Recently, a plate of "stormy potatoes" in Banu hairy belly hot pot has caused heated discussions on the Internet, some people are sensitive to price, and some people think that pricing has its rationality.
According to the reporter's on-site visit, the current passenger flow of Banu Mao Belly Hot Pot customers has not been affected by the storm of public opinion, and the queue situation on the scene is still hot.
The value of potatoes, measured by "the customer's foot"?
How to define the value of a potato seems to have become the most scratching thing for Banu recently.
On February 21, the topic of "hot pot restaurant 18 yuan a potato only 5 thin slices" appeared on the hot search, a Xi'an customer in the shopping mall Banu hot pot shop when consuming, found that the potatoes provided by Banu hot pot are not only small in amount but also expensive, arousing public attention. Later, on the Weibo topic, #Banu Hotpot apologize# and #Banu Hotpot founder responded to the sky-high price potato#, the two topics reached 120 million and 130 million read followers respectively.
The surging public opinion was ignited, and looking at the messages in the major comment areas, the remarks such as "expensive price" and "unaffordable" all seemed to point the spearhead at Banu's proud way of operation - productism.
As a strategy engraved in Banu's genes, productism has always been the label of Du Zhongbing, the founder of Banu, and with the idea of productism, Banu has made "hairy belly", a single product in Chongqing hot pot, into a well-known hit.
For the market and consumers, the original version of productism is more like a "clear stream" for catering standards. Through higher product standards, open people's awareness of the brand. Huashang Daily reporter came to the 7th floor of Xiaozhai SEG International Mall, the most popular restaurant in Xi'an, it was the evening peak of the week, there were many people waiting in line at the door of Banu hairy belly hot pot, according to the reporter's observation, the recent hot topics, seems to have little impact on their store, but there are many people to check in, name to eat this "storm" potato chips.
Ms. Liu, who was waiting, told reporters: "I came for good food, their family has many dishes that are different from other people's homes, such as hydrangea coccus, rolling dough, and fresh winter bamboo shoots, these are my favorites, today I also plan to try that potato, I haven't paid attention to this dish before." ”
After the controversy, will consumers choose price or value?
A plate of potatoes can arouse the discussion of netizens, hot pot peers and even economists, behind which is the sensitivity of people to price now. This point was also mentioned in an interview with financial commentator and financial expert Wang Jianhong: "The reason why a plate of potatoes has become a hot topic is actually mainly because of the sharp contrast between the price and the amount of dishes in the video, which makes some netizens ignore the real value of the product and pay too much attention to the interest space." ”
Price, as the eternal focus of the market, consumers will of course pay attention to products with high prices, hot pot as a mass catering, itself does not have the potential of luxury goods, if but from the price of it into the top of the hot pot, the price alone is still difficult to convince, especially from the potato, a more common single product, it is difficult to tell this story well, then as a consumer there is actually no wrong interpretation. Du Zhongbing, the founder of Banu Hairy Belly Hotpot, responded to this hot event on social media twice in a row, which is also explaining the differentiation and scarcity behind the product. Wang Jianhong said: "As for how consumers accept, in-store traffic will give the answer. ”
Zhu Danpeng, vice president of the Guangdong Food Safety Promotion Association and a food industry analyst, said that in terms of the current market economy, we cannot use our previous cognition to evaluate the positioning and pricing of a businessman's products. This logic is also true for the entire hot pot market, if the merchant has a unique product, the customer will use his personal will to choose whether to pay for the product, and cannot be judged by a constant standard.
Text Editor|China Business Daily reporter Shen Yihe