Wen|Wang Xin
Editor|asked
In 2012, Nie Yunchen, who earned his first pot of gold by selling mobile phones, opened his first milk tea shop "Huangcha" in Jiuzhong Street, Jiangmen City, Guangdong Province, and then this milk tea shop became Heytea, which was valued at more than 60 billion yuan.
This story has been talked about by many entrepreneurs, and some tea franchisees have memorized Nie Yunchen's entrepreneurial story because "it may be used during interviews."
In November 2022, Heytea, which has adhered to the direct sales model for 10 years, announced its opening to join. Four months have passed, the first batch of franchisees have basically landed, and many franchisees are busy preparing for the location, decoration and recruitment of Heytea franchise stores.
Heytea's first store is called "Imperial Tea"
On social platforms, the topic of Heytea is no longer just about what new products have come out, or which tea drink to recommend. Open Xiaohongshu, Douyin and Weibo, and there are a lot of "how to pass the Heytea interview" and "how to do Heytea join" content on the topic pages related to Heytea.
"If you don't have 1 million liquidity ready, you basically don't think about it." A franchisee who went to Heytea headquarters for an interview told E-commerce Online that many people have prepared millions of funds. Another person said on social platforms that Heytea's capital verification needs to prepare 3 million yuan.
Behind the high franchise cost is the appeal of Heytea in the new tea market - in the report of 36Kr, Heytea announced the data of the first batch of franchised stores, the daily sales of a single store exceeded 3,500 cups, the daily sales of a single store exceeded 60,000 yuan, and the average daily sales of a single store in Luoyang, Ma'anshan, Suqian and other cities have reached 2,000 cups since the opening of business partnership stores. Heytea has also recently launched an overseas franchise policy, planning to attack overseas markets.
The data is bright, but there are mixed feelings for those who plan to join and those who are ready to join. Some franchisees said that the more high-quality areas have been selected, and if they want to join, they can only go to areas that are not popular, and they feel that Heytea "is still exploring the franchise model, and the policy will change." There are also merchants who are ready to join who have prepared funds, contact franchisees who have passed the interview to understand the situation, and hope to open a Heytea franchise store as soon as possible.
Verified the capital of 3 million yuan, and rushed to be a "beating worker" for Heytea
It's not easy to join Heytea.
A number of merchants who have participated in Heytea franchise interviews or have become Heytea franchisees told "E-commerce Online" that if they submit a franchise application online, go to Shenzhen Heytea headquarters for an interview after passing the review, the franchisee must have a college degree or above, and must also have experience in catering or tea management, as well as proof of funds that can be used from 1 million to 3 million yuan.
The threshold is not low, and there are still many people who want to join Heytea.
"I didn't expect so many people." Diandian, who went to Shenzhen Heytea headquarters for an interview in March this year, told "E-commerce Online" that he met hundreds of people on the day of his interview, "The corridor is full of people, and I have to queue up to get the number for the interview, I knew that Heytea joining was very hot, but I didn't expect it to be so hot."
While waiting, Dian Dian chatted with the interviewers around him, some people themselves are professional tea brand franchisees, and some revealed that they have prepared millions of start-up capital: According to the Heytea Partner Store Opening Instructions page, a single store cooperation requires 50,000 yuan in service fees, 40,000 yuan in initial training fees and 150,000 yuan in equipment fees, a total of 408,000 yuan.
Diandian once calculated the funds needed to open a Heytea store, in addition to the basic funds, but also need the rent of the prosperous location, a store needs to be equipped with 1 store manager and 6 employees according to the requirements of Heytea, according to the salary of 4,500 yuan to 6,000 yuan per person, and the purchase cost of the first batch of materials, "at least 700,000-800,000 yuan must be prepared."
Another franchisee said that at present, there are very few franchises through single stores, basically multi-store or regional agents, and will stipulate the time for the existence of stores, set up an assessment period, "multi-store investment is more, no economic strength or don't watch Heytea join."
Regarding Heytea's requirement to open multiple stores, franchisees have different information.
Some franchisees hear that they need to open 3 stores a year, some franchisees understand that they need to open 3 stores in a quarter, and some will open a store in two months and 6 stores a year. A northern franchisee told "E-commerce Online" that Heytea should determine the time and number of stores according to the size of the city.
However, some franchisees revealed that although the single-store model is less, there are also people who open, but the requirements will be higher, "It is said that the single-store model will require franchisees to do their own work and work in the store, to be honest, this is equivalent to spending money to work for Heytea." ”
There are many hard thresholds, but they do not affect the practitioners of the tea industry to apply for joining Heytea. According to a report by China Beverage Express, more than 10,000 applications were received within 24 hours of Heytea opening the franchise application portal.
Faster, smaller, tea to the countryside
A northern Heytea franchisee told "E-commerce Online" that Heytea has probably passed three or four batches of interviews, the first batch of franchised stores opened before the Spring Festival, and a large number of franchised stores opened in February and March, "In fact, it's a bit rushed, before Heytea recruited franchisees also had 3 months of training requirements, now it has been changed to 1 month of training." Some training was carried out together with store renovation. ”
While the store layout speed has become faster, many people have also found that Heytea franchise stores have become "small".
Heytea franchise stores are ridiculed as "Heytea goes to the countryside"
Most of Heytea's franchised stores do not exceed 100 square meters, and Heytea's partnership system also says that the current franchise store area is 40-50 square meters. Many netizens also complained on social platforms that Heytea's franchise store was "poorly decorated, and those who didn't know thought it was a copycat."
Xiao Ba, a Heytea lover in Henan, said that Heytea after joining is more like the previous Heytea GO, "Take it and leave, the store design is relatively simple, not comparable to the direct store in Zhengzhou." ”
Dashan, a practitioner in the tea industry, told "E-commerce Online" that the area of Heytea franchised stores has been reduced and the decoration has become simpler, one is to improve the ping efficiency of a single store (referring to how much turnover can be produced per square meter of store area), and the other is for franchisee investment considerations, "Small area, higher ping efficiency." If the decoration is simple, the investment will be less."
According to data from Jiuqian Consulting's middle office, since July 2021, Heytea's nationwide ping efficiency and store average revenue began to decline, taking the October 2021 data as an example, sales ping efficiency fell by 32% compared with the same period in 2020. In order to improve the efficiency of the floor, it is not surprising that the Heytea franchise store has reduced its area.
The speed of store expansion has become faster and stores have become smaller, and it is not difficult to see that Heytea wants to quickly start its own business in the sinking market: Jihai brand monitoring data shows that Heytea opened 200 stores in the 90 days from December 17, 2022 to March 17, 2023, and in the whole of 2022, Heytea added only 93 stores.
Heytea stores are increasing rapidly in 2023
The sinking market has become the direction for tea brands to seek their own new increments, taking Michelle Ice City as an example: in 2021, the terminal sales of Michelle Ice City will be about 20 billion yuan, and the net profit will be 1.91 billion yuan. Nai Xue's tea, which takes the high-end route like Heytea, had a revenue of 4.28 billion yuan and a net loss of 145 million yuan in 2021.
At the beginning of 2022, Heytea took the lead in starting a price war, and the comprehensive price adjustment began to sink. Nai Xue's tea also launched tea drinks priced at 9-21 yuan, and then invested in Lele tea.
But the business of sinking the market is not easy to do.
First of all, many tea brands have been deeply cultivated in the price band below 30 yuan for a long time. Michelle Ice City firmly occupies the price band of 4-10 yuan, and tea brands such as Guming, Chabaidao and Hushang Auntie have a price of 10-20 yuan at the beginning, forming a stable consumer mind, and only began to reduce the price in early 2022.
Secondly, Heytea, which has been directly operated for 10 years, has not been able to compare with these brands that opened up early. According to the data of narrow door dining eyes, Michelle Ice City has 23,759 stores nationwide, Guming, known as "Heytea Pingtai", has 6,824 stores, and Chabaidao, which also focuses on fruit tea, has 6,544 stores across the country, while Heytea currently has only 900 stores, mainly distributed in first- and second-tier cities.
The succulent grapes that were placed on the franchise page by Hi Tea have been replaced a lot
Most importantly, Heytea's proud cheese tea and succulent grapes can also find "flat replacements" in other tea brands, and many tea brands are creating original explosive models, and Heytea's product advantages are slowly disappearing.
The biggest advantage of Heytea may be the "brand" with a high-end aura and the quality control that has been repeatedly praised. It's just that Heytea, which gets smaller and faster, may not even be able to keep these advantages.
Xiaohongshu ridiculed the Heytea franchise store as "Heytea going to the countryside" and "falling to the altar", and the sense of high-end slowly disappeared. The rapid expansion of franchise stores has also caused many concerns about quality control and quality.
Lan Lan, who used to work at Heytea, told "E-commerce Online" that Heytea has strict employee training, there will be exams, towels have special colors to distinguish different areas, and many operations need to be washed and disinfected. The requirements for fruit raw materials are very strict, the fruit will be reported for loss and thrown away if it is not used up on the same day, the peach is only valid for two hours after it is cut, and the store also has a supervision spot check.
The training time of the employees of Heytea franchise stores is only one month at the headquarters, and after rushing to work, whether they can meet the service standards of directly operated stores has to be questioned.
Many Heytea franchise stores have appeared to question "Heytea is not good to drink / cut corners / taste light", the newly opened Meizhou Heytea franchise store has a rating of only 3.6 in the public review, netizens commented that the taste is unpalatable, drinking diarrhea and poor service. On Xiaohongshu, Heytea's official account also appeared from time to time to refute rumors, saying that "franchised stores and directly operated stores are the same standard".
However, many Heytea lovers still came up with a strategy of "how to distinguish Heytea franchised stores from directly operated stores", saying that "definitely not the franchised stores".
Swinging franchisees
Li Hai, who chose to join Heytea, told "E-commerce Online" that he had joined the book and burned fairy grass, and last year Heytea just opened to join him and applied, "Heytea is a head brand after all, before taking the direct management model, there were not many stores but the reputation was big enough."
There are not many franchisees like Li Hai, on Xiaohongshu, Douyin and other platforms, many merchants who have said that they have obtained Heytea franchisee qualifications have had experience in other catering or tea drinks, and some franchisees are also founders of other catering brands.
One franchisee profile shows that he is the founder of a restaurant brand
There are many expectations for joining Heytea, but many merchants are actually in a swing.
On the one hand, Heytea, the head brand in the tea beverage industry, is open to join, and the opportunity is rare. On the other hand, the aura of Heytea Internet celebrities and high-end brands began to weaken, and the online reviews were mixed, and many consumers' evaluation of Heytea franchise stores was not good, the investment was not low, and the return time was uncertain.
Although Heytea's official war report said that the average daily sales of franchised stores was 2,000 cups, Li Hai said that "Heytea just opened a few days before the opening of Heytea there was a 9 yuan Heytea drinking activity, and the daily data may not be so high."
On TikTok, a person named "Report! In December 2022, the blogger of "Yuzai" calculated a Heytea store in Guangzhou, with a day's takeaway sales of about 327 cups and 84 people picking up dine-in. A tea merchant told "E-commerce Online", he also squatted on the spot to calculate the sales of a Shenzhen Heytea store, which can sell more than 460 cups a day in December, "Tea drinks are more selectable, and business will be good in business districts and schools." There are more Heytea stores here in Shenzhen, and the sales of single stores also have an impact."
Blogger "Report! Yuzai" statistics of Heytea store sales
He said that if the unit price of customers is 22 yuan, according to the net profit of the tea store he opened is 15%-20%, it may take a year for the Heytea franchise store to invest 700,000 yuan to return the cost, "but tea drinks are divided into light and peak seasons, December is considered the off-season, and sales will rise a lot in summer." A report by "City Watch" revealed that Heytea's overall net profit is about 6%, and the net profit of franchisees is unknown.
Li Hai added a lot of people who also want to join Heytea, and heard a lot of information, such as Heytea only accepts multi-store franchises, and good lots have been selected, and many "super franchisees" have obtained the franchise rights of Heytea, and so on.
A Heytea related person said that Heytea has been open to join for 4 months, many areas have been decided, if the franchisee chooses to "accept the deployment" when applying, Heytea headquarters will deploy them to different areas, "Heytea has a plan for the amount of each area, and will not open stores at will".
"If the location is not good, then if you are qualified, you will not do it." Li Hai said that in the remote areas of the fourth and fifth lines, Heytea has no advantages, "maybe Michelle Ice City is more sold."
At the same time, Heytea's main fruit tea also made Li Hai hesitate, Heytea mentioned on the partner page that the gross profit is about 60%, but this is in an ideal state, "if the fruit loss is large, the gross profit will be low". For franchisees, joining focuses on brand influence, franchise treatment, and most importantly, how much money can be earned for themselves.
On social platforms, discussions about various types of tea franchises
Franchisees swing not only for regional location, but also competition from other brands.
Frequently mentioned by franchisees, there are also the franchisees of Bawang Chaji, Kudi Coffee and Jasmine Yogurt, because "these can be regarded as the hottest at the moment, there are not many stores, and the traffic will be good to open a store." A merchant said that the investment manager of Bawang Chaji once revealed that the current store "a single-day turnover of tens of thousands is not a problem."
Li Hai himself waited for the notification result of Heytea, while looking at the investment information of other brands, "Tea is not lying to earn, now it is considered to be making hard money, everyone basically joins what is hot, as long as you are the first batch of people to join, you can make money."