer trend toward personalized wellness, low-cost indulgence and experiential services.

For long-term investors, the lesson is simple: unusual ideas can become investable businesses when they solve a real problem, are easy to explain, and can be replicated. Zhang says he wants to open 100 scratching centers across China, but the real test will be whether training, consistency and customer retention can scale beyond two successful shops.

In that sense, the story is worth watching, not because scratching is the next big global category, but because it shows how quickly consumer demand can form around convenience, comfort and stress relief. In a market full of copycat concepts, the businesses that win are often the ones that understand human behavior better than they understand industry conventions.