Text | At the forefront of entrepreneurship, the author | Li Xiaofeng, Editor | Egg total
The new pastry brands Mo mo dim sum bureau and hutou bureau are being surrounded and suppressed by "cottage" stores.
According to the observation of "the forefront of entrepreneurship", at the same time as the recent expansion of the Momo Dim Sum Bureau and the Hutou Bureau, a number of "cottage" stores called "XX Dim Sum Bureau" have also come to rub the heat, and they have followed the trend of Internet red brands in terms of decoration style, logo, product type and so on.
Most of the "XX Dim Sum Bureau" also opened up franchise business, and a dim sum bureau's brand cooperation manual wrote that it plans to open more than 5,000 stores nationwide within 3 years. Compared with the direct operation model of Mo Mo Dim Sum Bureau and Hutou Bureau, these open franchise brands will occupy the market at a faster speed.
There is not only a competition of speed between Mo Mo and Hutou Bureau and various "XX Dim Sum Bureaus", but also a competition of cost performance, service and taste. In this war, which side can break through the dilemma of product homogenization and win the market and consumers faster?
01 Internet celebrity bakery that is "shanzhai"
The new-style pastry is repeating the fate of the new-style tea drink "who fires and who is copied".
A little bit, CoCo, hi tea, buckhorn lane, tea beauty... These well-known tea brands have been copied, and among them, Tea Yan Yue has also been in court with the cottage brand. Nowadays, the new pastries that have just become the "new favorite" of capital also have a group of "plagiarists".
It has completed 5 rounds of financing in one year, and the Mo mo dim sum bureau with a valuation of 2 billion yuan at one time, and the Hutou Bureau Standard Chartered Cake Shop (hereinafter referred to as the Hutou Bureau), which has obtained 2 rounds of huge financing in just one year, has accelerated the pace of expansion with the blessing of capital. According to the "Narrow Door Dining Eye", Mo mo dim sum bureau opened a total of 60 stores in Beijing, Changsha and Wuhan, and Hutou bureau opened 44 stores in 6 cities.
However, before they can "dominate the world", "cottage" bakeries have emerged. This is a contest between an influencer bakery and a follower, and it is also a competition of speed.
On social platforms, Chinese bakeries called "XX Dim Sum Bureau" have sprung up, trying to imitate Mo Mo Dim Sum Bureau and Hu Tou Bureau in all aspects.
The first is the brand name. A bakery owner in Qingdao bluntly told the "forefront of entrepreneurship" that he named his shop "XX Dim Sum Bureau" to follow the trend. Following the trend of plagiarism of brand names, trademarks, designs and other routines has long been common in the cottage incident of new-style tea drinks, and these shopkeepers want to quickly attract customers by virtue of the popularity of "genuine brand", and embark on a wave of fast money in the shortcut circle.
The second is the logo design style. The logo of the Mo Mo Dim Sum Bureau is a lion, and the Tiger Head Bureau adopts the image of a tiger, and the "forefront of entrepreneurship" has observed that many "XX Dim Sum Bureaus" on the market use lion and tiger motifs as logos.
For example, a national tide bakery in Guangzhou called "Lion's Head Dim Sum Bureau" opened at the end of September 2021, and its logo pattern is also a lion. Traditional characters are also used on the door signboard, typing out the concept of national tide style, which can be described as "closely following the hutou bureau copying operation".
After visiting the store "Lion's Head Snack Bureau", some consumers wrote in the public comments: "Whether it is the name or the decoration products, people have to think of the Hutou Bureau, and there is a suspicion of plagiarism." ”
Another consumer wrote in a public comment, "There are actually lion heads, do you want to build an animal kingdom collection store?" Below this post, someone directly commented: "It's a copycat version." ”
This "animal kingdom" is not only about lions and tigers, a bakery called "Pastry Book Snack Bureau" has drawn an image of a dragon head in the logo, and like the Tiger Head Bureau, the pattern is designed as a circle.
Figure / From left to right, the logos of Hutou Bureau, Crispy Book Snack Bureau, and Lion's Head Dim Sum Bureau are respectively (the pictures are from the screenshots of his Xiaohongshu video, the avatar of the Xiaohongshu account, and the screenshot of the poster in the Xiaohongshu account)
Not only was the Hutou Bureau brutally copied, but the Mo Mo Dim Sum Bureau could not escape the fate of being "copied".
At the beginning of December 2021, a content creator in Wuhan posted in today's headlines that a local bakery called "Qidian Dim Sum Bureau" is extremely similar to Mo Mo Dim Sum Bureau, and some people in the comments also complained that this is a cottage. The city of Wuhan also happens to be the first target city for the outward expansion of the Momo Dim Sum Bureau.
Photo / Content posted by a content creator in Wuhan
In terms of products, these "XX dim sum bureaus" also come to collectively "copy the homework".
One of Hutou Bureau's signature products is called "Mochi Tiger Roll", a brand called "Wanliang Golden Dim Sum Bureau", and there is a similar product called "Tiger Skin Mashu Roll". Hutou Bureau popularity recommended the second most popular product "QQ Tizi Mashu", "Wan Liang Golden Dim Sum Bureau" also has a product of the same name.
Figure / The picture above is the product of Wanliang Golden Dim Sum Bureau (picture from its investment brochure) The picture below is the product of Hutou Bureau (picture from the publicity page of Dianping store)
When the Mo Mo Dim Sum Bureau and the Tiger Head Bureau are "copied", what do they rely on to fight this "anti-copycat" hard battle? In the pastry track with a low threshold, in addition to the net red aura formed by the external novelty, what is the core competitiveness of the inner product?
02 The "internal and external troubles" of Mo Mo and Hu tou Bureau
From the perspective of the external environment, these Chinese bakery shops that have followed the trend have had a certain impact on the expansion of the Mo mo dim sum bureau and the Hutou bureau.
On the social platform, these "XX dim sum bureaus" are intensively developing franchisees, hundreds of thousands of yuan can open a Chinese bakery, compared to the direct operation model of Mo Mo Dim Sum Bureau and Hutou Bureau, cottage brands have made the "enclosure" faster due to the characteristics of less investment and faster returns.
Yao Yao (pseudonym), a staff member of a new Chinese baking brand called "Lure Dim Sum Bureau" who is responsible for joining the investment promotion, said that her company has a number of projects, and at the end of 2021, it will start to do the project of the Lure Dim Sum Bureau and open to join, while she was originally responsible for another project to join, and she also joined the Dim Sum Bureau project.
Yao Yao said that the cooperation model of the lure snack bureau is divided into two types: one is the city partner model, the partner and the company jointly create a hot model store, which can be opened in the region in the later stage to get revenue dividends; the other model is a single store franchise form, no franchise fee, only need to spend 125800 yuan to buy a set of equipment.
"First-tier, second-tier and third- and fourth-tier cities, the cooperation costs of the municipal and district generations are different, like the agent price of Shijiazhuang City in Hebei Province is 458,000 yuan." Yao Yao told "the forefront of entrepreneurship".
As for the franchise model, it is more "worry-free and trouble-free". Yao Yao said that joining the lure snack bureau does not need too high technical requirements, and the brand headquarters will make products into semi-finished products or finished products for distribution to stores.
"We open 30-square-meter stores in third- and fourth-tier cities, with a daily turnover of about 3,000 yuan and a net profit of 40%." Yao Yao said.
The low entry threshold, hot market and considerable profits of Chinese bakeries are fully in line with people's imagination of small business "low threshold, high gross profit, fast return", so in a short period of time, these franchised brands have attracted many people to enter.
"We just opened our doors, and we consulted too many customers." The franchise staff of the "Wanliang Golden Snack Bureau" said to "the forefront of entrepreneurship".
However, according to the understanding of the "forefront of entrepreneurship", there are many "cat greasy" hidden in a number of brands that play a franchise model.
Yao Yao, who lured the dim sum bureau, told the "forefront of entrepreneurship": "Our (head) company has been doing catering and hotel for more than 20 years, and the company's strength is very strong, and the annual industrial chain output value is about 5 billion yuan. "In addition, she claims that the company's supply chain cooperation with Nestlé can get raw materials at low prices, so it also has an advantage in product prices." For example, the wife cake, the outside is 2 yuan a piece, we are 9 mao 9 one. ”
In addition, the brand cooperation manual of the Lure Snack Bureau wrote that it plans to have more than 5,000 stores nationwide in three years.
However, when "Pioneer of Entrepreneurship" inquired about the company "Lure Brand Management (Beijing) Co., Ltd." and the head office "Beijing Hongyan International Brand Management Co., Ltd." where the "Temptation Snack Bureau" was located, it was found that the business scope of these two companies did not include the production and processing of baked food, only "selling food".
In contrast, the business scope of changsha yibi yicheng catering management co., LTD., where the momo dim sum bureau is located, includes "biscuits and other baked food manufacturing (limited branches), baked food manufacturing (limited branches)", etc., and the business scope of the traditional brand Daoxiangcun also includes "manufacturing, processing and baking food" and so on.
Therefore, is the food production of the Luring Confectionery Bureau within its legal business? It claims that in the franchise model, the headquarters will make products into semi-finished products or finished products for distribution to stores, so are these products all produced by it?
In this regard, as of press time, the staff of the above-mentioned temptation and snack bureau has not responded positively.
This can't help but remind us that when new tea and cottage brands emerged in an endless stream, many people in the industry reminded that some quick recruitment companies should use various means to package and create a "explosive" brand, and then quickly attract business, so that some "small white entrepreneurs" pay the franchise fee, and finally obtain huge franchise fee benefits, but in the later stage of service support is almost blank.
In fact, in addition to the external problems of the cottage store, the net red bakery is also facing internal worries. Among them, the biggest internal worry is probably the lack of core barriers in Chinese baking.
"Every brand and every store may have one or two signature products, but in terms of appearance and taste, they are actually the same." Liu Liang, founder of the new Chinese pastry brand "Pastry Shop", analyzed the "forefront of entrepreneurship".
This is because the production process and raw materials of dim sum are similar. "Especially after reaching the top, the raw materials of each brand are the same, taking choux as an example, the best quality raw material is animal cream, we have all used such raw materials, what can be too much difference?" Liu Liang said.
"At present, the net red baking brand has not shown much advantage, they are just capital blessing, and there are some breakthrough points, but when these breakthrough points become ordinary things, they are no longer attractive to consumers." Liu Liang said.
For example, the "national tide style" that promotes the ink mo mo dim sum bureau and the tiger head bureau out of the circle, these baking shops that follow the trend also play the selling point of the "national tide style".
The lure snack bureau borrowed the color of the Forbidden City. "The Forbidden City is dominated by red and yellow, as well as the embellishment of green plants, and our 'egg puff pastry' also uses red, yellow and green colors to set off the characteristics of Chinese style." Yao Yao said. In addition to the products, the packaging gift box of the Lure Snack Bureau also uses the same color scheme, reflecting the Chinese charm.
In addition, the new bakery stores that follow the trend have opened to the sinking market, but the Mo Mo Dim Sum Bureau and the Hutou Bureau have not yet sunk. "At present, they are not expected to sink in two or three years." Liu Liang predicted.
And this time difference may also become the time to follow the trend and copycat stores to "take root".
03 Chinese baking players compete in internal strength
In fact, the direct impact on the Internet celebrity baking brands is that consumers no longer feel fresh and curious about them until they are diverted.
"The forefront of entrepreneurship" observed that these "XX dim sum bureaus" showed in videos released by social platforms such as Xiaohongshu and Douyin that many consumers were queuing outside the store, and business was very hot.
Photo / Consumers lining up outside a dim sum shop
However, Liu Liang believes that this phenomenon of following the trend is actually normal.
"The previous stores were called 'XX Cake Shops', and when a brand called Dim Sum Bureau suddenly appeared and the business was good, it was bound to trigger a wave of follow-up." Liu Liang said.
He believes that this is also one of the manifestations of industry upgrading, "all walks of life need someone to break through, someone to follow the trend, and then break through, and then follow the trend." ”
To a certain extent, this is a normal path for the development of the industry.
Although it has become a common phenomenon to follow the trend and open a store, whether a brand can eventually run out or not, it is still necessary to compete with the internal strength, which is taste, service, cost performance, supply chain and other aspects. As an internet celebrity brand, this is also a problem that momo dim sum bureau and hutou bureau still need to solve.
On the other hand, the Momo dim sum bureau, which has benefited from the internet celebrity marketing model, seems to be being regurgitated by this model. On social platforms, many consumers complained that the price of the products had risen and were unpalatable, and the filling had nothing to do with the publicity map.
"Mo Mo, you are no longer good at research and development, bent on traffic, sooner or later you will go out of business." Some consumers wrote this.
Photo / Consumer complaints on the Little Red Book
While the new bakery brand is highly sought after by capital and the market, there are also some negative voices in the baking industry.
In June 2021, the bakery brand Shanghai Yizhiduo was reported to have closed a large number of stores and owed employees wages. In August, Guangzhou Donghaitang issued a notice of closure, saying that due to the impact of the epidemic, the company encountered serious operational difficulties and problems in the capital chain.
The news of the withdrawal of the established baking brand has cast a shadow on the baking industry that is gaining momentum. However, this does not prevent it from remaining a promising market.
According to the "2021 Baking Industry Development Trend Report", in 2020, the market size of China's baking industry is 235.8 billion yuan, and the growth rate of the industry market size from 2015 to 2019 is more than 9%, which is much higher than the growth rate of the global baking industry market, and it is expected to maintain a growth rate of about 7% in the next 5 years.
This is a 100-billion-level market, and there is a lot of market space. At present Chinese have not yet developed the habit of eating snacks at breakfast, afternoon tea or supper, and the people who consume bread and cake may be potential target users of Chinese baking, and this is also the stage of cultivating user consumption habits.
"In the future development of the baking industry, practitioners should still try to find differentiation as much as possible." Liu Liang said. As for what this differentiation is, he is still groping.
In the Chinese baking industry, which lacks innovation, serious product homogenization, and the emergence of cottage brands, how to become an "iron hit" Internet celebrity still needs Mo Mo and Hutou Bureau to continue to do their homework.