World online merchant Wang Zhuolin
Edited by Li Danchao
In the early winter when the temperature plummets, make a cup of cinnamon red jujube health tea and take a sip... In the past two days, the herbal tea that Xiao Yue bought on Double 11 has arrived, and he made a cup before going to work to start a new day of busy work.
On the other side, Han Feixiang, a merchant who had just finished Double 11, was finally able to take a break, brew the newly developed white peach oolong tea, check the "face" and look at the color, and calculate the idea of product improvement.
Han Feixiang is 26 years old and majored in visual communication. Four years ago, he was working in an Internet company in Shanghai as a "not too rolly" design job. But before turning positive, he suddenly returned to his hometown of Bozhou, Anhui Province, to start an e-commerce business. According to his words, "This age is suitable for hard work, and a busy and fulfilling life is more suitable for yourself." ”
Bozhou, known as the "capital of Chinese medicine", has been a distribution center of Chinese medicinal materials since ancient times, and later developed a mature herbal tea industry belt. According to the Bozhou Evening News, at present, the Bozhou herbal tea processing trade occupies 80% of the national market share.
Han Feixiang plunged headlong into this track. Gradually, he grew from a small seller to a waist seller, sending tens of thousands of orders every day. He has opened a total of 15 stores on Taobao Tmall, Taote, 1688 and other platforms, with a total of more than 500 products on the shelves, of which the cheapest one earns only 5 cents in a small package; His clients range from grandpas and aunts in the sinking market to white-collar workers in first-tier cities. On Double 11 this year, the full-cycle sales of these stores increased by 20% year-on-year.
It is worth mentioning that Bozhou has also established an e-commerce business incubation base, and Han Feixiang teaches e-commerce operation experience for free, so that more returnees and graduates from part-time work can embark on the road of e-commerce.
Next, he also plans to take his business abroad so that foreigners can also fall in love with Chinese herbal tea.
Returning to his hometown to start a business, the post-95 guys seize new business opportunities
When he decided to return to his hometown to start a business in 2018, Han Feixiang also had no bottom in his heart, because his knowledge of e-commerce at that time was almost zero. Although he interned at an Internet company, he was mainly engaged in product packaging design. Before the internship period was about to turn positive, Han Feixiang's heart was shaken.
"In the dead of night, I will reflect, is this kind of life really suitable for me?" This job is 9 to 5, but the monthly salary is less than 10,000, cut off the daily expenses of water and electricity rent, basically can not save money, his thoughts will drift back to his hometown, "When I was a child, the ground was full of Chinese medicinal materials, and the treatment of a small pain and illness was made locally. How to develop these hometown specialties? "At that time, it happened that some relatives started an e-commerce business of herbal tea, but the sales did not improve, and they couldn't touch the doorway.
After comprehensive consideration, Han Feixiang returned to Bozhou, he decided to do business with his family, and secretly set a goal: to earn twenty or thirty thousand a month.
Han Feixiang did not return completely unprepared.
While working in Shanghai, he saw business opportunities. He found that many young people around him would use flower tea to concise health, and there were always red bean barley tea, winter melon lotus leaf tea and so on on the desk. Therefore, after engaging in e-commerce, he pays special attention to data performance and mining information from data. For example, on the business counselor platform, he observed that the search volume of "health" keywords is increasing year by year, "increasing by 1.5-2 times every year".
In the past two years, Generation Z groups have become popular with practices such as "punk health", "goji berries in beer cups" and "bungee knee pads", which are manifestations of young people's concern for health problems. In his view, there is consumer demand hidden in it.
If these insights and thoughts are an additional gain from his work in an Internet company, then store decoration and packaging design use his "housekeeping skills".
"World Netizen" found that his store product introduction pages are mainly simple, the style of the first picture of the product is often based on white, with a white porcelain cup to brew a cup of herbal tea, and the color of the tea soup brewed by different recipes constitutes the most eye-catching main color of the picture. "In this way, there is a grade, and consumers will have expectations for product quality." Han Feixiang said.
These observations and preparation details from 0-1 have become effective equipment on the road of e-commerce for post-95 guys.
"Translating crisis awareness into action"
"Always maintain a sense of crisis." This is Han Feixiang's seven-character motto summed up by engaging in e-commerce over the years.
At the beginning, the store had some conventional health "explosive products" on the market, such as freshly ground red bean barley flour. "Then I found out that I was thinking wrong." This led to more than half a month in a row, with only one or two orders a day, and only 10 orders on the best day.
Han Feixiang realized that his products were not competitive enough. "Big brands are very mature to do this product, there are too many advantages, such as quality grasp, cost control, etc., we can't do this level, the cost of freshly ground is too high, our pricing can't cover, no sales are normal."
Since then, he has tried to carve out a new way of playing for himself.
First of all, take the route of differentiated product selection. For example, if someone else sells guiyuan red jujube tea, there are only two or three products, he will adjust the product ratio, add roses, ginseng and other tonics, in an attempt to give consumers a more value-added consumer experience under the premise that the price does not increase much.
He introduced that for some more nutritious products, adding ginseng, ejiao and other Chinese medicinal materials, he will refer to the advice of local Chinese medicine practitioners, adjust the dosage ratio, or add red jujube brown sugar and other flavors to enhance the taste and drink less bitter. "These products drive sales, with nearly 500 orders per day."
Secondly, the selection of products closely follows the market demand. Han Feixiang will gain insight into trends from some search hot words and find that consumers have potential demand for herbal teas in portable small packaging form and cold-brewed brewing method. "At one stage, the search volume of 'stay up late on fire' was relatively large, and we formulated chrysanthemum cassia tea, which became a big hit in the industry."
In the Spring Festival of 2020, affected by the new crown pneumonia epidemic, consumers' demand for "clearing heat and removing fire" increased sharply. The sales volume of chrysanthemum cassia tea in Han Feixiang's store sold 100 orders on the first day and more than 1,000 orders on the second day, and the number of orders increased exponentially. Han Feixiang was surprised and delighted, and urgently expanded production capacity and logistics channels. "Two or three years have passed, and this product has sold nearly 500,000 orders."
On Double 11 this year, the sales of e-commerce reached nearly 1 million, a year-on-year increase of 20%. "The results were expected, but unexpectedly, the best selling was the new probiotic chewable tablets." Han Feixiang said that tablet-type candy is also a differentiated form, imitating the form of milk tablets, and making tablets from probiotics that originally need to be brewed and taken for easy consumption. At present, there are nearly 3,000 probiotic products per day on all platforms, with a daily sales of nearly 80,000.
"Explosive orders come and go fast, six or seven times a year. But as long as the ability to hit the explosive model is always there, if one does not work, change the other, and the key is to turn the sense of crisis into action. ”
Moreover, the multi-platform layout firmly grasps the supply chain. Over the years, Han Feixiang has successively opened 15 stores on major e-commerce platforms, and they have launched nearly 500 new products for consumer demand at all levels of different platforms. In order to meet the regular production capacity of 10,000 orders per day, he expanded the supply chain, moved into a new factory, and opened 6 production lines to stock together.
Self-recommended teaching, free e-commerce experience
Herbal tea customers have low unit prices and lower profits. Han Feixiang introduced that the average profit margin of his online store is only 10%, and the cheapest red bean barley tea in the product, a 30-pack, priced at 9 pieces of 9, which is equivalent to a small package only earns 5 cents, "It is not easy to do a good job in e-commerce."
At the time when an incubation base was established in Bozhou to encourage returnees and college students to start e-commerce businesses, Han Feixiang volunteered for teaching and trained e-commerce practitioners for free. At present, it has cultivated more than 80 businesses with annual sales of more than 2 million, and driven more than 300 people to work in townships. One of them is Wang Yunlong, 27, who is also Han's high school classmate.
"The day after I got his call, I quit my job and came back." In 2020, Wang Yunlong stayed in Hefei after graduation, doing short video related work, with a monthly salary of more than 6,000 yuan, "I have long heard that he has done well in e-commerce in his hometown, and I want to come back and learn." ”
At the beginning, it was also zero-based e-commerce, the funds were not sufficient, under the suggestion of Han Feixiang, Wang Yunlong first helped to do the dropshipping business, and then settled after the payment came back, which reduced a lot of pressure. "The most difficult part is how to make a blockbuster, from shooting and drawing, to using traffic to push products, every detail is learned now."
This year, the kudzu powder in Wang Yunlong's store has become a hit, with a monthly sales of more than 1 million yuan. Due to his previous experience in short video operations, he now makes more than 20 videos a day for promotion, and this year's sales are expected to exceed 3 million.
In Bozhou, herbal tea has a long history of development. Herbal tea, also known as flower and fruit tea, the main material is medicinal and food homologous Chinese medicinal materials. In recent years, with the help of e-commerce platforms, local small and medium-sized businesses have emerged, and the herbal tea industry has developed rapidly. In 2016, Anhui Province also issued relevant local food safety standards to regulate the orderly growth of the industry.
According to incomplete statistics, there are currently more than 4,000 registered herbal tea production and operation enterprises in Bozhou City. The annual delivery business volume of Bozhou herbal tea increased from 35 million pieces in 2018 to 135 million pieces in 2021, with an average annual growth rate of more than 55%. Last year, Bozhou herbal tea was also listed in the "Express Service Modern Agriculture Gold Medal Project" by the State Post Bureau, and became the top three "net celebrities" with Jiangsu Suqian Huamu and Guangxi Liuzhou Snail Powder.
According to a survey by the Zhiyanzhan Industry Research Institute, the ratio of women to men in the consumer group of herbal tea is 2:1, and female consumers prefer to drink flower tea. In 2020, the size of China's flower tea market has exceeded 12.8 billion yuan.
After many years of entrepreneurship, Han Feixiang has already completed the small goals set when he returned to his hometown to start a business, and has also adapted to the working state of "greeting explosive orders", from receiving orders to shipping, the process is on track. When he is not busy, he will leave work early and take some of the store's four god soup, which is made of poria, yam, lotus seeds and chia seeds, and "go back to make soup for his daughter to drink and nourish her spleen and stomach." ”