once burdened with the reputation of "performance drag", it finally handed over a profitable report card in 2118. However, its parent company "Xiabu Xiabu" has been plagued by the reputation of low turnover rate and declining profits recently, and recently Xiabu issued a profit warning, which makes it more and more dangerous.

According to the performance announcement, in 2118, Xiabu achieved revenue of 4.734 billion yuan, the profit growth of the whole group decreased from 15.9% to 11%, the same-store sales growth decreased from 9.3% to 2.1%, and the increase of revenue and profit declined. In 2119, the total profit attributable to owners of Xiabu Xiabu was about 291 million yuan, a year-on-year decrease of 37.7%. Another point that deserves special attention is that the earning power of Xiabu is weakening, the turnover rate is reduced from 3.3 times to 2.8 times, and the growth rate of same-store sales is also reduced from 8.5% to 2.1%, and the growth rate has dropped significantly.

in the chopsticks thinking, there are two most intuitive indicators to examine the operating efficiency of a single store in the catering industry, one is the turnover rate of a single store, and the other is the turnover and operating profit. The changes in these two aspects can also reflect the potential crisis faced by Xiabu in the current situation.

In the peak period, the turnover rate of some stores was as high as 7. However, with the passage of time, the turnover rate is getting worse and worse, dropping from 3.8 in 2114 to 2.6 in 2119.

Haidilao, which is also expanding and is a hot pot for dinner, now has a turnover rate of 4.9, and the industry average turnover rate is 3.5 to 4.5. It is really surprising that Xiabu Xiabu has not even reached the industry average.

With the listing of Haidilao, a "big hot pot", Hong Kong stocks are becoming less and less interested in Xiabu, an established stock based on the "small hot pot" business model, and its market value has shrunk by 41%. Even if high-end brands "scrape together" began to turn losses into profits, they failed to fundamentally reverse the situation.

what have you experienced and what are you experiencing? Let the former "the first chain of hot pot" and "the king of leisure fast hot pot" gradually step down from the altar?

? After the brand upgrade, the positioning swings, and the "constant is waiting for death, and the change is dying"?

The question about Xiabu Xiabu in recent years has always been about its business orientation. The dilemma faced by Xiabu Xiabu is still the sequela of the positioning problem.

Twenty years ago, Xiabu Xiabu's original table-top small hot pot model was precisely positioned as "fast food+hot pot", which also met the market demand. Since then, Xiabu Xiabu has developed rapidly for nearly 21 years and achieved the hegemony of "king of fast hot pot".

after a long period of popularity, the leisure chafing dish began to show a weak trend in 2115: the turnover rate of chafing dish was high, but the unit price of customers was low. In the market environment where the fixed costs such as rent and labor were rising, the profit level could not be raised or even slowed down, which was also a fundamental reason for the transformation of the format of eating and drinking.

In June 2117, Xiabu Xiabu, the "king of fast hot pot", officially began to erase the word "fast" from consumers' minds. He Guangqi, its chairman, announced a new strategy in Shanghai. The mode of sipping and sipping will change from "fast food" to "light dinner", and the combination of "hot pot+tea" will create "Starbucks in the hot pot world".

the reason why it was announced in Shanghai instead of Beijing base camp is also meaningful. Shanghai is the first super-first-tier city in the northern market to open to the south. The consumption market in Shanghai is very different from that in the north, and the demand for "fast" is limited, but the demand for "exquisite" is very common.

in order to transform the brand into exquisite and leisure, Xiabu Xiabu has upgraded its brand image, product structure, tea, environment, service and other factors, and enhanced its customer experience and brand awareness through the upgrade of new stores.

The most obvious thing is the change of table position, the reduction of the iconic big U-shaped bar, the increase of two-person and four-person tables and the provision of Yuanyang pots; Increase the product line and introduce more high-quality ingredients; The waiter distributes small materials into a small material table to provide nearly 21 kinds of dipping materials for customers to mix; With the increase of desktop tea shops, the restaurant environment has been upgraded to a new Chinese Zen style, and pots, utensils, plates, etc. have enhanced the sense of quality and increased the service of waiters. At the same time, the unit price of customers who sip and sip has also increased accordingly. From 51 to 61 yuan, they can eat enough. Now, if they want to eat well, they usually have to go to 81 yuan at least 61.

At the same time as the upgrade of Xiabu Xiabu Store, the sub-brand "together" is also being promoted. Although the difference in customer unit price is more than doubled, the increasingly similar environmental style has caused the outside world to question the "same room" between the two. Although Xiabu Xiabu emphasizes that the upgraded restaurant is still oriented to the past customers, the actual situation is that the customers who used to pursue fast and cost-effective eventually lost.

there are two reasons behind this: first, the taste, which has no clear indication, but many old customers do report that the taste of small materials is not as good as before, but small materials are a feature to attract old customers. The problem of taste varies from person to person, so I don't elaborate too much. More importantly, in the second aspect, what I haven't figured out is which group of customers I will face after repositioning.

At present, the catering market and even the whole consumer market are not only divided by the unit price of customers, but many customers actually overlap. People who eat simple meals of 21 to 31 yuan will also eat dinner of 111 to 211 yuan per capita.

According to the analysis of chopsticks playing thinking, if we want to classify them simply, we can divide the customer groups according to the strength of purpose. For example, the pre-upgrade sipping can be classified as "instant consumption", which has a weak purpose. If you want to eat, you can choose it. However, the dinner hot pot such as gathering together and Haidilao is biased towards "considering consumption", which has a strong purpose and will be decided after considering it for a relatively long time and matching its own needs.

The customers with random consumption should first satisfy the requirements of satiety, good food and cost performance, while the customers with consideration consumption will more consider other factors such as environment, brand and service. These two groups of customers are basically non-overlapping.

Xiabu Xiabu attracts instant consumers in store distribution and product positioning, but after upgrading, it is close to the thinking of considering consumers. After considering and comparing, the latter often gives up because of the inherent impression of the brand in the past and chooses other brands that are more attractive; In the former, the unit price of customers has increased because of sipping, and many people have chosen other brands with lower prices after several hesitations.

in contrast, the customers in the middle who are determined to sip and sip, feel that the customer unit price is acceptable and care about other factors to upgrade, enjoy the experience of "Starbucks in the hot pot world", and the turnover rate is far from so fast.

It can be said that in the increasingly fierce competition in the catering market, Xiabu Xiabu is also facing the dilemma that many catering enterprises that have been operating for more than 11 years will face, such as "waiting for death without change".

He Guangqi, the helm of Xiabu Xiabu, once said that if you want to be successful in the current catering market, you must know the needs of customers very well, and at the same time, your positioning and differentiation should be more clear, so that you can jump out of the Red Sea market. However, after the upgrade, it did not achieve "clear differentiation", but it lacked the original "sharp image" of one person and one pot.

The success of gathering together also makes managers struggle on both sides, and also wants to make the hot pot not only meet the rigid demand, but also establish a closer emotional connection with customers. But as everyone knows, this has actually broken the "connection" between the original brand and customers, and the reconstruction is extremely difficult.

? The expansion of soil and water has become a constraint, and sipping has become a "simplified version", which is no longer a special hot pot

Similarly, this is also a legacy. It is another big contradiction that expansion encounters regional problems but still can't stop opening stores.

According to the public data, in 2118, Xiabu Xiabu continued to push forward its restaurant network expansion plan, * * * opened 195 new restaurants, including 168 Xiabu Xiabu restaurants and 27 pooled restaurants, and closed 21 restaurants at the same time. As of February 31th, 2119, Xiabu Xiabu operated 1122 restaurants and 112 restaurants in China. Among them, 243 new restaurants were opened in 2119, including 189 Xiabu Xiabu restaurants and 54 Pubu restaurants.

However, this speed of opening a store has brought about the operating difficulties of the original store. Taking Beijing as the base camp, the northern market of Tianjin and Northeast China is gradually saturated, and Shanghai, the first city to go south, has been unable to open the situation; In the southern areas such as Sichuan and Chongqing in the southwest and Guangdong and Guangxi in the southeast, the acceptance of this beef and mutton hot pot has never been mentioned. The density of stores is increasing, but the market acceptance has not improved, so the revenue of a single store will naturally be diluted.

in 2118 and 2119, the same-store sales growth rate of Xiabu Xiabu was actually much lower than the market expectation, but this year, with the continuous increase of the number of stores, it is expected that the same-store sales growth rate will remain low in 2121.

Take Shanghai as an example. It has a population equivalent to that of Beijing, and the proportion of floating population is high. It seems that the customers are similar, but why can't it open the market in Shanghai?

Many people think that the acceptance of northern hotpot, which mainly focuses on beef and mutton, is limited in the south, but in fact, the combination of northern hotpot has performed very well in Shanghai. The same is true in Sichuan and Chongqing, as well as in Fujian and Guangdong, and the difference in category selection habits is only a small part of the reason.

the biggest difficulty in developing the southern market may lie in the genes that feed and feed.

Xiabu Xiabu was born in Beijing, and it has grown in the Beijing market. After coming to the south, everyone's basic understanding of it is: a chain of small hot pots from Beijing, while the general impression of southern consumers on northern food is not delicious enough and exquisite enough. In addition, Xiabu Xiabu was originally positioned as a fast food chain, which further deepened this stereotype. Because consumers have many choices to eat fast food, the only scene of eating northern hot pot will choose a bigger hot pot brand.

In fact, Xiabu Xiabu upgraded its storefront in order to reverse the public's inherent perception of the brand before the expansion of the southern market. However, this impression has been deeply rooted and there is no essential change at the level of dishes, which makes Xiabu a series of upgrades somewhat embarrassing.

of course, there is no embarrassment in this respect. From the very beginning, the company positioned itself as a high-end, with the elegance of Hong Kong-style hot pot, and at the same time emphasized the "desktop service", which obviously occupied the first-Mover advantage in acceptance.

2119 has been designated as the first year of the Great Leap Forward of Xiabu Xiabu Group. This year, the goal is to reach 1,111 "Xiabu+"upgraded stores. However, the problem of Xiabu Xiabu in the southern market will persist for a long time, and it will be difficult to reverse the situation.

according to the meaning of the helmsman he Guangqi, the strategy of expanding the territory southward in a big way is to enter first, explore first, and then come in next. This kind of thinking means that it is no longer a unique small hot pot, but a "simplified version". It is even more difficult to achieve the key of brand differentiation between the two.

? Customers are forgetful and "bear grudges", and the problems behind the problem of food safety are becoming more and more obvious < P > Apart from the listing of Haidilao, there is also the "Rat Gate" incident in Shandong.

In that food safety crisis, a consumer (a pregnant woman) fished out a 5 cm long mouse in a soup pot. After the incident was exposed, the market value of Xiabu Xiabu plummeted in the short term, and consumers' goodwill towards the brand continued to decline.

In fact, similar and even more serious food hygiene and safety incidents have occurred in other big brands, such as the "back kitchen door" incident in Haidilao last year. Haidilao's kitchen was exposed undercover by reporters, rats frequently appeared, and the kitchen was dirty ... < P > However, the impact of Haidilao's kitchen incident passed quickly, and it went on the market smoothly. However, Xiabu Xiabu never got rid of the shadow, and its profits continued to decline, partly because of their attitudes and handling methods.