"IPO tide" and "bankruptcy tide" peers, what should catering entrepreneurs do?

Image source @ Visual China

Wen | Red Food Network

On the one hand, the epidemic is repeated, and dine-in food is forced to close; on the other hand, a large amount of capital is injected, and the catering outbreak is listed. In a polarized market environment, what should restaurant entrepreneurs do?

Recently, the epidemic situation in many parts of the country has frequently broken out and shown a severe situation.

On March 15, Lianhu District of Xi'an City just issued a notice that all restaurants in the district suspended dine-in; on March 14, all catering units in Qingdao pressed the pause button for dine-in; before that, all restaurants in Shenzhen suddenly "suspended dine-in"; on March 11, some restaurants in Shanghai suspended dine-in; Jilin and Changchun were also in a state of suspension due to too many new cases.

In addition to the above areas, Jiangsu Lianyungang, Zhejiang Hangzhou, Shenzhen, Chongqing and other places are also increasing the number of new cases, and the areas affected by the epidemic are gradually increasing.

Catering people have experienced a chaotic 2020, a difficult transformation to survive in 2021, it is not easy to get to the "tiger tiger and tiger" of 2022, did not expect to usher in the beginning of the year to drink, many people in the industry pessimistic prediction, this year may be the real meaning of the catering industry "big reshuffle".

But on the other hand, since the epidemic, the value of the catering industry to stabilize people's livelihood and ensure employment has just been highlighted, the industrial upgrading has reached a critical point, hot pot, flour noodles, Chinese baking and other fields have ushered in a financing climax, and there are many powerful catering sprints such as Rural Foundation, Laowang, Yang Guofu and so on. Catering entrepreneurship also seems to have ushered in a golden period.

Obviously, the catering industry is staging a song of "ice and fire" that is visible to the naked eye, and in this polarized environment, what should restaurant entrepreneurs do?

Choose products, try to choose your own familiar or just need categories

In the past two years, the frequent entry of capital has spawned a number of popular categories, but also made the catering industry more impetuous, many brands want to tell stories, take financing, some entrepreneurs are dreaming of copying popular categories, overnight rich.

For example, last year's fires of new ramen, night buns, Hong Kong-style rice noodles, new Chinese dim sum, etc., have spawned a wave of entrepreneurial trends. Seeing the hot performance of these categories of markets, the long queue in front of the door, the media "tap water" type of traffic exposure, many entrepreneurs quickly followed up, but in the end most of them became cannon fodder.

In fact, capital is the smartest money, and most of their business models are market-validated, and they are silently honed for a long time before obtaining financing to attract attention.

For example, Hong Kong-style rice noodles represent Fat Juice Milan, which was founded in 2017 and won financing four or five years later. The biggest competitive advantage of a brand like it that suddenly explodes is that the market gap is the first-mover advantage, and the latecomers are naturally not the same.

And some brands, such as last year's night buns, their projects themselves lack enough data verification, and franchise stores around the world have sprung up like mushrooms. According to the Red Restaurant Network, the vast majority of them have not been able to replicate the hot business of Shanghai and Chengdu, where nightlife is booming, and more than 20 franchise stores of a night bun brand have even closed for only a few months.

Further ahead, the Chaoshan beef hot pot that has been popular all over the country overnight is also a lesson for the blood of catering entrepreneurship.

In 2016, at least tens of thousands of hot pot restaurants selling Chaoshan beef across the country, and the wages of meat cutters soared four times a year. But the good times did not last long, and the wave of closures in the second year spread like a domino effect, and many operators lost everything. Most followers only see this category fresh and grow rapidly and quickly enter the market, but they do not have the core competitiveness of the beef supply chain and chef talents.

Following the trend is the biggest pit for catering entrepreneurship. Even the giants are inevitably stepping on the pit. For example, PetroChina and Sinopec cross-border coffee, rich and resources are good, but several years have passed, and the brand has not done it. The big guy in the beverage industry, wahaha, opened a milk tea shop is also a chicken feather, and even questioned cutting leeks.

The big guy has his own aura, dry catering is still so, how sure are ordinary entrepreneurs that they can succeed?

Image source @ Post Office Coffee official public number

Too many people ignore the degree of inner rolling of the wind outlet track, and the catering has long passed the stage of "high gross profit, high return, and barbaric growth", and making quick money is completely unworkable.

Under the new normal of the epidemic, novice catering must not blindly follow the trend, the most secure is to choose just need categories, such as local special breakfast, high-frequency snacks and fast food, rice noodles and other such consumption base is large, can go through the cycle of categories, in the sudden situation of closing dine-in, they also have a relatively stable consumer base.

Just need in the category, give priority to their own more familiar, because familiar, basically will know the project needs a variety of resources and key issues, many problems will be considered in advance, so that the store is relatively smoother.

In fact, many businesses seem simple, others do, there is money to make; but you do, may not be simple, do not make money. So don't follow the trend and concentrate on what you're good at.

Site selection must have data thinking, dual-channel multi-factor consideration

Under the epidemic, takeaway has become more and more popular, and some stores can account for more than half of the total revenue of stores online, and some almost regard takeaway as the only hope for survival. At this time, when doing catering, you can't simply judge the quality of a position based on squatting points and counting heads.

No matter what category, you should choose the best solution in the online and offline dual channel consideration. It is necessary to consider not only the rental cost, offline exposure and people flow, but also consider how much traffic can be covered by takeaway, and the different characteristics and demand pain points of consumer groups such as communities, office buildings, and business circles.

Offline site selection itself is a technical job, and coupled with online invisible potential customers, this matter becomes more complicated and more difficult. Fortunately, today's digital site selection tools have been very mature and perfect, and catering novices can obtain data in different dimensions with the help of them, such as customer portraits, heat maps, consumption preferences, transportation, moving lines, competitors, etc., thus greatly improving the efficiency and accuracy of site selection.

The most typical case of using data thinking to select a site is Luckin, after experiencing financial fraud and delisting storms, Luckin has made a strategic adjustment, quickly run through the new model, and achieved a perfect counterattack. One of the most important changes that cannot be ignored is that from the "pit-occupying" crazy store opening to accurate site selection, the scale of stores has undergone a butterfly change.

In a very short period of time, Luckin cut a large number of stores with poor operating data and rearranged them across the country. Behind this, a concept that has been repeatedly mentioned is "intelligent site selection": using Luckin's big data and AI system, the location, customer flow, and development space of the store are evaluated, and it is determined whether to open a store in this area, what kind of store to open, and so on.

After this wave of operations, Luckin not only has a far-leading store layout among local coffee brands, but also increases the "point effectiveness" layer of BUFF (strong skill).

Image source @ Luckin Coffee public number

Of course, data-based precise location selection is not the privilege of big brands, even if you open a small spicy hot shop, you can greatly benefit.

Different from the traditional spicy hot offline strongman mobile line site selection, "Little Brute Pepper" through the "online + offline" dual channel site selection evaluation system, with resident population, business circle heat and brand and other multi-dimensional data analysis, to build an accurate site selection model algorithm, the formation of each city store point and number of grid planning.

It is precisely because of the scientific rigor of the site selection system that the new store type of "Little Brute Pepper" 60 square meters can achieve more than 10 overturns, match the advantages of online operation, and achieve a return cycle within 12 months. With a refined digital operation method, Xiao Bruce pepper quickly came out of the circle and obtained multiple rounds of financing.

Operation management, focusing on cost reduction and efficiency improvement can not be delayed

With the growth of the "three highs" of catering year by year, the profits of catering are getting lower and lower, especially under the risk of unstable revenue from the epidemic, it is urgent to greatly reduce operating costs and improve operational efficiency.

And the most effective universal solution is digitalization. Today, digital tools, like urban infrastructure such as roads, have become extremely ubiquitous in the restaurant industry. For restaurant entrepreneurs, using or not using it is a mandatory problem rather than a multiple choice question, and not actively embracing the general trend of digitalization means that it will be crushed by most competitors at the starting line.

It is worth mentioning that the digital solution is a common way to reduce costs and increase efficiency in the catering industry, but the digitalization of catering is not just the last takeaway, using mobile phones to order food.

Digitalization in the true sense of the word, both business and management. In terms of business, consumers should enjoy a more convenient consumer experience in the whole process from booking, ordering, checkout, evaluation, membership, etc.

In terms of management, through the digital solution, the catering store operation can drive business development from the aspects of ingredient procurement, dish update, ordering cashier, customer management, etc., so as to achieve cost reduction and efficiency. For example, small shops take mobile phone ordering, self-checkout at least can save a labor.

Analyzing takeaway data through digital tools is an important basis for adjusting the structure of dishes and designing explosive products. For example, how many users enter the store every day, how many times the store is exposed, whether the way to enter the store is the home page guidance or brand search, how many people have quit after the order is not settled, how the repurchase rate is, and what are the popular items, these data can all be analyzed.

Japan's takeaway king Yuziya, through tracking and investigating the big data of ordering customers, accurately predicts how many box lunches should be produced every day, controls the takeaway abandonment rate to 0.1%, sells only one single product per day, and the annual revenue reaches 600 million yuan.

The founder of this company, Yuichiro Sugawara, is a master in controlling costs and efficiency, he believes: "We need to compete by taste, so we will not be stingy in ingredients, and aspects other than ingredients must reduce costs, so choose the 'single dish' model, reduce procurement costs with scale, but the scale effect also needs to reduce waste rates, so it needs data support to make more accurate predictions."

Private domain operation is the basic guarantee for survival

Another manifestation of digital operations is private domain operations. At present, we see that big names such as Haidilao and Xicha have taken the private domain as their basic plate.

In the first half of 2021 alone, Haidilao's membership consumption accounted for more than 80% of the total turnover; Dalongyi could contribute 7-8 million takeaway revenue to it in a month by relying on 2 million fans; Heytea bound 35 million members through the mini program "Heytea GO", bringing a high repurchase rate of 300%...

Private domain traffic has become a "super reservoir" for catering brands to fight the epidemic, and compared with catering novices, in the early stage of operation, it is necessary to have the awareness of accumulating members, establish a WeChat public account or community, precipitate users, and usually do some targeted interactive marketing in the group to increase repurchase.

To do community stores, we should pay special attention to community maintenance. The reporter learned that a start-up restaurant, the order income generated through the community, is basically the same as the income of guests who come to the store.

Supply chain, to save time and effort as much as possible, "light" is the key

Anyone who has done catering knows that kung fu is not only in the kitchen, but also in the wet market. Just the link of buying vegetables is a big head, and many restaurant owners are comparing prices from house to house, and it has been exploring for many years before there is a stable channel. For new food and beverage buffs, the purchased water is too deep.

If you also use the traditional early morning market to buy vegetables, it is not only time-consuming and laborious, the cost of ingredients is difficult to control, and the quality of dishes is unstable.

The reporter of Red Food Network observed that with the advancement of catering digitalization, the current entrepreneurs are increasingly beginning to adopt convenient online procurement.

Xiao Zhu's fried chicken shop

Xiao Zhu, a post-95 college student, is an example. According to the Qianjiang Evening News, Zhu Ming, after 95, opened a home in Nanjing, Yimeng Mountain fried chicken. Because of the flexibility of the brain melon, the business of the small shop is booming, and there can be nearly two hundred takeaway orders a day. Now he has opened 7 stores in Nanjing, Hangzhou, Wuhan and other places, and the money he earns is several times that of work.

Asked what the business secret is, he smiled and said, "Lazy to take shortcuts", in fact, pay attention to operational efficiency. He said that to make fried chicken, you have to have a pot gas, you need to be fried by the master, but the store can only withstand a maximum of 3 people, if you do not maximize the human effect of everyone, it is difficult to make money.

Therefore, from this point of view, the things in the store, he can use the mobile phone to solve the problem. For example, procurement, he has always been accustomed to using the Meituan fast donkey, "a few minutes can get all the ingredients, from the main material of the whole chicken, to green and red pepper and other side dishes, to the large pepper and other seasonings, all available, the price is more transparent and fair, the key is to also deliver to the door."

Xiao Zhu said that the store is busy, and the Internet to buy vegetables has saved himself a lot of time and labor costs, which is also one of the secrets of his small shop to make money and quickly copy.

Xiang cuisine restaurant Xiao Xiang Pavilion

Beijing's Xiang restaurant Xiao Xiang Ge is also a beneficiary of online sourcing. Featuring spicy and positioned as "small and beautiful", the restaurant opened its first store in Sanlitun in 2012, followed by a fire one, and now has 10 stores in Beijing. After the epidemic, Xiaoxiangge's turnover even rose by 20%, and it began to consider cross-regional travel to Xi'an and other places.

Rong Xihua, a partner at Xiaoxiangge, said: "From a store to a chain of restaurants, the biggest obstacle that needs to be crossed is "standardization". The key starting point of standardization is the standardization of core products, and the ingredients are the key.

In order to support larger-scale standardization, especially when it comes to cross-regional management, the difficulty has gone up another level, so they choose to cooperate with fast donkey purchases.

Rong Xihua believes: "A stable supply chain can not only support cross-regional demand, but also be very strict in quality testing, which can help merchants control the quality of raw materials in the front end." There is a professional quality control team daily quality inspection and monitoring, and all foods have strictly reviewed commodity qualifications, such as production licenses, inspection and quarantine certificates, etc. ”

With the quality assurance of the ingredients, the classic taste has been retained, and the cross-regional development of the brand can go more smoothly.

brief summary

Under the epidemic situation, whether it is an experienced senior boss or a novice Xiaobai, they are facing the risk of nine deaths. Therefore, we must be fully prepared, in addition to choosing a stable track, we must be good at using a variety of digital tools, "careful calculation" to use every penny on the blade, to minimize the cost, the highest efficiency, it is possible to make money.