排版/ Annalee
Since the beginning of this year, "young people bravely enter the 3.5 point restaurant" has become a hot topic, at that time, the young people who are "anti-bone" have once again set off reverse consumption, no longer believing in high-star praise, but pouring into the little-known "fly restaurant".
However, winter has gone to spring, and in just a few months, the idea of "3.5 restaurants advise you not to rush blindly" has been more mentioned, quietly replacing the craze of "bravely entering 3.5 restaurants".
An important reason is that the first batch of people who "explored" the 3.5-point restaurant gained a surprise experience because of their low psychological expectations, but when many young people followed the trend and flocked to the 3.5-point restaurant, there were not a few who "stepped on the thunder".
In fact, reverse consumption by young people is not new, and those who are "injured" are always those who follow the trend and "blindly rush". After all, most of the consumption of contemporary young people is "emotional consumption" in the final analysis.
And when the mood turns and you walk into the hotel, are you still willing to open the blind box?
Who stepped on the thunder in the 3.5 restaurant?
Before discussing this issue, we first need to clarify a misunderstanding - 3.5 points is not a low score, it can only be regarded as a "general score".
According to data, nearly 60% of merchants on Dianping have ratings between 3.5 and 3.9 points. The zinc scale learned from many merchants that a score of 3.5 is an ordinary level of restaurant ratings on the platform, not a low score. In fact, when consumers write reviews on the review platform, if they score "3 points", it corresponds to "average", and if they score "3.5 points", they actually correspond to "okay".
So what is the real feedback of the first batch of consumers who abandoned high scores and blindly rushed to the "general score" store?
"Obviously, it is said on the Internet that it is a treasure restaurant, but I did step on the thunder. The main reason is that the environment is very poor, the service attitude is not good, and the taste of the food is not unpalatable, but it is indeed not amazing. ”
Su Ya (pseudonym) and her friends took advantage of the holiday to travel to Chongqing, and made a lot of strategies from must-see attractions to restaurants worth trying. Flipping through the memos on her phone and social media favorites, most of the restaurants in it are little-known small restaurants, "Many of them have a score of about 3.5 on public reviews, but most netizens share that it is a fly restaurant that only locals know." ”
At that time, the topic of "restaurants with low ratings may be more delicious" was repeatedly searched, and Su Ya and her friends also followed the craze, "I stayed in Chongqing for three days and went to about 15 restaurants and snack bars, of which nearly 10 were so-called fly restaurants. Because I have indeed stepped on thunder in some high-scoring Internet celebrity stores before, and I have seen many bloggers and netizens who visit the store to label most of these stores as: "cheap and delicious", "too pleasant", "who doesn't know this small shop"...... Suya and her friends are looking forward to these restaurants.
However, after checking in to nearly 10 restaurants with a rating of about 3.5 points, Su Ya and his friends were disappointed, "Half of them don't step on the thunder, and there are only one or two of them that are really delicious, and most of these stores have some problems with the environment and service." Su Ya said that most of the niche "Pufen" restaurants are not only difficult to find, but also relatively old, and some may even be just a mobile stall, and the corresponding service attitude is not good, "There is a hot pot restaurant, next to the garbage station, the serving speed is also very slow, and the whole dining experience is not very good." ”
After this trip, Su Ya and his friends were disenchanted by the "3.5 point restaurant", "and regardless of whether the high score of the high-scoring restaurant is credible or not, there must be a reason for the "general score". ”
In fact, what happened to Suya and her friends was not unique.
On Weibo, Xiaohongshu and other social media, after a large number of shares of "niche treasure restaurants" and "3.5-point restaurant visits" have emerged, more "thunder posts" are gradually appearing. Among them, some netizens said under the Weibo topic of "3.5 points restaurant advises you not to rush blindly" that the first time he felt that the score was particularly important was when he took his children to a store in Guangzhou before, "It's really rubbish, the online score is 3.5 points, and since then I feel that those with an online score of less than 4 points should not go." ”
Image source: Weibo
In Su Ya's view, some of the 3.5-point restaurants are indeed pearls and dust, because some niche restaurants or traditional old restaurants are not well managed and promoted on the Internet, but this does not mean that the 3.5-point restaurant must be more delicious and less easy to step on the thunder, "It's just because everyone's psychological expectations for this kind of restaurant are not too high, so if you encounter a good one, you will be pleasantly surprised." ”
This is also confirmed by some merchants. "As soon as the customer enters the store and sees that you have no decoration, the psychological pressure will be reduced, and the psychological expectation will be lowered first. But if you find that your restaurant tastes very good, the service is good, and the cost performance is high, then the customer will have a 'surprise'. The boss of the Sichuan Longhu family skewer incense said when talking about this issue.
The 3.5-point restaurant I chose above is often inferior to eating
From crowding up the 3.5-point restaurant to not wanting to blindly rush anymore, it only takes a few months. And a large part of the reason behind this may just be because of the emotional downturn.
Looking back in recent years, a series of reverse operations such as reverse consumption and anti-refinement have become the key words of young people's consumption, and all levels of clothing, food, housing and transportation have set off a short-term consumption boom.
For example, when "it's not that down jackets can't be bought, but military coats are more cost-effective" has become the mantra of young people, military coats and flower cotton jackets have become the fashion vane of last winter; for example, in order to save money and time, young people do not hesitate to walk tens of thousands of steps a day, and multiple scenic spots are rotated in succession, focusing on a "special forces trip" with the highest cost performance......
It can be said that young people's consumption today is often emotional consumption, as the blogger "Buckwheat Chen" mentioned, correspondingly, "all our commercial products ultimately point to the venting of emotions." ”
Of course, young people can quickly become popular, thanks to the influence of social media.
According to the Global Gen Z Consumption Insight Report 2024 released by Fastdata, Gen Z, who have grown up on the Internet, has a deep influence on social media, with food and beverage ranking second in the ranking of social media influences, second only to travel.
"Not only to find a restaurant, but also to have a cup of milk tea, you have to go to social media to search for tips, or see what is the most popular recently. The 20-year-old Peng Xiao is like most contemporary young people, "not to mention whether he really wants to try a 3.5 restaurant, but he has the mentality to keep up with this hot topic and give it a try." ”
It is not difficult to understand why the 3.5 restaurant suddenly exploded and was evaded in an instant: young people initially flocked to the 3.5 restaurant because of another outburst of "anti-refinement sentiment" and the boost of social media, more to satisfy and vent their emotions, rather than simply wanting to satisfy their appetite. As many netizens said on social media, "the main one is a rebellion". As the popularity on social media fades, young people tend to admit that "you can try a 3.5 restaurant, but blind rushing is risky." ”
Different ratings, different options are available
Looking back at the beginning and end of the "3.5 Minute Restaurant" from planting grass to pulling weeds, it is not difficult to find that although the consumption habits and consumption trends of young people have certain characteristics of the times, they are not of universal significance.
"Together with friends of the same age or a meal partner, I will indeed choose some restaurants with a rating of 3.5-3.8 to open a blind box, and sometimes I will choose the kind of fly restaurant, focusing on a fireworks. Xue Ling is a food lover who runs a food exploration account on social media, and in her notes on visiting the restaurant, there are also some small restaurants she is looking for, "However, when I encounter some more important occasions, such as having dinner with the elders in the family, or meeting with some customers, then I will actually choose restaurants with higher ratings, at least not less than 4 points, and the general environment and service of these restaurants will not be too substandard." ”
In the view of Xue Ling, who has been dealing with hotel owners all year round, although Internet celebrity restaurants do have the risk of "stepping on thunder", in comparison, they have often undergone a large number of consumer evaluation tests, and have improved their operations according to the above evaluations, and often have a stable level in terms of taste, environment, service, etc., "Not to say that they will not step on thunder at all, but it does reduce the probability of stepping on thunder, after all, eating is very subjective." ”
As Xue Ling said, from the perspective of mainstream consumption habits, the platform's scoring system is still an important criterion for both consumers and merchants.
For example, although Guangzhou Duofu Food Museum is a small restaurant on the street, but the review score has been 4.3 points, the boss feels very aggrieved on the view that "most of the high scores are brushed" on the Internet, and it is precisely because of the understanding of the platform's evaluation system that the boss has made adjustments to all aspects of the hotel, "We really gave the staff service training, replaced the restaurant with brand new tableware, and formulated cleaning standards, so that the service and environmental evaluation gradually improved." ”
In fact, not only do young people choose different restaurants for different occasions, but the platform's rating system often has different reference value for different groups.
For example, middle-aged groups mostly choose restaurants for work needs, gatherings, business banquets and other arrangements pay more attention to the environment and specifications of the restaurant, and some high-end dishes also need more professional chefs and service staff. This group has strong economic strength and can also accept the premium generated by the hotel environment and services, and most of them will choose high-scoring chain stores or even high-luxury restaurants.
Although the elderly group advocates frugality and does not go to high-consumption restaurants, they rarely favor "fly restaurants", because such groups generally bring their grandchildren to eat, and they pay great attention to the hygiene level of the restaurant for subjective reasons such as paying attention to health.
The boss of the Longhu family of Chuanchuan incense mentioned above also noticed this, "For example, older customers don't really care about the bottom of the pot, but they are very strict about the freshness of the dishes, the white-collar group pays more attention to service, the younger group pays more attention to the taste of the bottom of the pot, and for the post-00s, they are more concerned about the environment and service." The environment doesn't have to be luxurious, but it needs to be tonal. ”
Therefore, although it is an old store, Longhu people pay attention to service and environment on the basis of maintaining taste, and it is precisely because of this that it can attract different consumer groups, and the score has been maintained above 4 points.
Between the general score and the high score, is there a difference between being "seen"?
From the initial belief in high-scoring Internet celebrity stores, to the delicious and high-scoring stores are unpalatable, perhaps behind this kind of impulsive consumption comes from consumers' "inherent bias" against the platform's rating system.
In addition to the aforementioned misconception that a score of 3.5 is not a low score on the platform, another controversial point is whether user reviews are real?
First of all, a number of restaurant practitioners told Zinc Scale that the star rating of a restaurant is only based on user evaluations, and even if the restaurant and the platform have commercial product cooperation, it will not affect the star rating. It is precisely because the platform has a small operating space and merchants often care about the platform rating, that many restaurant owners will seriously apologize to users for a bad review.
It is worth mentioning that when Zibo barbecue became popular last year, a barbecue restaurant owner brushed 17 bad reviews on the review platform in order to be idle, but was quickly judged by the system to be malicious bad reviews. It can be seen that with the increasingly perfect rules and regulatory system of the review platform, it is not easy to change the score by "taking shortcuts".
Image source: Video screenshot
So, how do you stand out from the crowd of ordinary restaurants for those true "treasure shops"?
According to the public rules on the platform, the final result of the score is not a simple arithmetic average, but is calculated using a model, and a variety of factors are considered to comprehensively evaluate the final evaluation of the merchant, including the evaluation integrity, evaluation time, evaluation quality, and evaluation quantity.
To put it simply, the more reviews you have, the easier it is to get accurate and authentic ratings.
And this may be the disadvantage of many small shops. On the other hand, too few user reviews will also lead to small stores and old stores not knowing how to improve and optimize, thus missing the opportunity to attract new customers and become high-scoring stores.
In short, there is a lack of opportunities to be seen by consumers, and the lack of consumer reviews will make it difficult for merchants to see the real needs of consumers.
Fortunately, more and more "potential stocks" have begun to change.
For example, the above-mentioned Guangzhou Shunde cuisine old restaurant Duofu Food Hall. This restaurant has been open for 28 years, and it has been included in Dianping for 15 years, according to the owner, the early score card is about 4 points, and it has not been able to go up, but the taste score has been above 4.5 points. So, according to the consumer's evaluation suggestions, the boss decided to rectify the hygiene, optimize the service, and adjust the dishes.
Finally, at the beginning of this year, the restaurant rating rose to 4.7. During this year's Spring Festival, the restaurant also cooperated with Dianzhu to hold a topic activity called "Spring Festival does not close", which attracted many young guests and tourists from other places, and the number of waiting tables exceeded 100 every day. These guests continue to write notes and recommendations, which in turn will attract more guests to the restaurant and write reviews...... In this way, a traditional old restaurant that was once unknown has counterattacked and become the first place in the local Cantonese food taste list.
Therefore, although the consumption boom of young people comes and goes quickly, perhaps because of this, consumers have an incision to truly understand the platform's evaluation system, and many treasure restaurants that have been dusty for a long time have also clarified the direction of improving their ratings and have more opportunities to be seen. Of course, as there is more positive interaction between merchants and consumers, there will be fewer and fewer "minefields".