Xiabu Xiabu is finally out of the circle in an alternative way.
Some time ago, the hot pot brand Xiabu Xiabu announced its financial report. According to the data, Xiabu Xiabu's total revenue in 2023 will be as high as 5.918 billion yuan, but its net profit will be negative 199 million, which is quite a taste of "a hard year for nothing".
In fact, this is not the first time Xiabu has suffered losses.
Its decline has long been revealed: in 2021, the loss will be 293 million, in 2022, the loss will be 353 million, and if you add 2023, the loss will be 199 million. Xiabu Xiabu has suffered a cumulative loss of 845 million for 3 consecutive years.
Such a record of ups and downs is inevitably embarrassing.
As the "first chain hot pot stock" in China, Xiabu Xiabu was listed earlier than Haidilao. But now, one has become a well-deserved industry benchmark, and the other is gradually declining.
The two completely different development trends before and after can't help but make people think: Xiabu Xiabu, what's wrong?
Speaking of Xiabu Xiabu, I have to mention its founder: He Guangqi.
He Guangqi, a Taiwanese, started with jewelry in his early years. Later, seeing the gradual decline of the jewelry market, he chose to "leave home halfway" to do catering.
At that time, Taiwanese small hot pot with one person and one pot was very popular in Taiwan. It does not need a chef or too many waiters, and for operators, the labor cost is low, and it is easy to standardize and copy; for consumers, what they want to eat and cook, a person can eat what he wants.
He Guangqi is very optimistic about this "one person, one pot" model. Subsequently, he set up a company in Beijing and spent two years searching for high-quality suppliers across the country.
It was not until 1998 that the first Xiabu Xiabu store was officially launched, with an average customer order of about 30 per person.
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However, what is surprising is that the "one-person food" small hot pot that is very popular in Taiwan has behaved a little "unsuitable" after arriving in Beijing - old Beijingers seem to prefer authentic copper pot shabu-shabu.
In fact, it is not difficult to understand that hot pot, eating is an atmosphere, and eating is a lively.
In order to drain the traffic, He Guangqi can be said to have invested heavily and launched a preferential package of "eat 30 get 30 free". It is this move that has allowed Xiabu Xiabu to barely gain a foothold in Beijing.
However, the development momentum of Xiabu Xiabu in the early stage was not rapid, and it did not enter its heyday until 2003.
After SARS, the public paid special attention to food safety and hygiene when dining. Xiabu Xiabu, which is eaten in separate pots, just meets people's dining needs.
Not only that, due to its high cost performance - thirty or forty per capita, meat, vegetables and staple food, Xiabu has won the favor of countless student parties and workers, thus opening up the market.
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Since then, He Guangqi has ambitiously benchmarked KFC and McDonald's, and has taken Xiabu Xiabu to expand its territory in a large area across the country, and even threatened to open more stores than KFC.
It turns out that He Guangqi's ability is worthy of ambition.
In 2014, Xiabu Xiabu successfully landed in Hong Kong stocks and became the "first hot pot stock", and it was in the limelight for a while.
At the glorious moment, He Guangqi threatened to expand Xiabu Xiabu stores to 4,000 stores in an interview, radiating the whole country from Beijing and winning the national hot pot market.
At that time, He Guangqi never imagined that one day, Xiabu Xiabu would fall from the altar, and no one cared about it.
If you turn the pointer back of time, it is not difficult to find that the early Xiabu Xiabu, with its "one person, one pot" model and super high cost performance, has accumulated a wave of original loyal users.
However, at the moment of consumption upgrading, high-end hot pot brands represented by Haidilao quickly became popular, and going to Haidilao to eat hot pot and check in has become a trend among contemporary young people.
He Guangqi, who smelled this sign, on the basis of Xiabu Xiabu, which focuses on civilians and high cost performance, took advantage of the trend to launch a mid-to-high-end hot pot brand - Coucou, trying to combine the two favorites of young people - hot pot + milk tea, and build Coucou into "Starbucks in the hot pot industry".
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As the saying goes, "it's good to enjoy the shade with the back of a big tree", with Xiabu Xiabu's mature and strong supply chain system, in less than two years, Coucou has opened 100 stores across the country.
In 2018, Coucou's revenue reached 556 million yuan, and by 2019, its revenue doubled to 1.2 billion yuan.
The success of the coucade made He Guangqi see hope. He was convinced that consumers would be happy to see Xiabu's brand upgrade, so he aggressively pushed Xiabu Xiabu's price up.
In the past, it was only thirty or forty to eat a meal of Xiabu Xiabu, or a little higher, forty or fifty, but now, it is often sixty or seventy to eat a meal of Xiabu. A little more, it is likely to break 100.
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For consumers, Xiabu is no longer the original cost-effective hot pot brand that can eat all you can eat at thirty or forty per capita.
The most unbearable thing is that Xiabu Xiabu has obviously increased its price, but the product quality and service quality have somehow deteriorated.
Many netizens have complained: The taste of Xiabu Xiabu's soul sesame sauce has changed; the cost performance is getting lower and lower, I feel that a man's normal order can be eaten for 200, it is better to eat Haidilao; the waiter ignores people.......
After some operation, a large number of users have lost, and the turnover rate has plummeted.
At the same time, Xiabu Xiabu continued to have negative public opinion, first a pregnant woman fished out a mouse from the soup base during a meal, and then Xiabu was on the blacklist of the Beijing Consumers Association.
The market's favorability towards Xiabu Xiabu has dropped again and again. And He Guangqi, who is in a high position, is focused on brand upgrading.
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In 2017, it launched the "Xiabu Xiabu" takeaway brand, and in 2019, it launched a high-end version of Xiabu Xiabu - in xiabuxiabu, with an average customer unit price of about 100;
In 2020, the new store model of "light pot" will be launched, and a special seat for tea drinks, a small wine restaurant, and KTV will be added, and in 2022, the barbecue brand "Zhan Yao" will be launched, with a unit price of about 250 yuan.
As a result, the response of the market was average, in xiabuxiabu failed to meet expectations, and the light pot was also gone.
According to He Guangqi's vision, the barbecue track lacks a head brand, and it is expected to sit firmly in the top spot and become an industry leader in the future.
It's a pity that the ideal is very plump and the reality is very skinny.
Due to the high per capita unit price, as of March 2024, only 5 stores are still open, failing to realize He Guangqi's ambition.
So far, Xiabu Xiabu not only did not achieve brand upgrading, but gradually lost its original advantages after a "sao operation".
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So what is Xiabu Xiabu doing this?
The reason why these attempts are made, if you dig deeper, actually stems from the contradictions of the management.
The founder, He Guangqi, wanted to take the high-end route, but Zhao Yi, CEO of Xiabu Xiabu, advocated taking the people-friendly route and attracting more customers through cheap customer unit prices, so as to increase the turnover rate.
Zhao Yi's idea deviated from the original intention of He Guangqi's brand upgrade, and this contradiction finally ended with Zhao Yi leaving the scene. Before that, Coucou founder Zhang Zhenwei had also resigned.
The disagreements between the management and the frequent changes in the top management have made Xiabu Xiabu vacillate its position for many years, and it has been trying and making mistakes, paying tuition, and falling into a growth dilemma.
During this period, the latecomer "Haidilao" has achieved the ultimate in service and word-of-mouth, and has won the love of young people.
According to the data, in 2019, Haidilao's revenue was 26.5 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 56.5%, and in 2020, even affected by masks, the operating income was still as high as 28.6 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 7.8%.
On the other hand, Xiabu Xiabu can only look at its back.
If the price rises and the quality is criticized, Xiabu Xiabu gradually loses the "people's heart", the continuous swing of the company's positioning, and the contradictions between the management make Xiabu fall into a growth dilemma.
Then, the change in the pattern of the catering market is another blow to Xiabu Xiabu.
The hot pot track has always been the largest track in China's catering category, with a market size of nearly 100 billion.
The huge market size, coupled with the low entry threshold, has attracted countless players to try to get a piece of the hot pot track.
In recent years, brand catering giants have come down one after another, laying out "one-person food" small hot pots, threatening the hegemony of Xiabu Xiabu.
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For example, the hot pot brand Banu launched the "Tao Niang Rice Small Hot Pot", which focuses on small hot pot at 29 yuan per capita, and the fast food brand Yoshinoya has added "self-service small hot pot" in 11 stores in 8 cities;
Hefu Lao Mian also began to sell 6 kinds of small hot pot, and the catering brand Laoxiang Chicken launched a new 38 yuan chicken soup fresh vegetable small hot pot in the store......
In terms of brands, Banu, Yoshinoya, Hefu Lao Noodles, and Lao Xiang Chicken are all not small, their brand influence should not be underestimated, and the supply chain system is also very mature;
In terms of price, whether it is a small hot pot for peach girls at 29 yuan or a small hot pot with hometown chicken at 38 yuan, the price is less than half of Xiabu Xiabu.
As a result, the advantages of Xiabu Xiabu's high cost performance in the past no longer exist.
What's more, after the past few years of masks, new product forms have emerged in the hot pot track.
In the past, most of us went out to eat hot pot, and we went directly to the store to eat and order on demand. However, during the mask period, platforms such as Meituan, Freshippo, and Daily Fresh have launched the "hot pot to home" service, where you can buy hot pot base and hot pot ingredients at home.
Since then, if you want to eat hot pot, eating in the store is no longer the only choice for consumers.
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The consumption scene has changed, people can buy ready-made ingredients by themselves, have them delivered to their homes by the takeaway boy, and cook them by themselves.
Hearing this, you may ask: What should I do if I eat hot pot alone and am too lazy to cook it?
It's not that Xiabu Xiabu can't afford it, but it's more cost-effective.
In recent years, there have been more and more choices for one-person food, and hot pot brands represented by Mo Xiaoxian, Zihi Pot, and Shizuren have sprung up.
This innovative "hot pot +" product is aimed at the user group, which is highly overlapping with the group targeted by Xiabu Xiabu "one person food" hot pot.
Especially compared with Xiabu Xiabu, which has a per capita unit price of sixty or seventy, Mo Xiaoxian and Zihai Pot are obviously more cost-effective.
Xiabu Xiabu's former advantages are disappearing little by little.
Xiabu Xiabu, dangerous!
Looking back over the years, as the first share of chain hot pot, He Guangqi, the founder of Xiabu Xiabu, has made a lot of bold statements.
For example, at the beginning of its establishment, it was determined to be "KFC in the hot pot industry", and when it tried to transform, it claimed to be "Starbucks in the hot pot industry".
How well the flag stands, as loud as the slap in the face.
From 2014 to 2024, it has been 10 years since Xiabu Xiabu was listed on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange. In the past 10 years, the market environment has been unpredictable, and the hot pot track has been surging.
Xiabu Xiabu not only did not become the KFC of the hot pot world, but also the Starbucks of the hot pot industry as expected.
On the contrary, the leading position of one-person eating small hot pot that was originally proud of is now about to be lost.
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Through the decline of Xiabu, we can clearly see that for a company or a brand, the first-mover advantage does not mean a lasting advantage.
After all, the world is changing every day. Blindly rely on past achievements or glory, while ignoring market changes and consumers' core demands. One day, you will lose your original advantage and be slapped to death on the beach by the back waves.
In the future, whether Xiabu Xiabu can turn around against the wind and return to the top remains to be verified by time.
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Resources:
South Wind Window: "Xiabu Xiabu, the poor are no longer welcome"
Sanlian Life Weekly: "Under the tide of Xiabu Xiabu closing stores, hot pot is too expensive to eat"
Chinese Business Taolu: "Xiabu Xiabu, Blind"
Author: Xia Future
Editor: Ichiyigi