According to reports, in early February, the Beijing Great Wall Silver Hair Store was officially unveiled, which is the first physical demonstration project jointly created by the Beijing Aging friendly Transformation Industry Development Alliance. The core is to build a new living space for Silver Age that integrates "display, experience, service, and socialization". From the 1.8-meter-wide aisle, accessible facilities, to professional salespersons, every detail reveals attentive care for elderly consumers. Since the 18th National Congress of the Communist Party of China, the development of China's elderly consumer market has transformed from a stagnant water to a surging spring of vitality. At the end of 2025, eight departments including the Ministry of Civil Affairs and the National Development and Reform Commission jointly issued the "Several Measures to Cultivate Elderly Care Service Operators and Promote the Development of Silver Hair Economy", providing policy guidance and action framework for the high-quality development of silver hair economy. At the beginning of 2026, Beijing will include the "Elderly Care and Warmth" project in the "2026 Important Livelihood Projects". With the changing population structure and the increasingly perfect social security system, the elderly population is no longer just synonymous with "cutting back on food and clothing". They are showing strong willingness and ability to consume. The "Blue Book of Silver Hair Economy: Report on the Development of China's Silver Hair Economy (2024)" jointly released by the China Association of Social Welfare and Elderly Care Services, the Contemporary Social Service Research Institute, and the Social Science Literature Press points out that the current scale of China's "silver hair economy" is about 7 trillion yuan, and the Fudan University Institute of Aging predicts that it will reach 19.1 trillion yuan by 2035. Silver hair consumption has become a crucial part of the domestic consumer market. In practice, innovative models are blooming everywhere. In Zhejiang, the smart elderly care service platform delivers health management, emergency calls, and cultural entertainment to homes with just one click; In Sichuan, the pleasant climate of Panxi region attracts elderly people from all over the country to travel and consume with the "Sunshine Health" brand, turning ecological advantages into industrial advantages. These achievements are inseparable from the careful guidance and protection of national policies, and also highlight the positive exploration of consumption by the elderly population towards a higher stage. In recent years, the pace of building a silver haired economic policy system in China has been steady and clear. In terms of top-level design, a coherent strategic layout has been formed, from the "National Medium - and Long Term Plan for Actively Responding to Population Aging", to the "Opinions of the General Office of the State Council on Developing the Silver Hair Economy to Enhance the Welfare of the Elderly", and then to the "15th Five Year Plan" proposal to establish it as an important task and promote the deepening of mechanisms. At the implementation level, policy tools precisely cover key links from the supply side (such as promoting the development of the elderly goods industry) to the demand side (such as establishing a subsidy system for the elderly and piloting long-term care insurance). This series of policy combinations has created a dynamic and collaborative virtuous cycle between policy supply and market demand, injecting a continuous stream of vitality into the entire silver economy market. Currently, in order to unleash the full potential of silver hair consumption, several key challenges still need to be addressed. One is' frozen potential '. The consumption potential of the elderly has not been fully stimulated. The mainstream focus of the market on elderly consumption is still largely concentrated on basic living and health care needs, while there has not yet been a sufficient and widespread market response to their growing development oriented and enjoyment oriented consumption willingness in areas such as cultural experience, lifelong learning, quality health care, and social participation. The second issue is the mismatch between supply and demand. At present, many elderly friendly products are showing a certain degree of homogenization in supply. Many products and services fail to fully meet the deeper spiritual desires of the elderly for aesthetics, usability, social value, and emotional comfort, resulting in a lack of high-quality supply that truly centers on the needs of the elderly. The third is the 'environmental threshold'. Whether online or offline, some obstacles in the consumption environment also constrain the effective conversion of potential needs of the elderly. The barriers of digital payment, complex operating interfaces, and inadequate offline facilities for aging adaptation have invisibly blocked many elderly people from convenient consumption. Looking ahead to the future, in order to promote the development of the silver economy, a more systematic and delicate policy brush is needed to depict it. At the institutional level, it is necessary to strengthen the basic guarantee of public pension, vigorously promote the personal pension system, develop commercial pension insurance to expand personal pension wealth, and explore practical and feasible mutual aid pension models as flexible supplements to give the elderly more confidence in consumption. At the conceptual level, through public propaganda and social advocacy, we can shape a positive view of aging, so that consumption should not only be seen as meeting basic living needs, but also as a positive choice for the elderly to pursue quality of life, achieve social participation, and continue their self-worth. At the same time, elderly care service providers should be encouraged to go deep into communities and senior universities to understand the real needs of the elderly, and based on this, carry out research and development and production. We will focus on promoting innovative research and development in the fields of smart elderly care products, rehabilitation aids, aging friendly homes, and elderly fashion products. We need to promote the cross-border integration of "elderly care+", vigorously develop emerging service formats such as elderly study tours and intergenerational inclusive communities, and make consumption a stage for elderly people to integrate into social life and realize their personal value. Building a "safe and friendly" consumer environment is also indispensable. We will continue to promote the aging adaptation of various places, retain the traditional service mode in the digital life, accelerate the popularization of the aging adaptation mode of Internet applications, and bridge the "digital divide". We also need to increase regulatory efforts in the field of elderly consumption, crack down severely on illegal activities such as consumer fraud and false advertising targeting the elderly, and establish convenient channels for consumer rights protection. We should also explore the establishment of a quality certification and recommendation catalog system for specific elderly consumer products, providing authoritative consumption guidance for the elderly, so that they can buy and use with peace of mind. (New Press) (Authors: Li Fang and Han Jiaying, respectively researchers at the Institute of Rural Revitalization and County Governance, University of Science and Technology of Beijing, and associate researchers at the Institute of Rural Revitalization and County Governance, University of Science and Technology of Beijing)