Author: Zhu Mo
Source: Kuaidaocaijing (ID: kuaidaocaijing)
"After the catastrophic production process, many people think that everything is over and the beauty begins. For the mother, however, it is only the beginning. ”
This is the line of the Korean drama "Postpartum Conditioning Hospital", which sharply pokes at the ignored voice: Being a mother is really not easy. From the two children alone in 2013, to the full two children in 2016, and then to the landing of the three-child policy, the female group under the pressure of fertility is eager for more comprehensive and meticulous maternal and infant care.
▲Photo/Korean drama "Postpartum Conditioning Hospital"
"Confinement" has become the first breakthrough. The rise of scientific confinement has made the confinement center with a professional team the best solution to the problem.
In fact, confinement centers have always been known for their high fees. According to dt finance statistics in 2019, the median unit price of the confinement center in Beijing, Shanghai, Shenzhen and Hangzhou is more than 50,000 yuan, the high-end level is not less than 70,000 yuan, the top confinement club is all more than 150,000 yuan, and the highest per capita consumption of a single store in Shanghai is even as high as 270,000 yuan.
However, in the eyes of many pregnant women, the confinement center with various halos can not only meet the physical and mental needs, but also a good medicine to solve family conflicts, even if the fee is high, it is worth paying.
As a result, the confinement center from high-end families to ordinary people. According to a survey by the Prospective Data Research Institute, from 2010 to 2016, the compound growth rate of the confinement center market size reached more than 40%; according to Frost & Sullivan, by 2025, the domestic confinement center service scale will reach 28.1 billion yuan, with an average annual compound growth rate of 17.2%.
However, surprisingly, under the dividend, it failed to bring the expected high profits. At the 2020 China Maternal and Infant Frontier (CMIF) Conference, Tu Junyin, founder of Yiyuezi Center, did not shy away from mentioning that 95% of Yuezi Center stores were struggling with losses, and it was only a matter of time before they withdrew.
Half seawater, half flames. Why did the seemingly profitable track of the Confinement Center fall into a difficult situation?
01
The concept of fertility is constantly changing
The confinement center ushered in the outbreak period
The concept of "confinement center" originally originated in Taiwan, when it was also known as "postpartum care home".
These places employ nurses and visiting doctors to provide professional care services for mothers and babies, and also conduct regular health assessments for mothers and babies, which became the earliest "standard template" for confinement centers.
It was not until 1999, when Beijing's first professional confinement center, Beijing Mother Confinement Center, was established, that the confinement center began to start in Chinese mainland, but few people were willing to try at that time.
Before the rise of confinement centers, hiring a confinement sister-in-law was the mainstream solution. As a "middleman", the sister-in-law can play a good balance between the "new and old conflicts".
But gradually, it became no longer easy to find a reliable sister-in-law. First of all, with the rise in labor prices in recent years, the wages of the sister-in-law have risen. Taking the Shanghai area as an example, the average price of the professional institutions that provide monthly wives on Dianping is between 15,000 and 20,000 yuan, and the price of gold medals is more than 30,000 yuan.
Moreover, because the sister-in-law is booked in advance, when the door-to-door trial feels dissatisfied, want to change may not be able to get a timely response, re-running also needs to consume time and energy, these are the pain points that the mother can not bear.
Under comprehensive consideration, many families have changed their gaze to the "all-encompassing" confinement center. In contrast, the services that the confinement center can provide to postpartum mothers are meticulous, only unthinkable, not impossible.
For example, from the hospital, there are commercial vehicles to pick up and drop off the whole process; there are professional nutritionists tailor-made by professional dietitians on the diet, with hundreds of dishes; and there are rich arrangements such as postpartum yoga, illustration, and music classes on the activities.
▲Photo/Photo Network
Around 2006, as the post-80s became the main force of fertility, the order of the confinement center was hot, ushering in a window period; by 2017, the market size of the confinement center reached 9.64 billion yuan, approaching 10 billion yuan for the first time.
The confinement center has also upgraded from a single "ward-style" maternal and infant care to a full-industry chain nursing care with heavy services, and truly embarked on the fast track of rapid expansion.
Many investment institutions predict that in the next 10 years, the overall market will develop at a compound annual growth rate of nearly 20%, and the scale will exceed 100 billion, which is what a tempting pre-(money) scene.
According to incomplete statistics, since 2015, there have been 130 domestic confinement center investment and financing incidents, with a total amount of nearly 5 billion yuan. In March last year, Tencent and High Financing Skills invested 200 million yuan in Becon International's Series C financing, which refreshed the record of the highest single financing in the confinement industry.
However, contrary to wishes, the tried-and-true business standard of "children and women's money is best earned" has failed for the first time. Beneath the fiery surface, cracks were rifted.
02
Behind the soaring unit price
It turned into a loss-making business
In order to attract passenger flow, many confinement centers have chosen to take the high-end route from the beginning. While it is true that this approach is easier to influence, it also means a significant cost.
At present, the confinement center is mainly divided into three formats: single-family villa, hotel and apartment. At present, in the number of stores in the whole industry, hotel-style accounts for about 40%, single-family villa-style about 35%, and apartment-style about 25%.
▲Aidigong Nanshan flagship store
No matter what type of confinement center, it faces the same problem - high fixed costs. The first is the rent, the location of the confinement center is basically concentrated in the inner ring, famous business districts, luxury residential areas, these tall locations, the rent is usually ridiculously expensive.
The partial confinement center is also a part of the "eating traffic" in commercial real estate, and is in a passive state in the negotiation with shopping malls and hotels, and cannot get any benefits, and can only accept.
In addition, labor costs are also a huge expense. Since the confinement center wins with service, it has to spend a high price to hire experienced nurses, prolactinators, yogis and other professionals, according to the industry's "7 to 1" standard, each guest served, there are 7 employees waiting to be paid.
According to the Data Institute of Securities, from the perspective of the cost composition of the confinement center, the monthly labor + rent accounts for 53%, and these expenditures are increasing every year with the change of various factors.
Fatally, the huge upfront investment corresponds to the "low-frequency" consumption attribute. For most Chinese women, staying in the confinement center will not exceed three times at most, and the short consumption cycle makes the confinement center need to continuously pull new customers in order to maintain a balance of payments, and once the vacancy rate is too high, it will fall into a state of doom and gloom.
Therefore, the confinement center can only increase its promotion efforts, which has more marketing expenses, and the operating pressure can be imagined. In order to get rid of the predicament, the Confinement Center continues to increase the unit price of customers, even so, it still cannot withstand the gap between income and cost.
Shandong Fuzuo mother and baby with a unit price of about 60,000 yuan is a living example. From 2015 to 2017, the company's net profit was 2.2027 million yuan, -2.9541 million yuan, -6.2166 million yuan, respectively; in 2019, the crushed Fuzuo mother and baby withdrew from the new third board, and there was also Xi Home with the same ending.
Of the five confinement centers listed in China, in addition to the Aidi Palace (confinement service business) still able to maintain profitability, the other four - Xixi Mother and Baby, Damei Shares, Xi Home, Fuza Mother and Baby, are all losing money for consecutive years and suffering unspeakably.
According to data from debon Research Institute, from 2015 to 2018E, the total profit increased from 1.6 billion yuan to 3.9 billion yuan; and from 2015 to 2018, the market size increased from 3.4 billion yuan to 14.2 billion yuan. That said, the industry profit level in 2015 was as high as 47%, but in 2018 it has slipped to about 27%.
Internal and external troubles, in order to survive, many yuezi center's "painting style" began to deviate, and the service level dropped again and again. Many confinement centers are more like "hanging sheep's heads to sell dog meat", randomly find a hotel to rent some rooms, then find an intermediary agency to rent a few months of sister-in-law, recruit a few nurses and part-time pediatricians, and finally find a restaurant to deliver meals, even if the service is realized, the details can not withstand scrutiny.
But this kind of confinement center as long as the immediate interests do not care, even if the reputation is not good, you can still shoot a shot for a place, continue to make a comeback, and then make money.
"We can't afford to hire specialists in the hospital, it's expensive and unnecessary." An anonymous industry insider said, "Our own training nurses are enough."
Most of these nurses are fresh graduates of relevant colleges and universities, and the training cycle will be on the job in no more than 1 month, because they do not have any practical experience, it is difficult to deal with it properly when encountering emergencies.
The drawbacks continue to stand out. According to the data of Dianping, most of the ratings of the head confinement centers in first-tier cities have not yet passed the passing line; on various platforms, complaints about poor service and safety problems of confinement centers are not uncommon.
▲Picture/Little Red Book
Under the vicious circle, the confinement center has become a high incidence of accidents, and each case is shocking.
03
All kinds of accidents occur in an endless stream
How to crack the industry chaos
In February 2021, 14 newborns in a confinement center in Shenyang were diagnosed with pneumonia and had to be sent to the ICU for rescue. After the visit of the Municipal Supervision and Administration Bureau, it was found that there were improper infection prevention measures and no disinfection system in the clubhouse.
According to the parents' reaction, after the first sick baby was hospitalized, the confinement center did not notify the relevant information, delaying the best treatment time, until many babies fell ill, and the paper package could not stop the fire, causing heated public opinion.
Coincidentally, in July last year, the New Express reported that "4 babies in the Panyu Confinement Center were hospitalized with bronchitis", and the children hosted in the confinement center successively had adverse reactions such as rashes, nasal congestion, coughs, and breathing difficulties, and the serious ones were once issued a serious illness notice.
Then, in November 2021, a video titled "Xi'an Confinement Center Nursing Staff Abuses Newborns" caused a huge controversy on the Internet, and in the surveillance footage, the sister-in-law repeatedly shook the child violently, beat her chest, punched her mouth and other bad behaviors.
After the fermentation of the incident, the investigation found that the confinement center, which claimed to borrow from the Harvard Private Hospital Special Nursing (PHS) system and equipped with an elite team, released recruitment information, whether it was a club nurse, a night shift or a maternal and infant nurse, the salary was generally around 3,000-5,000 yuan, and there was no limit on academic qualifications, no limit on work experience, and it was far from publicity.
According to the information of the judgment document network, in recent years, there have been hundreds of dispute cases involving the mother and baby center and the confinement center, including improper nursing, suspension of business, unreasonable charges, etc., and even the death of the baby during the confinement center.
At this point, the beautiful "painting skin" of the center of the moon has been peeled off layer by layer, revealing the mottled interior. Another root cause of the problem is the long-term lack of industry norms in the confinement center.
On September 1, 2018, the General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine of the People's Republic of China and the Standardization Administration of the People's Republic of China jointly issued the General Requirements for Maternal and Infant Health Care Service Places, but this standard is a "national recommended standard" and does not force practitioners of confinement centers to adopt it, and even if it is violated, it does not bear economic or legal responsibility.
In 2020, the National People's Congress is ready to implement relevant policies, but considering that there are only 6,000-7,000 confinement centers, the scale is not large, and finally decided to continue to push back.
The establishment of the confinement center does not require relevant health qualifications, practitioners do not need relevant qualification certificates, and the long-term lack of supervision has led to a variety of sources of founders of the confinement center, a mixture of fish and dragons, and it seems that behind the tall, the actual good and bad are uneven.
Contradictions intensify and erupt over time. On the one hand, the influx of a large number of competitors and the continuous decline in industry profits have forced the confinement center to increase pricing, compress costs internally, and increase profit points by superimposing value-added service projects externally.
On the other hand, the mothers spent a high price, not only failed to enjoy enough satisfactory services, but also had to accept intensified sales (such as a body shaping suit 10,000-20,000 yuan, freehand shrinking pelvis from 10,000 yuan), worry and become worse.
Fortunately, after experiencing disorder and chaos, the head of the confinement center finally realized that simply increasing the unit price of customers can not guarantee profitability, only to improve their own operational capabilities, dismantle the industrial chain into standardized modules, continue to enhance the word-of-mouth effect, and then improve the occupancy rate, which is the key to breaking the situation.
At present, the penetration rate of confinement service industry in mainland China is only 6%, which means that there is still huge room for imagination to be developed. For Yuezi Center, which already has a good hand, it is both an opportunity and a challenge.
Whether the Confinement Center can truly become an "ideal country" to shield the wind and rain still has a long way to go.
(The picture of this article is from the network)
Resources:
1. Zhou Tian Finance "Yuezi Center, "Sitting Out of the New Outlet""
2. Wu Xiaobo Channel "Unveiling the Grassy Lake in the Center of the Moon"
3. Huashang Taoluo, "The Seemingly Profiteering Confinement Center, Why Are There Less Than 30% Profiteers?" 》