Franchisees are miserable
bluntly said that "roast duck is a terminal category"
It only took a year for the roast duck to go from being popular to disappearing.
The roast duck shop changes hands frequently and closes quite a lot. The owner of the second-hand recycler bluntly said, "The terminal category, it's best not to touch it." As early as the end of 2023, there was a prediction that "the roast duck category will usher in a mass collapse," and now, the prediction seems to have come true.
A restaurant operator told Nei Sanjun, "There is a ready-made roast duck restaurant on hand to take over directly, and investors didn't expect it to be so hard when they entered the market, and they didn't want to do it." It was also said that the store was a chain brand, but Nei Sanjun did not find the relevant brand information; When it comes to the roast duck business, the boss bluntly said, "The key to making roast duck is to do a good job of takeout, and dine-in is mainly used to show the quality of the product." ”
Another boss Zhang, who specializes in training and running a catering business, said, "Last year was the bonus period for roast duck, and if you want to do it this year, unless there is no one in your area, the heat has passed; Personally, it is not recommended to join, our tuition fee is about 6800 yuan, all the technology, store opening process, online decoration pictures, supply chain purchase methods are all delivered together, 60 square meters of small store daily flow of three or four thousand. ”
If a catering novice who is eager to start a business, after listening to these words, it is inevitable that he will not be moved, and he will vigorously grasp the psychology of entrepreneurs, which not only gives entrepreneurs about the risks of doing catering and roast duck business, but also instills the greatest help they can give to entrepreneurs, which is hope.
In 2023, Mao Roast Duck stores will bloom all over the country, and some brands will enter first-tier cities such as Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou as early as possible in order to seize the potential energy of the category. Last year, Internet celebrity brands such as Li Xuqing Mao Roast Duck, Zhu Dali Mao Roast Duck, and Wu Mei Mao Roast Duck in the First District of Steel entered Beijing to open stores, opening up the market of Mao Roast Duck in Beijing, with some brands opening more than 50 stores in 4 months, and some brands soaring by more than 150 stores a year.
Recently, Li Xuqing's roast duck was renamed Li Xuqing's roast duck and returned to Maocai. Four stores were opened in Beijing last year, and now there are two more, and the number of stores nationwide is still stuck at the more than 50 stores that will be released in 2023. According to the staff of the Beijing Sanlitun store, "due to the lack of catering operation experience of the boss in Beijing, the store performance is not good, and two points have been closed, and now there are two stores in Sanlitun and Weigongcun." He also bluntly said, "The purpose of Sanlitun stores is not to make money, but mainly to attract customers and Internet celebrities to check in." ”
Sanlitun, which is the concentration of Internet celebrity traffic in Beijing, opens a store here, first starts the brand potential with the traffic dividend, and then attracts franchisees. Coincidentally, at this time last year, Zhu Dali's first roast duck restaurant was selected near 798 in Beijing, and there were once food bloggers checking in, but now it has long disappeared, and public reviews show that the store has been closed, and there are only two stores in Chongqing at present.
Looking at it again, Wu Mei Mao Duck, who once advertised as a "20-year-old Chengdu authentic roast duck brand", opened to join in May last year, and in the following months, its official public account released various good news about the opening of the store almost every day, but the last one stayed in more than 11 last year. It is undeniable that the brand is located in the old store in Chengdu (Niushikou), which is still a food check-in place, and the franchise store is very worried.
A Hebei franchisee said that in October last year, he joined Wu Mei Mao Roast Duck in the first district of Gang, and the franchise fee was 32,880 yuan, but it was closed after two months of opening, and he lost more than 300,000 yuan. Speaking about the reasons, he mentioned a few points:
First, the location of the site is not clear, and the location of the site is not only expensive, but also has no target customer group at all; Second, the so-called strong online operation ability is just to use "low-price packages" to attract the wool party, and after accounting, the more you buy, the more you lose; Third, the company's material purchase cost is high, the quality is uneven, and the franchisee has no profit margin.
"Before joining, the brand claimed to be professional in site selection, super online operation capabilities, and strong supply chain advantages, but after the results were really implemented, various problems frequently appeared. The company mainly makes money by selling base materials, a barrel of chili oil is 1,000 yuan, a barrel of ordinary duck fat costs 150 yuan, and the finished frozen duck purchased from the headquarters cannot be used at all, and the roast is not cooked, it is a duck smell, and customers reflect that they can't chew. Because the store was not open, I contacted to return the materials, but the company ignored it, and finally sold it to my peers at a low price, and I lost more than 8,000 yuan. He complained.
According to another franchisee, "I paid a deposit of 2,000 yuan to join at that time, and said that I would not open a store to refund, and then I didn't find a suitable store, and the result of asking for a refund was that the person in charge left and did not deal with it, so don't step on the pit." ”
Presumably, there are not a few people who have stepped into the pit. Some people admit that everyone's original intention of doing catering is basically gone.
The thunder is loud and the rain is small
After giving it a go, there is only "a duck feather" left
In 2023, Mao Roast Duck suddenly became popular without warning, and the reason for its popularity is very simple.
On the one hand, it has seized the experience of consumers trying new things and pursuing cost-effective dining, and on the other hand, in the involution of the catering industry, it has also obtained a large number of white entrepreneurs by creating high-traffic Internet celebrity large single products, and the so-called roast duck chain brand is open to joining, and claiming that the investment is small, the return on investment is fast, and the risk is low.
However, the roast duck, which has been branded as an "Internet celebrity", has always been difficult to make a business for people across the country.
First, the category attributes of Internet celebrities are destined to be "short-lived".
Specialty foods abound across the country, and there are not a few single products in traffic. From last year's Zibo barbecue, to roast duck, jelly burger, slag beef, this year's Tianshui Malatang, spicy pot and other delicacies, some old products have become popular, and some new products have become popular.
However, blindly expanding only by confined to the Internet celebrity category will eventually face failure. Tianshui Malatang, with a life cycle of only two months, suffered a large number of closures. From the perspective of roast duck category, Chengdu's traditional authentic roast duck is a famous dish in the restaurant, and it takes a lot and strong craftsmanship to do a good job of this roast duck, and the complex cost is destined to make the roast duck unable to be copied quickly.
The popular roast duck on the market is basically equivalent to roast duck + roast duck, wearing the name of roast duck, in fact, it is to sell roast duck, which is very suitable for joining, which is also the underlying logic. "To put it simply, the people who make Mao Cai can't find innovation, so they steal the name of Chengdu's famous dish Mao Roast Duck, you can innovate in taste, but you can't use another dish to impersonate, Chengdu, a traditional famous dish, has no choice but to become cannon fodder."
A Chengdu veteran said bluntly: "The roast duck in the market now is completely ruining our traditional food in Chengdu." ”
Second, it only relies on low prices to attract traffic, but the quality and taste are worrying, and it is destined to be difficult to repurchase.
The taste is heavy and spicy, the thick hot pot base, full of a large pot of duck meat and more than 10 kinds of ingredients, plus a single meal of about 20, 30 and 40 yuan, the main feature is a "flat version of hot pot, high-end version of Mao Cai Malatang", which is very attractive.
For example, Shijiazhuang's Wu San Mao Roast Duck chain brand, recently featured 43.9 yuan Mao Roast Duck + Tianshui Malatang two pots of food, I have to say that the speed of this popularity is really fast, and these short-term high-traffic Internet celebrity dishes are newly launched at low prices.
However, the quality and taste are frequently dropped, customers' complaints are increasing, and netizens' vicious comments abound. Some people say, "It's okay to eat Mao Cai alone, roast duck can also be said to be garbage," "The ingredients are indeed more and more, and I can't stand half a pot of soybean sprouts that are 1.32 yuan/catty" "It was very popular last year, but I really haven't eaten it"...
How many people went to eat roast duck that was so popular last year? How many people have gone back to buy and consume?
In October last year, I went to the nearby prosperous roast duck shop to eat once, in addition to the fishy smell, I felt that the seasoning was stronger, and then I ordered a takeout, to be honest, the takeaway taste is really not flattering, this year this store disappeared. For the roast duck that is preparing to specialize in takeout, it may be necessary to observe.
Xinladao's brand "Fanjiang Fish Hot Pot" launched roast duck in the store, but it was quickly removed from the shelves because customers reported that it was unpalatable and fishy. If the dishes are unpalatable, there is no reason to consume and repurchase. No matter how people tend to cost-effective products, it is impossible to reduce the quality of dishes, and the cost performance that customers want is based on the dual advantages of high-quality prices and high-quality products.
Third, the business threshold is low, and a large number of brands are franchised, and there is no differentiation, which makes the track enter bad competition.
On the whole, the cost of the roast duck business is lower, mostly small shops with less investment, the roast duck supply chain is relatively mature, the cost of roast duck ingredients is low, the market unit price of duck is also cheaper than other meats, the dishes in the roast duck are relatively fixed, and they can be bought directly in the vegetable market, saving time and cost, and the staple food of noodles can also be purchased in large quantities, as long as the taste and quality of the dishes, roast duck and base materials are guaranteed, the operation and meal are relatively faster, and the business model is feasible.
However, when the roast duck became popular, many brands quickly let go of joining, but because of the lack of a professional operation team, they were eaten up by traffic, ignoring the quality and taste, only caring about the opening of stores and scale, and the ability to organize and manage could not keep up.
Due to the extremely low threshold of the roast duck project, there is no so-called too high technical content, attracting a group of entrepreneurial whites to enter the game, open a small shop, less investment, everyone swarms to open a store, fight low price discounts, ultra-low price and bad competition, but lose the quality and taste, which also killed many bosses who want to do roast duck business seriously, and there is no way to have stores that can only choose to quit and retain the last trace of dignity.
Trapped in the "Internet Celebrity"
Where does roast duck go?
Although, the heat of roast duck has passed, under naked swimming, the "leftover" is king, and the bottleneck turns around in time.
Compared with the hot pot brand, Li Xuqing's roast duck once played the slogan of "don't eat hot pot and eat roast vegetables", and now he has returned to the traditional roast vegetable track, so that he will not go narrower and narrower on the road of Internet celebrity roast duck.
In addition, as a popular product, Mao roast duck is worth a try when adding restaurants to the menu, from roast duck, to casserole dishes, sour soup hot pot, Tianshui Malatang, and now it appears in Haidilao and many Malatang fast food restaurants, so that high-traffic Internet celebrity dishes can be obtained in the short term.
This year, some new players of Mao Roast Duck have emerged one after another, such as the new Internet celebrity brand Yao Fei Mao Roast Duck has opened more than 30 stores, mostly in shopping malls, focusing on high-quality experience, which has improved the overall value of Mao Roast Duck restaurants; Wu Sanmao Roast Duck has been established for more than a year and has opened nearly 100 stores, concentrated in township areas; The strangely named "Lost Love, Selling Roast Duck to Pay Off Debts" takeaway restaurant has more than 80 stores across the country.
In any case, the essence of catering will never change: delicious dishes, reasonable prices, attentive service, and comfortable environment......
(Source: Restaurant Boss Internal Reference)