Have you ever heard of fools?
The Spring Festival is coming, and there must be melon seeds among the must-have New Year goods for every household. It's just that now everyone chooses more brands are Qiaqia, Three Squirrels, etc., especially for young people, they may never know the existence of fools.
▶ Source: Golden Fool flagship store
However, just recently, the death of the founder of the fool melon seeds, who made his fortune by selling melon seeds and is known as "China's number one trader", has put the brand back in the forefront.
01
Rely on selling melon seeds to earn 200 million a year
In the list of outstanding private entrepreneurs in the 40 years of reform and opening up released in 2018, in addition to the well-known Jack Ma, Liu Chuanzhi and others, Nian Guangjiu, known as "China's No. 1 trader", is also prominently listed.
When he was a child, Nian Guangjiu, whose family was poor, started a business of stir-frying melon seeds and selling melon seeds after many years of crawling. Because of the cheap price, I like to give more gifts to customers, and many people say that Nian Guangjiu is a bit "stupid" and will not do business. But he didn't think so, and even named the melon seeds he sold "foolish melon seeds" later.
In 1979, Nian Guangjiu registered the trademark "fool melon seed", and the company was formally established.
▶ Source: Sina Weibo
Relying on the different sales methods from most people, foolish melon seeds have gained a lot of fame in Wuhu. In the following years, Guangjiu began to expand the market and introduced its products to Beijing, Shanghai and other cities.
In 1985, Fool Melon Seed let the whole country know the brand through a prize sales activity. As long as you buy more than two pounds of melon seeds, you can participate in the lottery, and the first prize is a Shanghai brand car that drove a face at that time. With the out-of-the-loop marketing campaign, Fool Guazi also set a sales record at the time.
Relying on selling melon seeds, Nian Guangjiu quickly earned the first pot of gold in his life, and he was in the limelight for a while.
In the era when there were few tens of thousands of households, he became the first millionaire in New China.
▶ Source: Sina Weibo
According to the data disclosed by Wuhu in 2008, the fixed assets of Fool Guazi at that time were 330 million, the number of employees exceeded 1,100, and the total revenue was as high as 250 million.
Not only that, during the period when fools swept the country, it also laid a resounding name "Huipai Fried Goods". The three squirrels that are now widely known to consumers are actually brands from Wuhu, Anhui.
However, the development of fools is not all smooth sailing.
First, in the era of "capital" color change, it was reported for employing more than 100 workers, which caused the sales of melon seeds to plummet.
After several jail days, because Nian Guangjiu sold the trademark of the fool melon to his eldest son, it caused many years of internal family conflicts.
Especially since entering the new century, fools have gradually faded out of consumers' vision.
02
Fool, what is the current situation?
It must be admitted that even now, there are probably not a few people who have never eaten fools.
After all, in the era of fools' melon seeds, sales channels were still relatively scarce; Coupled with the family-run business behind it, the output cannot keep up with the demand.
In addition, according to the data of Tianyan Inspection, the current legal person of Fool Guazi is Nian Qiang, the second son of Nian Guangjiu, and the company's registered trademarks include Golden Fool, Fool, Nian Guangjiu and so on.
▶ Source: Tianyan Check
Although there are currently more than 3,700 stores in China and abroad, the reality is that most consumers seem to rarely see them around.
More importantly, with the advent of the Internet era, consumers have undergone tremendous changes in the way they buy, but fools have not changed in time, but still adhere to the previous store operation.
In the previous dealer model, there was no problem with the traditional practice of fools. It's just that when the times abandon you, you won't even say hello.
For example, the founder of Three Squirrels, who also originated in Wuhu, Anhui Province, Zhang Liaoyuan, once worked in fool melon seeds. In 2012, Zhang Liaoyuan established Three Squirrels, which focused on online at the beginning, which also made Three Squirrels the most well-known nut snack brand online.
▶ Source: Three Squirrels official website
In order to keep up with the times, Nian Qiang, the actual controller of Fool Guazi, founded the Golden Fool flagship store two years after the establishment of Three Squirrels and entered the Tmall platform, and its homepage also wrote "Focus on melon seeds for 50 years".
It's just that the cruel reality proves that the era of fools is now gone.
Compared with the three squirrels, up to now, the number of fans of the Golden Fool flagship store that entered Tmall in 2014 is only more than 7,700, and the fans of the three squirrels are more than 40 million.
Not only that, but the gap between fools and three squirrels in sales is also very different. Many of the golden fool's products in the flagship store sell less than 100 pieces a month, which is completely insignificant compared to the tens of thousands of transactions of three squirrels.
▶ Source: Tmall
The reason is that, on the one hand, the long-term family infighting affected its own development, but more importantly, in the face of the arrival of the new wave, the fool failed to transform in time, and was finally defeated by the rising stars of the three squirrels.
03
The casual snack business is not easy to do
In fact, in addition to opening a store online to try to save themselves, fools also pin their hopes on more categories, such as peanuts, pecans and so on.
After all, countless cases have proved that relying on a single blockbuster item, it is actually difficult for business to continue for a long time. Even Coca-Cola is constantly trying new products and trying to establish more touchpoints with consumers.
It's just that it's too late for fools.
Moreover, just looking at the entire casual snack track, business has become more and more difficult to do.
First of all, the head enterprise of the melon seed industry, Qiaqia Food, its melon seed products have accounted for nearly half of the entire industry share, and the penetration rate of some mature markets is as high as 70%.
Three squirrels are riding the east wind of the Internet to attack the main line and have become the preferred brand for young people to buy nut foods. At the same time, with the help of online traffic, from 2019, Three Squirrels began to vigorously develop offline stores. Even under the influence of the epidemic in 2020, Three Squirrels further expanded its stores to 657.
▶ Source: Three Squirrels Official Weibo
In addition, brands such as Baicao Wei, Shiojin Shop, and Liangpin Shop also want to get a piece of the casual snack track.
The increasingly fierce competition for casual snacks has eventually caused those brands that were once blindfolded to start eating back.
The most typical case still has to mention three squirrels that originated in the same area as the fool.
According to past financial reports, the revenue growth rate of the three squirrels has declined successively in 2020-2021, and the news of closing stores has also appeared frequently.
Similarly, for the good shops that have been successfully listed in early 2020, the stock price has also fallen one after another after a short highlight moment.
▶ Source: Good Shop official Weibo
Nowadays, new brands are constantly being born in the entire snack market, and with the help of early Internet celebrity marketing, it is indeed possible to achieve a faster speed out of the circle, but there are very few brands that can really survive in this industry.
At the moment when the industry is constantly involving, who cares about the fools who belong to the memory of the times?