#头号周刊 #
In 1996, Zhang Hongchao, who set up a stall at the entrance of the university to sell shaved ice, should not have imagined that 25 years later, he would become the golden sign of the milk tea industry, with 20,000 franchise stores, so that high-end milk tea shops such as Hey Tea and Nai Xue's Tea were headaches.
Poor college students created the kingdom of milk tea
It started with the 3,000 yuan of entrepreneurial funds borrowed by grandma. Zhang Hongchao is an authentic Henan guy, and, in 1996, he was still a thoroughly poor guy. He was admitted to the Henan University of Economics and Law adult education public relations secretarial major, in order to subsidize living expenses, he set up a stall in front of the school to sell shaved ice.
In this paragraph, many media have written that Zhang Hongchao's small shop has a good business at a good price, and later developed smoothly all the way to selling ice cream and milk tea. However, the report of 36Kr shows that there are actually many twists and turns. Obviously, the adult self-examination diploma did not bring Zhang Hongchao a good job, and he later sold apples and ran to Hefei to sell rock sugar gourds.
Basically, I didn't make much money, tossed around, and decided to continue the shaved ice business with funds. So Grandma used her life savings of 3,000 yuan as a start-up fund to support Zhang Hongchao to rent a storefront. In order to save rent, the storefront is rented in the old town. However, in the process of new urban construction, Zhang Hongchao suffered 4 waves of demolition. It can be said that all the way to open the store and all the way to be demolished.
It was not until 2003, when he found an abandoned factory building with an area of 1500 square meters, that he began to make home-cooked dishes in addition to operating cold drinks, and it stabilized. However, this also put him on the debt of 200,000 yuan.
It is probably this sense of tenacity that makes fate smile at Zhang Hongchao. In 2006, a number of "rainbow hat" ice cream shops appeared on the streets of Zhengzhou. At that time, a "rainbow hat" ice cream could be sold for 10 yuan, and Zhang Hongchao was bright:this was more profitable than the shaved ice business. He began to study this ice cream: what are the ingredients, what is the proportion of various ingredients, how much profit margin is there...
After researching thoroughly, he began to do ice cream business, and the Super Ice Castle of Michelle Ice City launched fresh ice cream for the first time, counting coupons, as long as 1 yuan a piece. This ice cream was a great success. He once proudly said: "I have practiced my hands and feet skillfully and warmly. Until now, my level of ice cream has not regressed, and at most I can hit 8 ice creams at the same time with one hand. ”
Low prices to seize the market, the country opened tens of thousands of stores
From the success of the "Rainbow Hat" ice cream, it can be seen that the successful path of Michelle Ice City is to seize the market by low prices. Unlike the milk tea shops in first- and second-tier cities where the targets of Xicha and Naixue's tea are set at the beginning, the target users of Michelle Ice City are young consumer groups represented by college students, as well as young people in third- and fourth-tier cities, and the domestic sinking market population is the largest base.
The pricing of Michelle Ice City is extremely low, looking at his menu, the product price is basically below 10 yuan, 6 yuan a cup of lemonade, 2 yuan a ice cream, do not need to be very entangled, the pocket money in the student's pocket, you can also buy a cup of milk tea for a long time. According to media reports, the average unit price of Michelle Ice City is only 6 yuan. But the most surprising thing is that the price has hardly increased for more than a decade. Some college students joked that watching the listing of Michelle Ice City was like the children they raised with pocket money finally came out.
So, the question is, why is Honey Snow Ice City sold so cheap, where does the profit margin come from?
One answer is obvious, control over raw materials and supply chains. Although the price of the product is low, Michelle Ice City has its own factory and a complete supply chain, which can enable products to achieve seamless docking from raw material procurement to research and development, processing and production to store sales. Since 2012, Zhang Hongchao has decided to establish his own independent research and development center and central factory, and strive to achieve self-production and self-sale of core raw materials. At present, Michelle Ice City has more than 50,000 square meters of fully automated production workshop, more than 20,000 square meters of service logistics distribution center.
In addition, there is another source of profit that many people do not pay attention to, that is, the franchise fee. Unlike milk tea shops such as Hey Tea and NaiXue's Tea, which are mainly directly operated, Michelle Ice City adopts the way of brand joining. With more than 10,000 stores, Michelle Ice City also charges raw material fees for selling to franchisees in addition to the franchise fee, which accounts for a large proportion of revenue.
This means that the profits of Michelle Ice City are accumulated by the scale of scale, through the raw material fee and the franchise fee.
Food safety problems occur frequently and have been punished many times
The franchise-based business mode makes The control of Michelle Ice City over franchisees weak. Coupled with the extreme pursuit of low-cost bookings, many stores are desperate to take risks, resulting in frequent food safety problems in Mi xue ice city. In 2021, Michelle Ice City caused a serious crisis due to food safety problems. According to a number of media reports, there are a series of health chaos in Zhengzhou Yong'an Street store, Jinan Daguanyuan store and Wuhan Mahu commercial street store under Mixue Ice City. Subsequently, the topic of "Honey Snow Ice City was exposed to tampering with the date of ingredients" was on Weibo's hot search, and the topic was read more than 300 million times.
In addition to frequent food safety problems, Michelle Ice City has even had problems in employment. In April, the media exposed that a store in Zhejiang Province of Mi Xue Bingcheng had the problem of illegal use of child labor. Zhejiang Tiantai YimiXue Bingcheng store was fined 12,500 yuan by the local comprehensive administrative law enforcement bureau for illegally using child labor. What is even more terrifying is that next, The Ice City was exposed again, and the employees died suddenly. Employees of a Mixue Bingcheng store near Zhushan Avenue in Jingdezhen, Jiangxi Province, died suddenly during work on the first day of work.
Franchisees are difficult to make money, and the road to expansion is no longer easy
The problems exposed in the control of raw materials have made it difficult for The raw material fees of Mi xue bingcheng to earn. What about the franchise fee at the other end? The answer is still hard.
On the one hand, the obvious cause of the epidemic. In the three years since the new crown has lasted, the real economy has been greatly hit, and the individual owners of families who run small shops have been hurt the most. Store rent, employee wages, each item is a mountain pressed on the individual boss, many people from the family is well-off to debt, just separated by an epidemic.
On the other hand, it is the way to join The Ice City. As we all know, Michelle Ice City has no regional location protection for franchisees. The crowded business district and the concentration of stores are almost an open secret. According to media reports, taking the pedestrian street of Nanjing Confucius Temple as an example, the distance within 200 meters of the south gate of the Confucius Temple alone is opened by 4 Mi xue ice cities, "one outside the door inside and outside the door, one on the left and one on the right side of the door", and there are as many as 18 within 2 kilometers of the surrounding area.
Stores are too concentrated, resulting in the brand's own infighting. There is even a rumor among franchisees, "It is the Honey Snow Ice City next door that kills the Honey Snow Ice City".
The choice of small town youth and college students as the main consumer group of the business mode of Michelle Ice City has undoubtedly achieved great success. However, with the growth of scale, the management shortcomings exposed in the follow-up make the pinduoduo of the milk tea industry unclear, can it continue to go?
If you lose the core competitiveness of low prices, what is left of Honey Snow Ice City?