Is it a new friend? Remember to click the blue word "zinc scale" first to pay attention to me Oh ~
A daily in-depth survey of science and technology finance
Step into the story behind the business
Can't tell a new story of the fragrant fluttering, how to defend the country
Written/Starry Night
Editor/Lee Ha-lin
Entering 2022, "price increase" has become the first keyword, and brands such as Qiaqia melon seeds, Fuling squeezed vegetables, Wangwang, Xiangpiaopiao, and Tea Yan Yue color have successively announced price increases.
Among them, Xiangpiaopiao, who once "sold more than 300 million cups a year, and the cups can be connected to circle the earth", was in the unfavorable situation of successive losses, and finally decided to announce that due to the continuous rise in the cost of raw materials, labor, transportation, energy and so on, the price of major products was raised by 2% to 8%.
In fact, in the context of today's era of "relying on milk tea to continue life", Xiangpiaopiao not only did not usher in the second spring of her career, but also suffered a greater impact. In the first half of 2021 alone, Xiangpiaopiao had a net loss of 62.2564 million yuan, and the liveliness and highlights of the new tea market seemed to have nothing to do with Xiangpiaopiao.
Therefore, Xiang Piaopiao, who made this helpless move of price increase, also said pessimistically in advance: "The price adjustment of some products may have a certain impact on the market share of the company's products, and this price adjustment does not necessarily make the company's profits grow." ”
After entering its 17th year of development, Xiangpiaopiao seems to be facing an unprecedented crisis. In this hard battle that had to be broken, what killer skills could Xiang Piaopiao still show?
The gross profit margin is not as good as that of new tea drinks, and the cost performance is not as good as that of Honey Snow Ice City
In the past two years, new tea drinks have been menacing, and it can almost be said that traffic and marketing have created an era of "milk tea star people per capita". But whenever Xiangpiao is mentioned, young consumers do not buy it, and traditional consumers can only express a regret.
Before the news of this price increase flowed out, the discussion around Xiangpiaopiao was its loss in recent years. After ushering in the first loss after the listing in 2020, the decline of Xiangpiaopiao has become more and more difficult to hide. Even during the epidemic period, the physical milk tea shop closed down, and the sales volume of Xiangpiaopiao once soared, but it failed to bring it a longer-term development dividend.
According to the data of the third quarter report of 2021 released by Xiangpiaopiao, in the first three quarters of 2021, Xiangpiaopiao achieved a total operating income of 1.974 billion yuan and a non-net profit loss of 22.64 million yuan. Xiangpiaopiao, which has always pursued the principle of small profits and high sales, has always had the problem of "high sales in autumn and winter, and high sales in summer", and this business model with insufficient ability to resist external blows has obviously suffered a greater blow in the process of the rise of new tea drinks.
As the energy price increase continues to grow, the production cost of manufacturers remains high, which eventually leads to the pressure of many products to face price increases. In order to survive, the price increase of Xiangpiaopiao is also a last resort.
Therefore, the board of directors of Xiangpiaopiao Food Co., Ltd. also clearly stated that "the price adjustment of some products may have a certain impact on the market share of the company's products, coupled with the rising cost factors, the price adjustment of the product does not necessarily increase the company's profits, and the impact of the price adjustment on the company's future performance is uncertain." ”
Specifically, according to Xiangpiaopiao's 2020 annual report, the gross profit margin of its brewing and ready-to-drink businesses is 40.61% and 18.35% respectively, but the sales volume of ready-to-drink products is expanding.
A price increase of 2%-8% does not mean an increase in revenue, if the price increase part may not be able to fully cover the cost growth part, this means that the gross profit margin may be affected and declined. The gross profit margin of the traditional brewing business, which performs better in these two major businesses, is only 40.61%, which is not a small gap compared with the gross profit margin of more than 60% of the new tea drinks, so I am afraid that it is even less optimistic.
As for the ready-to-drink products with low gross profit margin, because the layout time of Xiangpiaopiao is not long, the cost of equipment sharing is not low enough, and the cost of channel laying and advertising and marketing is also difficult to avoid, so it also directly affects profits.
Xiangpiaopiao offline promotions
More importantly, Xiangpiaopiao, which has lost its attractiveness among young people, has undoubtedly highlighted this disadvantage more obviously after the price increase.
In terms of price, a cup of 80g of Xiangpiaopiao classic brewed milk tea is usually priced at 4.5 yuan in supermarkets, which can be mixed with 150 to 200ml of milk tea. If the price increases by 8%, it needs to rise by 0.36 yuan, and the price needs to be 4.86 yuan. A cup of Michelle Ice City bubble tea has a capacity of 500ml and is priced at 7 yuan, but the promotional price of many stores is about 6.3 yuan.
If you compare it with the price per ml, the gap is even more obvious. Xiangpiaopiao 1ml price is 0.024 yuan, and Mixue Ice City 1ml price is 0.013 yuan. If it were not for this comparison, many people may not have expected that the xiangpiaopiao mass-produced on the factory line would be more expensive than the honey snow ice city that was brewed on the spot.
Speaking of ingredients, the top item in Xiangpiaopiao's ingredient list is the plant fat powder, which has now become a prohibited item in the hearts of many consumers, almost to the point of smell discoloration. Coupled with the use of other food additives and edible flavors and fragrances, Xiangpiaopiao milk tea is indeed not healthy enough.
And Michelle Ice City, even if it is currently the most affordable new tea brand, Zinc Scale also saw from the information revealed by some clerks that Michelle Ice City uses milk tea powder to make milk tea base and tapioca flour to make pearls. There may also be additives, but overall, the cost performance of Michelle Ice City is far better than that of Xiangpiaopiao.
Under the action of multiple factors, it can be said that the price increase of Xiangpiaopiao is an adjustment that has to be made in the general environment, but it is also a key point that aggravates the existential crisis.
Wang Junkai and Wang Yibo can save the incense from floating in the water and fire?
From its birth in 2005 to 2006, when it invested 30 million yuan to buy the prime-time advertising rights of Hunan Satellite TV, and then in 2008, the annual sales exceeded 1 billion yuan, and Xiang Piaopiao did have a boldness that could not be broken. In the face of the decline, Xiangpiaopiao has not failed to make many attempts, but from the current results, these attempts in recent years may have little effect.
An important strategy that runs through Xiangpiaopiao's 16-year history must be marketing. In the early days, through the hegemonic screen TV, we created "milk tea will be fragrant and fluttering", "Fragrant Piaopiao milk tea, the pioneer of cup milk tea, leading sales for eight consecutive years", "Xiangpiaopiao milk tea, sold more than 300 million cups a year, and the cups can be connected to circle the earth" and other deeply rooted advertising slogans, and gained good sales.
Later, TV advertising can play a smaller and smaller role in sales, and Xiangpiaopiao aims at the marketing method of using traffic stars to drive sales. In 2019, Xiangpiaopiao used Wang Junkai's endorsement of its brewing series products. In 2021, Wang Yibo was officially announced to be the brand spokesperson, focusing on the "Wang Yibo's Milk Tea" series of products.
Perhaps it is finally understood the consumption power of the rice circle, since Wang Yibo's endorsement, Xiangpiaopiao has launched the relevant peripherals. In order to obtain cups, mouse pads, humanoid standing cards, canvas bags, etc., many fans hoarded the whole box of incense fluttering.
Wang Yibo fans diy with a box of incense fluttering
But just using a spokesperson to attract a wave of traffic is obviously not enough to have a sustained positive impact. First, this model can often only attract the spokesperson's fan base, and it is difficult to produce a fission effect. Second, many brands have now realized that the way traffic drives sales is easy to "overturn", and it is difficult to convert into brand power.
In fact, as early as the eve of Xiangpiaopiao's listing, some investors raised concerns about its "relatively single product structure and blind emphasis on marketing". After years of development, Xiangpiaopiao has indeed not been able to get out of this predicament.
Even if the marketing direction and means have been changed and ready-to-drink teas such as "MECO" and "Lanfangyuan" have been launched, it can still be seen that Xiangpiaopiao has not been able to seize young consumers from the research and development end.
User reviews such as "The taste and taste are difficult to say, after drinking a cup, I don't want to drink it again", "I directly use a sieve to sift off the sugar, wash it with water and drink it again" and other user reviews can be seen everywhere on social platforms. In the face of the contradiction of young people who love to drink milk tea while choosing less sugar, Xiang Piaopiao obviously did not grasp its fundamental pain point.
In addition, the light food project that took nearly a decade to land before and after should have taken off with the wind. But the meal replacement cereal brand "Joyko", which was born in 2019, not only did not attract attention in the market, but now it has disappeared directly.
The old xiangpia has not given up on itself, but the detours it has taken are also consuming the value of the past. As the layout of new tea brands for pre-packaged products deepens, the time left for Xiangpiaopiao's innovation will only become less and less.
The incense fluttering that does not want to step out of the comfort zone, where will the future drift?
The loneliness of the fragrant fluttering may be an inescapable pain in the change of times.
According to the data of Zhiyan Consulting, the size of China's brewed milk tea market has shown negative growth in 2015; in 2016, it has recovered, with a growth rate of 17.1%; in 2017 and 2018, the growth rate has once again declined to single digits of 2.4% and 5%. All this shows one thing, the brewed milk tea market has seen the ceiling.
But is Xiangpiaopiao really at the end of the road? Not really. The new brewed milk tea products, known as "Xiangpiaopiao 2.0", have torn a new track under the era of the absolute superiority of new tea drinks.
For a time, brands such as Fruit Encounter Tea, Fawn Collision, Happy Shake Milk Tea, Shake Milk Tea, Aoton Kicho Tea, and Because of Innocence mushroomed in the field of brewed milk tea.
A large part of these brands are almost identical on the outer packaging, and the gimmicks of publicity are also the same "hand crank" and "0 trans fatty acids". But this has not affected its attractiveness to young consumers, taking the Guoyu Tea Burst Shake series products as an example, the monthly sales of 5 bags of products in its Tmall flagship store can exceed 4,000+.
Guoyu Tea was established after the epidemic Source: Aiqicha
Importantly, Guoyu Tea did not hire a spokesperson, nor did it advertise on the TV and movie side. Zinc Scale found through the search in Aiqicha that Guoyu Tea was established on April 16, 2020, and the brand seized an opportunity under the epidemic, which is the transformation opportunity that Xiangpiaopiao failed to smell in time.
At the same time, the opportunities brought by the new tea drink, Xiang Piaopiao also failed to seize.
According to the "2021 China New Tea Industry Research Report" released by iResearch, the market size of China's new tea industry in 2020 was 77.29 billion yuan, and it showed a rapid growth trend. It is estimated that by 2030, the overall market size will be close to 200 billion yuan. It can be seen that There is still a large market space and development potential in China's new tea industry.
Nowadays, Naixue's tea, Xicha and other head brands occupy the minds of users, forming a unique brand image, while tea baidao, a little, Coco can be a high degree of brand chaining, relying on the franchise model to make a lot of money, as well as honey snow ice city, ancient tea, book and burnt fairy grass and other brands continue to conquer the sinking market. New tea drink this cake, eat more than one way.
Therefore, even Wahaha and Mengniu, who are not professionals, have also laid out new tea brands offline, even if they cannot immediately have a place, but how to say it is also an important step to refresh the brand image.
On the other hand, Xiangpiaopiao, the "first share of milk tea", seems to change the spokesperson and launch ready-to-drink tea, but in the end it is in its own comfort zone. XiangPiao, who can't tell a new story for a long time, how can he hold the country in the future?
END
Reader interaction
If you want to get first-hand information / hardcore report / author exchange, welcome readers to add WeChat znkedu01, reply to "readers" with one click to add groups!
Dot the little flowers and let them know that you are "watching" me