A sudden epidemic in 2020 has brought the entire catering industry to stagnation and paralysis, and as the epidemic gradually subsides, the vitality of rebirth is injected into catering, and the recovery of consumption has made countless catering people see hope. However, in 2021, the catering industry continues to bring bad news.
On August 19, Xiafu decided to close 200 loss-making stores, and less than three months later, Haidilao announced that it would gradually close about 300 stores that did not meet expectations by December 31;
In November, Cha Yan Yueshi announced the temporary closure of 70 or 80 stores in Changsha, which was on the hot search, and recently because the founder and employees were afraid of each other, they were once again sent to the hot search, and this Internet red brand was "stalling" and walking off the "altar" that was visible to the naked eye. At the same time, the new element of the 19-year-old internet celebrity restaurant suddenly issued a notice of bankruptcy liquidation, which caught many consumers and catering peers off guard.
Of course, new changes in catering consumption are also emerging: takeaway consumption has grown rapidly, becoming an important breakthrough in the revenue growth of the catering industry
Tea, coffee, snacks, hot pot, barbecue and more and more categories began to develop in the direction of chaining...
Like the stock prices of catering head companies, the entire catering industry struggles and searches between ups and downs.
70% of takeaway merchants are small and medium-sized, and the structure of the catering pyramid is "deformed"?
The distribution of catering enterprises in China is a typical pyramid structure, the head is a large chain brand, the waist is a small and medium-sized chain brand, and the bottom is composed of a large number of very small mom-and-pop shops and roadside stalls. According to the "2021 Catering Takeaway Merchant Research Report" just released by Aurora Big Data, the participants in the catering takeaway industry are mainly small and medium-sized micro businesses, nearly 70% of the catering takeaway merchants are self-employed, and 62.2% of the merchants have less than 5 employees.
Although the entire food and beverage market has recovered after the epidemic was controlled, the impact is affecting this pyramid structure.
Two obvious changes this year, one is that the head catering giants generally move from the rapid growth of large-scale expansion to the growth stagnation after reduction, and the other is the influx of capital into new consumption, the chaining and branding tendencies of the catering industry are becoming more and more obvious, and the living space of small and medium-sized restaurants at the bottom is further compressed.
Taking Haidilao as an example, according to the data data, in 2019 and 2020, Haidilao opened 308 and 544 new stores respectively, and even added 299 new stores in the first half of 2021. In the second half of the year, 300 offline stores were directly cut, reducing the number of stores by 20%. From the financial report, it can also be seen that Haidilao's embarrassment, the expansion of stores has not brought corresponding revenue growth.
In the first half of 2020, the average daily sales of Haidilao's stores in first-tier cities were 81,700 yuan, which fell to 79,000 yuan in the first half of 2021, from 87,900 yuan to 87,300 yuan in second-tier cities, and from 88,400 yuan to 84,200 yuan in third-tier cities and below.
Haidilao, sipping and feeding... The catering giants who originally used the anti-trend expansion during the epidemic period have lacked stamina and began to cut meat and wrists.
However, the suspension of the expansion of chain catering giants has not reduced the pressure on small and medium-sized restaurant stores at the bottom. Under the background of the consumption track being favored by capital, catering has become a "fragrant feast". According to forward-looking statistics, as of August this year, there have been 86 investment and financing incidents in the catering industry, and the amount of investment and financing has reached 43.91 billion yuan, more than double that of 2020. The entry of capital has gradually enabled the catering brands that have obtained financing to gradually have the basis for chaining, and the direct pressure of competition is that of small and medium-sized catering businesses.
Compared with catering brands, the original advantages of small and medium-sized catering businesses are flexible operation, easy control of costs, and wide audiences, but this year, raw materials, rents, etc. have risen to a certain extent, which has seriously affected the profits of small shops. In particular, young people have gradually become the mainstream of consumer groups, and new consumer brands that are good at marketing under the blessing of capital can attract their attention.
The head enterprises are shrinking, the bottom enterprises are accelerating the elimination, and China's catering industry will face more problems in the new round of changes.
Nearly 80% of merchants have rent pressure, the culprit of the sharp increase in costs?
Whether it is a catering giant or a small and medium-sized catering store, the problems faced by catering operations can actually be traced back to the reduction of passenger flow.
When Haidilao was listed in 2018, its disclosed prospectus said that the company's annual profit compound annual growth rate was 70.5%, the turnover rate was as high as 5.0 times a day, and the per capita consumption was between 93 and 98 yuan. However, since then, the overturning rate of Haidilao has continued to decline, and the financial report shows that the overturning rate of Haidilao in the first half of this year was 3 times / day, the data for the whole of last year was 3.5 times / day, and the data in 2019 was 4.8 times / day.
The decline in the turnover rate has directly caused Haidilao to stop the expansion of stores, and a similar situation has also occurred in small and medium-sized catering offline stores. Last year's losses caused by the epidemic coupled with rising costs, many small and medium-sized businesses had to increase profits through price increases, but price increases had to bear the problem of reduced passenger flow. On the other hand, from the phenomenon that merchants are increasingly pursuing the influencer effect, it can also be seen that they have an urgent need for traffic.
Offline passenger flow has dropped sharply, but operating costs have generally risen. The "2021 Catering Takeaway Merchant Research Report" pointed out that according to the survey report of the China Hotel Association, 77.5% of catering merchants said that there is a certain operating pressure on store rent. Some catering merchants admitted that in the case of repeated and unstable epidemics, if they cannot reach a rent reduction agreement with the landlord, the rent pressure will continue to exist.
The impact of rising rents on catering operations is almost fatal, because of this hard cost, whether it is operated or not, it is necessary to pay rent normally, and once there is a problem of continuous reduction in the flow of customers to the store at this time, it will be difficult for merchants to achieve surpluses.
This is also the reason why domestic catering has begun to pay attention to the investment in the takeaway business, compared with the cost structure of dine-in, the cost of the takeaway business is more flexible. From the chart of the report, it can be seen that the rigid cost of takeaway, such as rent and labor expenditure, can be compressed, while the extra packaging materials and takeaway commissions (technical service fees) are two flexible expenses that are only generated when transactions occur. Therefore, the overall profit margin of takeaway can be increased by about 10% compared with dine-in.
Another point is that since the reform of rate transparency this year, the takeaway commission (technical service fee) and the performance service fee for the rider are completely separated, and the merchant can clearly and transparently see the pricing rules of the two fees and the expenditure details of each order, so as to further rationally plan their own operations according to the cost impact of different order structures. Taking Meituan takeaway as an example, merchants usually only need to pay 6%-8% of the takeaway commission (technical service fee), and the performance service fee for the rider will only be available when choosing platform delivery, so the merchant has a fuller right to choose.
For businesses that expand the takeaway business, the increase in the operating cost of takeaway is not much, and this part of the cost is completely linked to the transaction volume, the transaction volume is small, the cost will be very low, the transaction volume is high, the cost will increase, but the income is also more. For stores that have focused on takeaways from the beginning, their profit margins will be greater.
A snack bar in Chengdu called "Kuan Yan Spicy Hot Pot Fake Dish" started from scratch in 2020 and has now opened 30 stores. These stores operate on a franchise-chain basis, distributed near office buildings, and 80% of sales come from takeaways.
However, after all, the takeaway-based restaurants are a minority, and dine-in-food and takeaway are still the mainstream business philosophy of the current catering merchants, which also determines that the growth of the takeaway business is difficult to completely offset the losses brought to the merchants by the sharp increase in costs such as ingredients, rent, and labor.
90% of takeaway merchants have commissions below 8%, and the catering industry ushered in a "new paradigm"?
Although China's catering industry has experienced a difficult year in 2021, new consumption trends also contain new variables. For example, the chain of restaurants has shrunk, but takeaway consumption has grown rapidly, and the two seem to be "one and the other"; the strong rise of platforms such as Weibo, Douyin, Kuaishou, and Xiaohongshu has further enlarged the marketing value of the catering industry; capital has swept the catering industry, and new consumption has attracted more and more young consumers.
Taking punch card consumption as an example, Ai media data shows that in 2021, the frequency of Chinese netizens spending Internet celebrity catering, 3.9% consume 2 or more times a week, 8.6% consume once a week, and 30.5% consume once a month. Ninety percent of netizens expressed their willingness to queue up in order to punch in the net red catering, which shows that consumers still recognize the net red shop.
In addition, if you want to rely on the attributes of Internet celebrities to become popular, it is also another test for catering businesses, with a higher threshold. The rise of social platforms and short videos, although it provides a convenient channel for businesses to create internet celebrity shops, but the short-term effect of internet celebrities also makes the change of internet celebrity shops faster, antler lanes, answer tea, noodle canteens, words and a few... These once-familiar influencer brands are now disappearing or closing stores.
New brands actually have similar problems, the marketing tactics derived from the Internet emerge in an endless stream, and new consumer brands are easy to break the circle, but before the new brands have formed a solid moat, they are also prone to traffic difficulties. Another problem is that although the capital invests dozens of dollars on the table every month, in fact, most of them have not even completed the step of brand breaking the circle after obtaining financing.
Of course, the new consumption to meet the sugar-free, low-fat, health, environmental protection and other consumer demand, does represent the catering industry health, functionalization, segmentation of the right direction, which also means that under this trend hidden a broader market.
For example, meal replacement, from 2017 to 2020, the scale of China's meal replacement market showed a continuous growth trend, with a compound annual growth rate of 68.8%, and it is expected to reach 92.43 billion yuan in 2021.
In contrast, the increase brought by the takeaway business to the catering industry is more sustainable. It can also be seen from the report that the contribution of takeaway business to catering revenue has increased significantly, accounting for an increasing proportion of catering revenue, which shows that the huge traffic of takeaway platforms has made up for the losses caused by offline passenger flow to a certain extent, and once the takeaway business stabilizes, it will continue to grow.
But the merchant is still worried about the commission problem, if the commission is too high, the development of takeaway business is not thankless, fortunately, the rate transparency reform has eased the conflict between the merchant and the platform. According to the "2021 Catering Takeaway Merchant Research Report", after the platform implemented the rate reform, among the catering takeaway merchants who have replaced the new rate, 90.3% of the merchants said that the commission paid to the platform was less than 8%, of which 66.3% of the merchant commission payment ratio was in the range of 6%-8%.
Single-digit commissions are already relatively low in the Internet platform economy, with live streaming anchors commissions of more than 20%, the average rate of online ride-hailing vehicles being 19%, and e-commerce platforms at about 10%. A bigger step forward is actually transparency, many merchants said, not to mention whether the cost is less, but at least each fee is clear, how much to the platform, how much to give to the rider are clear at a glance.
However, the takeaway business is "auxiliary" after all, and many catering products with large size, inconvenient packaging and difficult to "assembly line" operation are not suitable for the takeaway model, especially in medium and high-end restaurants, offline environmental experience and taste enjoyment and the efficient natural conflict of takeaway pursuit. In other words, chain restaurant companies are limited by the unit price and reach problems of customers, and their takeaway business has limited imagination space for growth, and they are unable to solve the current dilemma.
The recovery of the industry, the road is long and long, in 2021, catering people are struggling to survive, while they have hopes, and now the new year is coming, and the test is still continuing.
The Tao is always reasonable, and has used the name Crooked Dao, the Internet and the new media in the science and technology circle. The WeChat public account of the same name: Dao always has a reason (daotmt). This article is an original article, and any form of reproduction without retaining the author's relevant information is not retained.