Image source @ Visual China
Wen | Red Food Network
The story of Wahaha making milk tea tells us that the cake of the new tea drinking market of 100 billion yuan is not so active.
On March 10, the original Guangzhou Wahaha Health Drink Co., Ltd. was officially renamed Guangzhou Tea Beauty Beverage Co., Ltd. This name change means that Wahaha Group has withdrawn its shares from the milk tea operating company.
It is worth noting that before Wahaha withdrew its shares, the main body of the "Wahaha Milk Tea" WeChat public account has been replaced by "Zhejiang Wahaha Health Management Co., Ltd.", which is 100% owned by Wahaha Commercial Co., Ltd.
This series of moves can't help but arouse people's imagination: after the removal of the authorized business model, will Wahaha Milk Tea be revitalized under Wahaha's own hands?
From a realistic point of view, the market leaves wahaha with extremely limited room for imagination. At present, the development of the tea market is encountering a ceiling, Naixue, Xicha and other head brands have sought new consumer groups through price reductions; for Wahaha Milk Tea, the earlier franchise store storm has greatly damaged its image, and now it coincides with the upgrading of the tea market competition, and it is not so easy to "turn over".
01, Wahaha's "oolong" milk tea
Full of calculations, Wahaha has been tossing and turning on the road of tea drinking for nearly three years.
According to Wahaha's official website, Wahaha Milk Tea Shop began to prepare in May 2019, prepared in November, and began to attract investment nationwide in December. In just one year, in July 2020, Wahaha Milk Tea opened its first direct-operated store in Guangzhou's Wushan Business District.
Looking back on the opening day, 75-year-old Zong Qinghou flew from Hangzhou to Guangzhou and personally stood for the store.
Today, the official website of Wahaha Milk Tea also clearly records the scene of the opening day: "At the opening site, Chairman Zong Qinghou expressed great confidence and support for the tea industry and gave high praise to the company. "Zong Qinghou said that after the first store in Guangzhou, other directly operated stores across the country will also open one after another."
Image source @ Wahaha Milk Tea official WeChat public account
Under the reputation of the resounding brand of "Wahaha", Wahaha Milk Tea soon attracted a group of entrepreneurs to join.
Franchisee Xiaoxia said in an interview with Red Food Network that he chose to join the brand effect of Wahaha. "Many franchisees, like me, like Wahaha, are a big brand, and Tianyancha has also confirmed that Hangzhou Wahaha has shares before it is willing to join." When signing the contract, they also said that the Hawahua Group would be responsible for the follow-up operation and other links. ”
However, after signing the contract to open a store, Xiaoxia and some franchisees found that the Wahaha Milk Tea Shop was not directly managed by wahaha group, but authorized to Guangzhou Wahaha Health Drink Co., Ltd.
According to Zong Qinghou, the positioning of Wahaha milk tea is "healthy, additive-free, nutritious, zero fat", which is almost the same as wahaha's tone, and this remark invisibly confuses the public and franchisees, and everyone believes that the two brands of "Wahaha milk tea" and "Wahaha" are directly related.
It was only later that Wahaha clarified that the milk tea project was indeed not a direct project of Wahaha, but a project authorized to be operated by a partner.
Image source @ Wahaha Official Blog
The "oolong" thing doesn't stop there. Like most brands, Wahaha milk tea franchisees need to buy materials from the brand side, and the high purchase price is another point where they are complained about.
According to the data of the narrow door, there are currently more than 300 stores of Wahaha Milk Tea, of which 53 are suspended.
A few days ago, the Red Food Network visited and found that the first Wahaha direct-operated store in Guangzhou's Wushan Business Circle has been suspended. A Wahaha milk tea shop located in Guangzhou's Kecun business district does not have much traffic, which is in stark contrast to the nearby Xicha and a little bit.
More than a year after opening, 375 stores of Wahaha milk tea have been opened, and now nearly three years have passed, the number of stores has not risen but declined, and it is getting farther and farther away from the "ten thousand stores" goal of the original declaration.
02, AD calcium milk is not fragrant era, who will care about AD calcium milk tea?
From the controversial licensing business model, it can be seen that one of the main reasons for Wahaha's tepid milk tea is its own business strategy.
Speaking of the current situation of Wahaha milk tea, Zhai Bin, columnist of the Red Meal Network, said that the main problem of Wahaha milk tea is obvious: the core competitiveness of the brand is insufficient, and there is no advantage in price, "There is no change from the idea of fast sales to the idea of doing catering, and it is far from enough to play the 'love card'."
The ideal of Wahaha milk tea is very plump, according to their official website, Wahaha milk tea is the combination of childhood nutrition products and current feelings, novel trend elements, the creation of the national tide tea brand, with "childhood memories" as the product highlights, to AD calcium milk, nutrition express, eight treasure porridge as inspiration to create elements, the main feature of the AD calcium milk explosive series, mainly for 16-35 years old consumer groups.
Wahaha Milk Tea Guangzhou Kecun Store
The practice of selling sentiments has also hindered the innovation of Wahaha products to some extent. With the continuous passage of time, the post-00s have become the main force of tea consumption, for them, the drinks they drank when they were children are no longer Wahaha, plus the current sales distribution of Wahaha products is mainly in third- and fourth-tier cities, and the sales volume in first- and second-tier cities is not much, and the coverage is not large.
Therefore, for most of the post-00s, AD calcium milk is not a "childhood memory", not to mention AD calcium milk tea, and wahaha milk tea's main AD Mangmanbo Bo Ice, AD Grape Bobo Ice, etc. have not ushered in too much product update in the subsequent development, and "feelings" have become the witness of their product aging.
The failure of the "feeling" tactic also indirectly exposes that the core competitiveness of the wahaha milk tea brand is the biggest shortcoming.
Among the 20 products released by Wahaha Milk Tea Shop, the price is mostly between 10-24 yuan, and the per capita customer unit price is about 18 yuan, which is exactly in the middle range of the largest and fierce competition in the tea market.
Wahaha milk tea menu
Shenwan Hongyuan pointed out in the "2021 Tea Industry In-depth Report" that the number of tea industry and brand competition have shown a clear spindle shape, and the mid-end competition is fierce.
As a newcomer, Wahaha Milk Tea should directly target the tea brands that have become well known such as a little bit and tea Baidao, but in this group of strong competitors, Wahaha Milk Tea's products do not have obvious advantages.
Taking the main AD Mangmanbo Ice as an example, Wahaha Milk Tea has been committed to promoting the creation of milk tea products based on AD calcium milk, but AD calcium milk has no higher nutritional value than ordinary milk tea, and there is no obvious superiority.
Zhai Bin said: "At present, the category segmentation of the tea drinking track has been very clear, there are lemon tea, there are fresh fruit tea, and there are already representative brands under each subdivision of the category, but Wahaha's main focus has always been AD calcium milk, and does not belong to any of the current subdivision categories, relying on the blessing of feelings alone, the core competitiveness of the brand is not enough." ”
Since the beginning of this year, the price reduction of the head brand has made the situation of Wahaha milk tea worse.
As some customers complained after drinking Wahaha milk tea, "Instead of spending several times more money, it is better to go to the supermarket to buy five bottles of the same drink to drink." Nowadays, with a few extra dollars, you can drink a cup of fresh fruit tea with more ingredients and better quality, and wahaha milk tea that lacks core competitiveness will only become more and more difficult to gain a foothold in the market.
In addition, the accusations of franchisees such as high franchise fees and celebrity endorsements are also directly related to the operation of Wahaha milk tea.
All kinds of indications seem that after the withdrawal of shares, even if Wahaha Milk Tea really returns to the direct operation mode, it is necessary to personally continue the "Ten Thousand Stores Dream", and it is necessary to first make up for these past "holes".
03, the cake that cannot be divided, tea is difficult to become the new blue ocean of "Wahaha"
From the story of Wahaha milk tea, it can also be seen that the cake of the new tea drinking market of 100 billion yuan is not so active.
Last year, when Wahaha made a fuss because of the franchisee's affairs, someone analyzed the reasons why Wahaha milk tea will break a good hand, one of which is: before the birth of Wahaha milk tea, the domestic tea market has been very hot, Wahaha entered the game too late, resulting in the brand did not seize the market dividend period.
In fact, the business giant who looks at the tea market is not only Wahaha, but also a number of old enterprises such as Xiangpiaopiao, Wang Laoji, Mengniu and so on, which prove that the timing of entry is not the key factor that determines their fate.
Wang Laoji, who entered the tea market during the dividend period of the development of the tea market, once threatened to open 3,000 stores in 2021, but as of now, the total number of stores of 1828 Wang Laoji herbal new tea is still less than 100.
When these giants are facing the ceiling of their main business, they are eager to tell their new stories in the new track of tea drinking, but they have repeatedly hit a wall. At this moment, they should have realized that the road of tea drinking is not as bright as imagined.
On March 17, Nesher's tea announced a comprehensive price reduction, its classic products significantly reduced prices by 10 yuan, and launched the "Easy" series, focusing on "super value and delicious", with prices between 9-19 yuan. This is another tea drink head brand announced a price cut after the price reduction of Xi Tea in late February.
Just when the two giants are seeking new consumer groups through price cuts, Lele Tea, which is forced to be helpless, has also joined the price reduction war.
In this regard, some people have analyzed that the penetration of head brands into the 1-word head and single-digit unit price low price range reveals the true side of the cruel competition in the tea market.
From the pricing dimension, the current pattern of the tea market may be the clearest:
Within 10 yuan, Michelle Ice City has opened more than 20,000 stores across the country, which belongs to the only existence.
In the range of 10-25 yuan, the brand competition is fierce, both more than 7,000 stores of books and burning immortal herbs, more than 5,000 stores of ancient tea, tea hundreds, three or four thousand stores of CoCo can be, a little, there are also from Changsha's internet celebrity upstart tea color.
At a price of more than 20 yuan, the two major head brands of Xicha and Naixue have nearly a thousand stores.
Image source @ Xicha Guanbo
Obviously, the tea market has been extremely "rolled up". Under the fierce competition, the growth rate of the entire market has gradually slowed down.
The "2021 New Tea Beverage Research Report" released by the China Chain Store & Franchise Association mentioned that the growth rate of new tea drinks will slow down to 10%-15% in the next 2-3 years.
"The tea market is currently facing problems such as high costs and slowing growth, and has entered the stage of 'deep stock game', and the industry urgently needs to find new growth points." Zhai Bin said.
In such a big environment, most of the outsiders such as Wahaha have not yet come out of the idea of the fast selling market, and have not formed the ideas needed to do catering, which will undoubtedly make their exploration of the tea track lag more behind, and the immature products and operations may make them face the dilemma of being eliminated.