Image source: Zheng Tanjun in Chengdu, Sichuan Province, December 2022
Since the official announcement of "de-mao" in July last year, every step of the development of Xi wine has attracted much attention.
On December 27, Guizhou Xi Liquor announced at the 2024 National Distributor Conference held in Xiamen that it had successfully completed the set annual goals and tasks in 2023.
At this year's distributor conference, Xijiu also released two important signals: continue to build and build Junpin culture; continue to increase support for distributors. Zhang Deqin, secretary of the party committee and chairman of Xi Wine Group, said that in his heart, distributors are the gods of Xi wine, friends with common interests, and friends with common goals and hobbies. Xi liquor and distributors are close relatives, and Xi liquor will take care of distributors who operate in compliance in every way.
It is worth mentioning that the Xi wine, which claims to "take care of the distributors in every way", has also had a lot of twists and turns in 2023, and the price inversion of the company's core products Junpin Xi Wine and Cellar 1988 has been highly concerned by the outside world. At the same time, the chaos of scanning the code and revealing the cover also reflects the "see-saw" between some distributors and Xi Wine in terms of profits.
Looking back, after a year and a half of "de-Mao", has Xi Liquor completely lost the "crutch" of Moutai?
01
The product is upside down
On July 12, 2022, the official website of Moutai Group disclosed an announcement on the transfer of the equity of the subsidiary without compensation. Moutai Group intends to transfer 82% of its equity interest in Kweichow Moutai Distillery (Group) Xi Wine Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "Xi Wine Company") to Guizhou State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission free of charge. This move has also been interpreted by the outside world as: Xi wine officially "de-mao".
Subsequently, under the establishment of the Guizhou Provincial Party Committee and Provincial Government, Guizhou Xi Liquor Investment Holding Group Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "Guizhou Xi Liquor") was formally established as a provincial large (second) state-owned enterprise.
According to the information on the official website of Xi Liquor, Guizhou Xi Liquor Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "Xi Liquor Co., Ltd."), a holding subsidiary of Guizhou Xi Liquor, formerly known as the liquor workshop surnamed Yin during the Wanli period of the Ming Dynasty, was established as a state-owned enterprise through acquisition in 1952, joined Moutai Group in 1998, and was changed by Xi Liquor Company as a whole to establish Xi Liquor Co., Ltd. in 2022.
Since the "de-mao", the development of Xi wine has also been in the spotlight. In the first half of 2023, Xi Liquor achieved sales of 11.6 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 13%. At the 2024 National Distributor Conference held on December 27, Xi Liquor Company said that it had successfully completed the goals set by the Guizhou Provincial Government and successfully completed the annual goals and tasks of Xi Liquor Group.
However, behind the resilient growth of performance, there are also certain hidden concerns about the development of Xi Wine Group. First of all, there is the problem of product price inversion.
Since 2023, destocking has become a common concern for the entire industry. Under the pressure of inventories, price inversion has become a common problem. Xi wine is no exception.
According to the official website, the main sales products of Xi wine include Junpin series, cellar series, gold diamond series, strong fragrance series, sealing altar custom series and e-commerce exclusive sales series. Among them, the two major products of "Cellar 1988" and "Junpin Xi Wine" supported more than 60% of the sales revenue of Xi Wine.
According to public information, the ex-factory prices of Junpin Xi Wine and Cellar 1988 are 935 yuan/bottle and 568 yuan/bottle respectively, and the recommended terminal retail prices are 1498 yuan/bottle and 898 yuan/bottle respectively.
According to the official website of today's wine price, on December 29, 2023, the wholesale price of Junpin Xi wine (53 degrees/500ml) is 820 yuan/bottle, and the wholesale price of cellar 1988 (53 degrees/500ml) is 475 yuan/bottle. It can be seen that the wholesale price of the two products is much lower than the ex-factory price.
In the Pinduoduo flagship store officially authorized by Xi Liquor, the post-coupon prices of Junpin Xi Wine and Cellar 1988 are 959 yuan and 570 yuan respectively, both of which are lower than the recommended terminal retail price and close to the factory price.
Under the background of the inverted price of the main products, the dealers' life is naturally not easy.
02
Dealers are tough
When the channel profit is getting less and less, the dealer will naturally try his best to make money.
On September 28 this year, a statement by Xi Liquor Joint Stock Company unveiled part of the chaos in Xi liquor sales. According to the statement, the company found that in the market maintenance, there are illegal traders who use illegal means to destroy product packaging and other behaviors, which are suspected of counterfeiting and damage the legitimate rights and interests of consumers. To this end, consumers are requested to actively scan the QR code of the product when purchasing Xi wine products, and if there is a prompt message of "the bottle has been opened, beware of counterfeiting", please buy with caution or complain to the company.
This brings us to the round Xi wine series launched by Xi Wine in February this year. According to a media interview, Yuan Xi wine can receive red envelopes by opening the bottle cap and scanning the code. According to the distributor, the largest red envelope has more than 60 yuan, and there is a prize for another bottle, once it wins, it is more profitable than selling wine. As a result, some dealers started to use their brains in this regard - after opening the bottle, the wine was poured out and sold as loose wine, and the wine lid was scanned to receive the award.
The behavior of dealers "opening bottles and selling loose wine" also reflects the various choices of dealers in the current situation of inverted prices and difficult profits. In fact, since the "de-mao", the issue of distributors has become a focus of attention for the outside world in Xi. How to stabilize the distributors after "de-maoing" has become a new test for Xi Wine and Zhang Deqin.
According to Zheng Tanjun's statistics, since 2023, Zhang Deqin, Wang Diqiang, general manager of Xi Liquor Group, and Yang Fengxiang, chairman of the labor union of Xi Liquor Group, and many other Xi and liquor executives have visited Beijing, Guizhou, Shaanxi, Hainan, Hunan, Yunnan, Guangxi, Qiandongnan, eastern Guangdong, northern Guangdong, western Guangdong, Chongqing, Jiangxi, Hebei, Northeast China, Inner Mongolia, Shiyan, Wuhan, Jingzhou, Xinjiang, Gansu and other markets. It can be seen that Xi Liquor Group is still very concerned about the national distributor system.
It is also understood that from the second half of 2022, Xi Liquor has introduced support policies and systems for distributors. The instructions issued by Xi Liquor Group to each area are: no distributor should be allowed to leave Xi Liquor, especially those who are doing struggling, and must accompany Xi Liquor in the most difficult time.
In addition to stabilizing domestic distributors, Xi Liquor is also actively expanding overseas markets. On December 21, 2023, Cainiao Group and Guizhou Xi Wine E-commerce Information Industry Co., Ltd. held a strategic cooperation signing ceremony, and the two parties will jointly explore global supply chain, electronic overseas and digital freight, green and sustainable development and other fields. According to the direction of the agreement, Cainiao will provide full-link and digital global supply chain services for Guizhou Xi Wine, and plans to launch a "liquor going to sea" freight line covering Southeast Asia, North America, Europe, the Middle East and other countries and regions to help Guizhou Xi Wine e-commerce go overseas and build an integrated global warehouse and distribution supply chain.
03
Break through the 100-yuan sauce wine track
Of course, in order to completely retain dealers, it is not feasible to rely only on "visiting and researching" to pull the relationship, but also to make dealers make money. This involves how Xi wine re-establishes its brand image after "de-maoing".
In December 2023, Guizhou Xi Wine and Chen Daoming once again opened brand endorsement cooperation. Chen Daoming has always given people the impression of being a gentleman who is strict with himself. Xi Jiu revealed that in the future, he will work with spokesperson Chen Daoming to create a gentleman's style and continue to write Junpin Hongzhang.
In addition to the shaping of brand image, in terms of product strategy, Xi Wine also aims at the 100 yuan sauce wine track. According to public information, on February 9 this year, the new product of Xi Liquor series "Yuan Xi Wine" was first listed at the 2023 National Distributor Market Work Conference of Guizhou Xi Wine, and the suggested retail price of the product is 188 yuan / bottle, which is a sauce wine positioned in the 100 yuan file under Guizhou Xi Wine.
It is worth mentioning that this is also a product launched after Xi Jiu's "de-mao". In the eyes of industry insiders, this is mainly to cope with the fierce competition in the soy sauce wine track, to seize the market share of small and medium-sized distilleries in Moutai Town, and to explore the 100-yuan soy sauce wine track to find new growth points.
Behind the chaos of distributor sales also reflects Xi's difficulty in developing new products. In fact, in recent years, it is not only Xi wine that is aiming at the 100-yuan sauce wine track, and Moutai is one of them.
On March 28 this year, Moutai Health Liquor Co., Ltd. held a press conference for the launch of new products of Taiyuan Liquor. The unified sales price of the newly listed Taiyuan liquor market is 156 yuan per bottle, which is Moutai's first product with a price of 100 yuan.
Moutai personally went out to engage in 100 yuan sauce wine, and it can be seen that the competition in this track is still quite fierce. Feng Cheng, deputy secretary of the Party Committee and general manager of Moutai Health Liquor Company, previously revealed that Taiyuan Liquor will become the first product of Moutai Group to enter the price band of about 100 yuan for the first time, and penetrate into the community and rural markets.
In addition to Moutai, on May 22 this year, Guizhou Guijiu, a subsidiary of Yanghe Co., Ltd., launched two Guizhou time-honored brand series, "Time-honored Brand (Gold)" and "Time-honored Brand (Red)", priced at 268 yuan and 198 yuan per bottle respectively, which are also positioned in the mass sauce market. On September 29, 2022, Guotai Liquor held a new product launch conference in Guangzhou, and the two new Huaijiu products released at the event focused on the 300-500 yuan mass consumer price band.
In the era of stock, wine companies are working hard to find new profit margins. The resulting dimensionality reduction of famous wines, in addition to the sinking of channels, is also the popularization of product price bands. In the context of the fierce sinking of famous wines, can Xi Wine still achieve a breakthrough with the round Xi Wine of the 100 yuan sauce wine track?
Author丨Zhang Yu
来源丨征探财经(ID:teccj6)