The skewers of incense are not as hot as before.
3 years ago, in its heyday, tens of thousands of new stores were added a year; now, under the violent reshuffle, the big wave of stores has fallen.
When the meal saw Jun combing the top list of the number of skewered incense stores, he found that this category has run out of thousands of store brands; but the overall store opening speed has slowed down significantly; the unit price of customers has caught up with spicy hot pot, but the customer's praise is generally low; the product homogenization is serious, and 9 of the 10 companies are mainly beef...
After the surge, what kind of second half will the string incense usher in?
▲ The Baidu search index of string incense has dropped significantly after 2019
Not long ago, when dining on the top list of hot pot stores in various cities, he found that 4 of the top 5 hot pot brands in Chengdu were skewer brands; in the list of Chongqing Top 5, the skewer incense category occupied half of the country. There are many hot pot restaurants with a large number of stores in Beijing, and there is no shortage of skewer brands on the list.
Some readers have left messages, want to understand the current situation of the string incense category, is there still a chance to enter the game now?
In fact, a few months ago, The Meal Saw Jun analyzed that in the post-epidemic era, the fate of the skewers of incense that was originally calm turned sharply, and the low price advantage ushered in dividends. At the same time, this category is also undergoing iterative growth of the dark tide.
There are more than 1,000 stores on the side of the road
Most brands to join the rapid "race"
The number of skewers of incense in the country is Top 10
▲ Data from: narrow door dining eye and brand official website
Judging from the list, the largest number of stores at present is on the side of the road, with 1,000+ stores nationwide, and it is also the only brand with more than 1,000 stores in the string category.
It is followed by more than 800 steel pipe factories in the fifth district, and more than 600 Dabin families. Guanxian Laoma's casserole skewers ranked last in the top ten with 262 stores.
From the perspective of quantity alone, the skewer incense category has developed rapidly. Taking the curbside as an example, it was established in 2016 and opened more than 1,000 stores across the country in 5 years, speeding and running fast.
Among the brands on the list, in addition to some familiar brands such as the curbside, the fifth district of the steel pipe factory, and the Dabin family, there are some relatively unfamiliar, but there are hundreds of stores that have been quietly laid out in the country, which can be called "invisible big guys".
This is related to the category characteristics of string incense, simple operation, low threshold, easy to quickly copy, it can be said that the franchise chain rate is high.
However, from the perspective of brand influence, although brands such as the Ninth Street Shufen Palm Treasure String Company, Miss Fu in Chengdu, and Pancheng Steel Small County Liver String Incense are not on the list, there are only dozens or even more than a dozen stores. However, it has already made a name for itself in the country and has become a representative brand of string incense, which is also the advantage of brand operation.
▲ The skewer incense part represents the brand, and the data comes from the narrow door dining eye
The overall store opening speed has slowed down
Number of stores opened in 2020 down 66% from the previous year
Comparing the number of stores opened in 2020 and 2019, it is obvious that the number of stores opened by all brands has declined in 2020.
For example, the curb opened 560 new stores in 2019, and in 2020, the number was 189, down 66%.
The remaining 9 brands, without exception, have slowed down the speed of opening stores.
From a macro point of view, this has something to do with the outbreak of the epidemic last year. But at the same time, the decline in the popularity of skewers is also an indisputable fact.
Let's start with a few sets of data:
> 2017 is the first year of the outbreak of string incense. The "China Catering Report 2018" recorded that throughout 2017, the number of skewer stores continued to rise: 32,000 at the beginning of the year, 36,000 in the middle of the year, and 40,000 at the end of the year.
> 2018, skewers still maintained rapid development, accounting for 13.5% of the number of hot pot stores in the country, continuing to maintain the status of the first major subdivision of hot pot.
> 2019, the growth of skewers has slowed down. The growth rate of the number of stores (hot pot) slowed down from 1.2 percentage points in 2018 to 0.1 percentage points in 2019.
According to the number of stores opened by major brands, it can be preliminarily judged that the growth will be slower in 2020.
The unit price of customers rose to 60 to 70 yuan, catching up with spicy hot pot, but the praise was generally low
One of the key factors in the rise of the string is the low price, 30 to 50 yuan per capita, rich and frugal, widely favored by consumers.
However, with the brand upgrade of some brands from the decoration environment and so on, after opening to the first-line market, the price was instantly raised. Moreover, many string stores have launched menus, which indirectly improves the overall customer list.
The brands in the above Top10 list, the unit price of customers is concentrated in 60 to 70 yuan. The highest per capita Dabin family string is 84 yuan. The general guest unit price of Sichuan-Chongqing hot pot is only 60 to 90 yuan, it can be said that the unit price of the guest of skewer incense directly chases the spicy hot pot.
Industry insiders said that when the per capita of many string stores is almost the same as that of hot pot restaurants, consumers will have a "not cost-effective" feeling. This can be seen from the word-of-mouth score of the store.
Yumijun sorted out the ratings of the top ten brands. From the perspective of the praise rate, it is basically stable at more than 80%. However, the word-of-mouth score is not optimistic, the highest is 82.58 on the side of the road, followed by Yuan Ji string incense 81.3 points, and the others are more than 70 points.
▲The score of the Top10 brands in the number of skewer incense stores
The word-of-mouth score of the hot pot head brand (top 10 stores) is basically stable at more than 80 points, the highest such as Haidilao 93.8, sipping and feeding 88 points, and only two below 80 points.
The unit price of customers has increased, but the word-of-mouth score is low, indicating that the upgrading of the string category is not sufficient, and the brand has not brought about a supporting environment, service and quality upgrade while increasing the unit price of customers, resulting in a bad sense of dining experience and a low sense of value.
The product homogenization is serious, and 9 out of 10 are mainly beef
From the "top three consumer recommended dishes" of each of the following brands, it can be found that the most common signature dish of the skewer shop is beef.
9 of the 10 are beef dishes on the list, of which spicy beef, coriander beef, and pickled pepper beef appear the most; 2 have appeared in the small county liver, which are the five districts of the steel pipe factory and the five flavor edges.
▲ The number of skewer incense stores Top 10 consumers recommend dishes
Product differentiation is not obvious, and once an innovative product appears, it immediately triggers imitation. Pickled pepper beef is an example, and the Dabin family says they first invented the combination of pickled pepper and beef.
In fact, before beef, small county liver as a skewer industry explosive product, but also triggered a large-scale pursuit. Homogenization is indeed one of the pain points of the current serial category upgrade, and product innovation is particularly important.
At present, the market also extends to dried bamboo shoot beef, pineapple beef, plum beef, Orleans beef, cumin beef, cordyceps flower beef and even rose beef, fruit beef...
There are also brands that work string +. According to Meituan data, among the top 10 dishes on the skewers, there are only 3 skewers, and the combination dishes such as brown sugar sticks, crispy meat, and ice powder occupy 7 seats, which is also a kind of micro-innovation.
For example, "playing with cattle busy", in addition to the traditional hot pot skewers and cold pot skewers, but also added small bowl dishes, cold dishes, staple foods. The product structure is very rich, and it takes the model of string + full product.
The "second wave of category revolution" is coming, and new models and new forms are constantly pouring in
If the market trend created by the side of the road and the "Haidilao-style" management pioneered by DabinJia led the first wave of upgrading of the branding of the string category, then some powerful brands and new entrants are trying to stir up this slightly calm market.
Take the "Super Island Skewers" that made waves in the skewer market last year, as an example, a brand founded by the son of Du Zhongbing, the founder of Banu Hotpot, which mainly attacks the Beijing market, holds high, and opens 10 stores (including stores to be opened) in less than a year.
The environment jumps out of the city stall style, using the industrial modern style that young people like; emphasizing the quality of dishes; and even in the design of the circulation line and the presentation of dishes, it is all about how to maximize the performance of "fresh".
For example, in the Fengke Wanda Plaza store, the 14-meter-long self-selected booth of dishes is impressive; the staff wears strings on the opposite side of the booth and operates the file.
▲The super island skewers are at the booth of their own choice
Last year, in the Chengdu pepper hot restaurant, I also saw a spectacular scene of more than a dozen people wearing strings at the scene at the same time.
In addition, there are Ninth Street Shufen palm treasure skewer company to walk the Hong Kong style decoration + nostalgic Chongqing elements; Xi'an also appeared a space capsule skewer hot pot, the value is super high.
In short, a variety of new playing styles and new models are emerging in an endless stream, and the skewer incense category is still continuously upgrading. After experiencing the reshuffle period of "opening one and closing two", the remaining brands are leading a new round of category revolution.
At last
Many categories of catering are worth re-doing with brand thinking, and the broader the mass base, the worse!
String itself is a good business, strong universality, after the previous extensive and chaotic development, now the market has entered a stable period of benign competition, the test is the brand operation, management of the internal strength, whether the highest efficiency; the test is the product, scene and other aspects of innovation, whether it really leads consumer demand.
There is no doubt that this category now has no opportunity to dividend, and like those who want to follow the trend before, they can only become cannon fodder.