Figure Source 丨 Figure worm
On January 5, Cha Yan Yue Xie announced on its WeChat public account that since January 7, 2022, most of the brand's milk tea products have risen by 1 to 2 yuan. The ace products "Youlan Latte" and "Sound Oolong" will be priced at 17 yuan and 16 yuan thereafter. And leisurely leisurely, floating half a day, kite paper kites this time will not increase prices.
It has been more than five years since the last overall price adjustment. The price of these five years is not only because of the feelings, tea face pleasant color said, one is the brand dividend brought by the customer spontaneous support, saving a lot of marketing costs, the second is relying on the scale of the expansion of the procurement dividend to reduce the cost of materials.
Talking about the reasons for the price increase, Cha Yan Yue said: "The raw materials and other costs on the market are rising year by year, and the dividends accumulated before cannot withstand a series of superimposed costs." ”
The difficulties of physical business
The fall of net red restaurants on the altar has become one of the characteristics of the development of the catering industry in 2021.
Wen Heyou in Guangdong and Shenzhen has gone from shoulder to door, and the internal business person of Wenheyou in the Taikoo Hui Business District of Guangzhou admitted to the 21st Century Business Herald reporter that the performance is almost half lower than in the early days of opening.
Three months after opening the store, Shenzhen Wenheyou also ushered in a sharp decline in customer flow. However, in early September 2021, the Shenzhen Wenhe Youyuan sign was removed and replaced by a new sign, "Old Street Oyster Market". Part of the layout of the site has also been changed to a fish market. It is understood that the "Old Street Oyster Market" is the first independent regional characteristic IP of "Super Wenheyou", which is intended to dig deep into the Shenzhen oyster culture and is also the biggest change since Wenheyou entered Shenzhen.
After the hot pot chain giant Haidilao announced the closure of more than 300 stores in November 2021, half of its fast food brands have also been shut down recently.
Coincidentally, on November 10, 2021, Cha Yan Yue announced the temporary closure of 70 or 80 stores in Changsha, which is already the third centralized temporary closure of the brand in 2021, the first centralized closure is due to the local New Year, and the centralized closure in July 2021 is due to the repeated epidemic.
In this regard, Cha Yan said frankly that the previous intensive distribution points have earned dividends in Changsha's urban development, and under the epidemic, it is natural to bear the results of the reduction of the flow of people.
"The recurrence of the epidemic has greatly reduced the flow of offline customers, and the cost of opening a store remains high in the case of a sharp decline in turnover." A medium-sized Hunan cuisine catering operator in Shipai, Guangzhou, told the 21st Century Business Herald reporter.
Starting in 2020, the restaurant industry has experienced two turbulent years. First of all, the number of dine-in meals caused by the epidemic has dropped sharply, and then in 2021, the price of upstream raw materials such as vegetables, pork, condiments and other upstream raw materials has risen, and even a chain group such as Haidilao has begun to shrink the front, not to mention many small and medium-sized merchants, any bit of "wind and grass" may squeeze the already precarious profit margins, causing huge pressure on cash flow.
From the perspective of specific dismantling, catering operators using different formats face different problems.
For dine-in restaurants, the sharp decline in offline traffic is the most direct blow. The traditional catering industry has always had the saying of "three highs and one low": high rent, high labor costs, high food prices, and low profit margins. Rent, manpower, and food basically account for 70%-75% of the total cost, and after deducting taxes, depreciation of fixed assets and other losses, the profit margin is usually only 5%-10%.
For catering businesses, the greater pressure is also that rent is a hard cost, whether it is operated or not, it is necessary to pay rent normally, especially in the face of force majeure external factors, the financial pressure faced by merchants will increase sharply. For example, in the early days of the outbreak, many businesses were forced to close their doors, but they also had to continue to pay rent. In order to complete self-help, some catering associations have taken the lead in issuing proposals, hoping that landlords will reduce the rent of catering enterprises.
Where do influencer brands go from here?
In this wave of store closures, many brands have been the "king of traffic", such as the Internet celebrity brand Tea Yan Yue. Since 2021, Tea Face Pleasant Color has closed the store three times, and recently Tea Face Pleasant Color has been exposed to the average work of 11 hours per employee on Weibo and Xiaohongshu, but the hourly salary is only 6-9 yuan, which is once again on the hot search, and the discussion of "why Tea Face Pleasant Color cannot go out of Changsha" has been endless.
"The continuation and recurrence of the domestic epidemic has caused a relatively large impact on the flow of people and cross-city punch-in tourism projects. Strategic errors in the market layout of Tea Beauty are the core reasons for today's predicament. Its store density in Changsha is too high, ten steps a store, in other provinces to open up too little, will naturally limit the expansion of consumption. Under the reality of repeated epidemics, the reduction of passenger flow will continue to increase. Closing the shop is a rational behavior and strategy for the tea face. Zhu Danpeng, an analyst in the Chinese food industry, told the 21st Century Business Herald reporter.
"However, the brand still has its own core tone, and now the physical store business is not good, after making some adjustments, the brand still has a certain core competitiveness, such as his brand tone, brand traffic, etc. In the current consumption background, the fan base is also very important for the support of the brand." Zhu Danpeng said frankly.
The next stop in the restaurant industry is crisis and opportunity
In 2021, there is no shortage of new forces in the restaurant industry.
A catering brand hatched by the Feeding Group that has both milk tea and hot pot is called "Xiang Xiang Hot Pot Tea Rest". In the past four or five years, Xiang xiang has become the fastest growing brand in the catering industry, opening a new store in about 13 days on average. When the epidemic came, Xiang Xiang instead bucked the trend and gained momentum, with public information showing that it has more than 140 stores across the country. In 2020, it was rated as the fastest growing catering brand in the catering industry, with an average of 1 store opened every 9 days.
Similarly, capital has not given up the catering industry, and the coffee industry has exploded in an instant in 2021, in fact, more reasons are the help of capital.
According to incomplete statistics, in 2021, there will be 16 financing incidents in the coffee field. For example, like M stand, illy, Manner, three and a half tons, etc., even Luckin, which was exposed and delisted from the financial fraud, has once again gained the attention of capital.
Now the "audience", including investors, may want to see the horse racing between brands. Who can top it out, who can successfully catch up with Starbucks, is the most important.
With the improvement of urban consumption level, coffee has also emerged an increasingly homogeneous category. In order to combat the inner volume, merchants choose to misplaced competition, some began to work third-party space, some chose to differentiate in services, and some focused on the appearance of products.
Relying on the track burned out by capital, it is not a big problem to hold on for a few years, but after the virtual fire recedes, whether these products can get a good ending still needs attention.
In addition, the competition for the online market has also become the keyword of the catering industry in 2021.
According to the "2021 Annual Report on China's Catering Industry" jointly released by the China Hotel Association and Xinhua Net, under the epidemic situation, due to the stagnation or reduction of offline business, some catering enterprises that did not do online sales before have started takeaways; some catering enterprises have tried to do retail sales of semi-finished products, finished products and ingredients; and some catering enterprises have opened online ordering and telephone reservation platforms to develop dishes suitable for Internet sales, and launched online bookings, online booking stores, home delivery and other services.
Pure dine-in or exclusive takeaway, these two types are a minority in the catering enterprises, more companies use the "double home" model, from the perspective of input-output ratio, this is already the most pragmatic path for the catering industry to fight uncertainty.
However, there are also new difficulties in the takeaway business model. The most intuitive problem is how to set up the takeaway menu of the restaurant, when ordering takeaway, there is a layer of mobile phone screen between the customer and the restaurant, the store picture, the meal description, the SKU design are the key information that attracts attention, the choice is too small to meet the customer, too much choice and easy to lead to "choice difficulty".
Secondly, there is always a certain proportion of orders that may have a "rollover" problem, unlike dine-in customers can immediately feedback and solve, how takeaway stores carry out after-sales, how to cleverly reply to the customer's "bad reviews", not only determine whether the customer will repurchase, but also affect the subsequent feelings of other customers when referring to the review.
In addition, the ranking rules of takeaway stores are affected by various factors such as distance and rating, just like clothing stores just entered the online store mode from physical stores 20 years ago, catering companies also need to spend time and energy to study and adapt to the interaction and service model of the takeaway period.
The catering industry, which has changed rapidly, has never lacked those who have come to the top. In the new ecology built under the epidemic, the coexistence of reshuffle and opportunities has also become a new examination topic that practitioners must face.
Source: Xiaoxiang Morning News, 21st Century Business Herald (Author: Tang Weike)
Editor of this issue is Feng Zhanpeng