Text | Red Dining Network
Around 20 years, RT-Mart, Metro, Carrefour, etc. have developed very prosperously, but only 0 years later, these stores have now either sold themselves or withdrawn from China.
Because there are a large number of small businesses in China, many professional stores will be born in small formats, such as many fruit sellers in hypermarkets, but there are also many husband-and-wife shops and even chain stores that sell fruits in the community; For another example, there are bakeries sold in hypermarkets, and there are many bakeries at the entrance of the community; There is also lo-mei and so on.A large number of professional small formats are eroding the market share of each segment of hypermarkets, making it difficult for hypermarkets to survive in China.
The same is true for catering, there are seven or eight million restaurants in China today, and the market capacity is about 10 trillion yuan, which is similar to the American market, but there are only seven or eight hundred thousand restaurants in the United States, and the capacity or income of each restaurant is about 0 times that of us. This explains why our restaurant industry is so tough because:Every store on the market is your competitor。
In the community format, there are naturally existing mom-and-pop shops at the entrance of the community, and they are the pinnacle of catering combat effectiveness. Because once you do the chain, there will be a lot of themCosts of systems, supply chains, management, inventory, inventory, etcBut for mom-and-pop shops, they are only two people, at most one relative, no need for any procurement, no need to go to the system, and there is no management cost, the whole format is the lowest-cost format, we call it "guerrilla warfare".
遊擊戰是所有業態里戰鬥力最強的，而將近600萬家的夫妻老婆店貢獻了中國餐飲行業將近60%的市場份額。所以做連鎖的話，Be sure to study the survival status of the mom-and-pop shops around you.
Why is it so hard to eat? I'll summarize a few points:
firstThe food and beverage industry chain is too complex and lengthy.From the front end, there is not only procurement and production, but also the back end has to build channels. For the pure takeaway model, it has proved difficult to develop in the past decade, first of all, you have to build a physical store, and then sell things after the store is built.
In contrast, the pure retail model is simpler, but many F&B outlets need to provide services. The reason why the milk tea industry is developing relatively fast is because milk tea does not need services, only retail attributes, while restaurants are not, customers need to sit down to eat, and merchants must provide corresponding services. This means that for the catering industry,A series of problems from the front-end to the back-end had to be solvedIt can be seen that its industrial chain is too complex.
secondThere can be no shortcomings in dry mealsTo sum up, there are four main requirements: First, you need to understand the brand; Second, the needUnderstand the product； Third, it is necessary to haveOperational capabilitiesThe profit model of a single store cannot be bad; Finally, be precise in your expansion strategy. In addition, the catering industry also has extremely high requirements for founders or teams, and product differentiation requirements are also relatively high.
In terms of expansion, the expansion of the catering industry has to build stores and stores by itself, and gradually achieve expansion.
There is a very typical feature of the catering industry,That is, the explicit threshold is extremely low, and the implicit threshold is extremely high。
Many people think that the threshold of the catering industry is very low, and my friends, especially those who have never done catering, are still saying at noon today that they think we are very comfortable to open a restaurant, and some people will even say that the industry they are engaged in now is not good, and the catering industry is good.
But in reality, there are very few people who can do a very good job of catering. This logic can actually be extended to all aspects of life, such as singing, anyone can shout at will, but if you want to participate in the competition and sing well, it is very difficult.
Next, I will share with you the growth logic of snack fast food from five dimensions.
firstBrand positioning。 When there are 10 stores in front of consumers at the same time, how to make them choose you among the many choices is crucial. For example, the positioning methodology of the red meal network is "doing catering, serving red meals", which is a typical preemptive positioning strategy; There is also Qianwei broth, which is positioned as "broth originating from Guangdong", which not only solves the problem of its own positioning, but also solves the problem of customer acquisition. To put it simply, under the same conditions of information communication, if you can do a good job of brand positioning, your customer acquisition ability will be stronger than that of your competitors.
But does the brand have to be a life-and-death competition? NotCompetition is not a zero-sum gameWhat the brand wants to solve is to let the various enterprisesEach is beautiful and mutually beneficial。
In the case of the Hamburg circuit in the United States, each brand has its own unique positioning. McDonald's is a typical mass fast food, synonymous with burgers, and a well-deserved leader in this category; Burger King is positioned as a large-portion burger, highlighting the "burger for adults"; Wendy's focuses on non-frozen burgers, emphasizing the use of fresh ingredients; SHAKE SHACK IS POSITIONED AS A HIGH-END BURGER, AND ITS STORES ARE OFTEN OPENED IN LUXURY LOCATIONS; Whereas, KFC is positioned as a fried chicken specialist.
secondCreate new categories。 Nowadays, if you want to create a new category in the field of snacks and fast food, it must be a category that exists in the market and does not have in your mind. For example, Su Xiaoliu's brand, we proposed a new category of Jiangnan dim sum, although the scale is not very large, but we think it is very competitive, and categories such as soup dumplings and xiaolongbao in Shanghai already exist in the minds of many consumers.
thirdGrab the categoryto become the first in the category. The future development trend of snack fast food is bound to become more and more subdivided, and the special snacks in various places have emerged and begun to move towards the national market. Once a local snack has successfully expanded outward, competitors are bound to follow suit. In the case of rice noodles, as long as one rice noodles brand develops, many other rice noodles brands will soon appear, and these competitors are not necessarily from the local area. After all, in the catering industry, practitioners are extremely keen on the ability to capture business opportunities.
Therefore, for brands, the key issue is how to seize the subdivision category and become synonymous with the category. In this process, brand building is crucial, which is related to whether the brand can occupy the leading position of the subdivided category in the fierce market competition and become the first choice of the category in the minds of consumers.
fourthproducts。 In the context of homogeneous competition in the consumer industry, consumers are often difficult to perceive the subtle differences of similar products, but in the field of catering, consumers have shown a high sensitivity to the differences in quality, flavor level and ingredients themselves. If the menu doesn't satisfy the consumer's taste, they may not give the store a second chance. This kind of "not delicious" evaluation is difficult to quantify, which makes the product particularly important in the catering industry.
It should be noted that some brands will focus on a single dish. This way of positioningThe advantages are obvious, and the start is fast, which can be more easily implanted in the minds of consumers. But it also carries a fatal risk, namelyThe life cycle of the product is shorter。
Taking sauerkraut fish as an example, when positioning a large single item at first, it was easy to start, but as the category was fried, a large number of consumers poured into the meal, and the change in consumption frequency was: at first it was eaten once a month, and after a year, it became once a year, and now it may not be eaten once a year. Therefore, when a brand positions a large item, it must carefully consider the issue of the product life cycle.
In addition, the positioning of the category should not be too broad, otherwise it will be difficult for consumers to remember, but if it is too extremely focused, it will face the dilemma of life cycle. thereforeThe height, width, length of the flavorThese are all factors that need to be considered in the catering industry.
The bottom-layer logic of snack fast food, on the one hand, isSolve the attributes that are just neededWhether it is rice or noodles, the fundamental attribute is the need for food and clothing. However, in today's highly competitive environment, snack fast food also has a direction of upgrading and iteration, namelyImprove product strength and achieve quality improvement, and then seize a part of the main meal.
Taking fast food as an example, many people's first impression of it is often that the taste is average, which can only solve the problem of food and clothing, but if it can improve the quality,Add some casual attributes, so that customers are willing to eat with friends and family in the evening or on weekends after satisfying their needs, which solves the problem of timeliness and also seizes part of the market share of the main meal.
Fifth, in the operation model of a single store, if there is no threshold for opening a store, the competitive barriers will inevitably point to "low-cost operation".The core requirement of low-cost operation is to "minimize the profit model of the store"。 What is Low Cost? That is, the store area is small, which also means that the rent is less, the decoration cost is low, and the number of employees is small, once the store area is large, the cost is difficult to control. Snack fast food is in line with the profit model of minimum cost, so snack fast food is the most competitive category in the entire catering industry, as well as dinner, group meals and so on.
Specifically, the minimum cost is mainly reflected in two aspects. On the one hand, yesPersonnel salaries and area related。 According to the relevant data of various catering enterprises, the proportion of personnel wages is about 36%; As high as the main service of Haidilao, the labor cost accounts for 0%, but its rent cost is relatively low.
Therefore, the labor cost is related to the post of this position, and the area is also related, compared with the snack bar of 150 square meters and the snack bar of 0 square meters, the labor cost accounts for a large gap. Once the area is large, it is difficult to reduce the labor cost, which can only be optimized but cannot change the entire layout.
On the other handRent is related to store size and brand influenceEnterprises with a large brand influence like Haidilao can more easily negotiate rents no matter where they are. However, most F&B brands struggle to achieve such an impact, so the relationship between rent and store size is more direct. For the catering industry, the rent of snacks and fast food accounts for about 15% of revenue, which is a reasonable level. But if the rent is more than 0%, it will be very difficult to make a profit.
In the past, there was a phenomenon in the catering industry: many brands looked glamorous and performed well, but they never made money. The reason for this is oftenThe area is too large, the rent is too high, and the investment cost is too high, resulting in difficulties in making a profit. If the proportion of rent can be controlled to about 8%, it is ideal, and if the rent can be reduced to 0%, then the savings of two or three percentage points directly translate into net profit margin.
There is also a very important indicator of revenue. The first is about costs, and the next is about revenue. There are many revenue metrics, butIn the end, the core indicator is the turnover rate。
The turnover rate is related to many factors, for example, the location of the store is very important, if your store is located in a transportation hub such as a railway station or the center of the exhibition hall or a densely populated place, the turnover rate will naturally be very high, however, the vast majority of stores do not have such conditions; The turnover rate is also related to the product strength, if your product is very good, it will naturally attract customers, thus increasing the turnover rate.
But in the vast majority of cases,The relationship between turnover rate and effective operating time is the most critical。目前，絕大部分餐廳的經營時間集中在中午12點到下午1點半，或者晚上6點到7點半左右。如何延長有效的上班時間才是需要解決的問題，而不是糾結於中午一個半小時內有多少人光顧。
比如，能不能從上午10點開始營業，一直持續到下午2點；或者晚上從6點營業到8點。只有拉長有效經營時間，才能真正提高營收，而翻台率則是最核心的環節。
Which brands in the F&B industry can achieve 24-hour operation?
One is McCann's two, and the other is Haidilao. Back then, a lot of fast-food brands imitated KFC and McDonald's, I call them"I didn't have the life of a princess, but I was sick with a princess"。 Because KFC and McDonald's stores are very large, these brands have also increased the store area to three or four hundred square meters, and finally found that it may only be full at noon on Saturday, and the usual attendance rate is less than 60%, but the costs of rent, labor and utilities must be paid.
In China, KFC and McDonald's should not be understood simply as fast food, but more like casual meals. Their consumption scene is very rich, you can eat breakfast, you can eat at noon, you can drink afternoon tea and chat in the afternoon, and some people take their children to consume on weekends. In first- and second-tier cities, the market dominance of KFC and McDonald's may be slightly weaker.But in third-, fourth- and fifth-tier cities, they still have a strong market influence。
This is also a big reason why they are able to achieve high revenues, KFC can achieve 18% net profit, its effective working hours are long enough, and even provide 0 hours of service, and it has achieved a lot of success just by operating for 0 hours during the day.
Another brand that can achieve 24 hours of business is Haidilao. Haidilao's 0-hour business model is also worth learning from. However, for other brands, whether 0 hours of business will bring in enough revenue is a question to consider.
For snacks and fast foods,Give it a "casual" attribute and maximize effective business hours, is an urgent problem to solve, even if it is just a half-hour extension of business hours, it can increase revenue.
The core of expansion is organizational power, from 1000 stores to 0, to 0, and even 0, the organizational power required is completely different.Quantitative change leads to qualitative change。
I summarized the three curves of snack fast food expansion, and at the beginning, there were more than a dozen stores, twenty or thirty stores were the most comfortable, because these stores were concentrated in one city, and the boss could manage them alone, and there was no need for professional supply chain support, so the cost was very low and the profit was very high.
But once the boss goes out to study and comes back to become bigger and stronger, the brand is likely to go downhill. Because once you start expanding, you will go to other cities. In the local city, the brand may have some influence, but in the new city, the brand influence is almost zero, and the brand cannot rely on brand drainage.
Then, the question follows: First, the needBuild a supply chain； Secondly, toIntroduce a management system； Third, the needHire an outside personto form a professional management team. With these changes, all costs such as labor costs and supply chain costs are rising, but the profitability of a single store cannot be improved at the same time. As a result, overall profitability began to decline.
When the number of stores reaches 200 to 0, it is the most difficult stage. At this time, opening a new store may not make money, nor will it be open or closed. So expansion is strategic, not arbitrary.
We also propose the impossible expansion triangle model,In the case of rapid expansion, quality locations and low rents cannot be achieved at the same timeIf you want to expand quickly and have low rents, you won't be able to get high-quality points; If you want to expand quickly + high-quality points, it is impossible to get low rent, and if you want high-quality points and low rents, it is absolutely impossible to expand quickly.
What is Rapid Expansion? To put it simply, the ratio of the number of new stores to the number of old stores is greater than 100:0. For example, if you have 0 old stores and you want to open 0 new stores at the same time, this means that an old store manager needs to bring out a new store manager.
This model is difficult, and many brands have experienced similar challenges. We prefer a relatively reasonable expansion model. For example, if there are 50 old stores this year, and 0 new stores will be added next year, and two old stores will lead a new store, which will be more stable.
At the same time, we have also seen more brands reluctant to close after opening new stores, and finally dragging themselves to death step by step.
To sum up, there are two main ways to break through the snack fast food:Or hug the big tree, join some mature head brands, and seek profit margins in a large system;To do differentiation, like a husband-and-wife shop, inject ingenuity, seek product differentiation, and exert its strength in areas that the head is not good at.(This article is a transcript of the speech of Wu Zhiwei, founder of Plank Road Capital & Wu Zhiwei Brand Positioning Consulting, at the "2025 China Catering Industry Festival", compiled and released by Red Meal.com.) ）