Why did Haidilao close 300 stores? In 20 19 alone, 308 new restaurants were opened in Haidilao, with a total of 768 stores. Faced with the declining turnover rate, Haidilao chose to close some stores. Why did Haidilao close 300 stores?

Why did Haidilao close 300 stores1165438+1On October 5th, Haidilao announced that it decided to gradually close 300 Haidilao stores with relatively low passenger flow and unsatisfactory business performance before 12 3 1.

At the same time, Haidilao also released the "Woodpecker" plan, aiming at rectifying the stores with poor business performance.

This is the first time that Haidilao has opened such a large-scale store closing tide since its listing. According to Haidilao's previous financial report, as of June 30th, 20021,Haidilao had 1597 global stores. Based on this calculation, the number of closed stores accounts for about 18.8% of the total number of stores.

Haidilao sent a letter to friends who care about Haidilao through the official Weibo, explaining the main reasons why the performance of some stores of the company failed to meet expectations.

Including the unreasonable location of some newly opened stores, the change of internal organizational structure, which makes managers at all levels "incomprehensible and exhausted", the lack of excellent store managers, the excessive belief in KPI indicators linked to "interests" and the lack of corporate culture construction have all become the reasons why Haidilao needs to slow down.

But can closing 300 stores solve these problems?

"Woodpecker" Plan in Haidilao

The financial report shows that in just 20 19 years, Haidilao opened 308 new restaurants, with a total of 768 stores, and the turnover rate was stable at 4.8 times a day. By 202 1, there were 1597 shops in Haidilao, and the layout gradually shifted from first-tier cities to second-,third-tier and below cities, but the turnover rate has dropped to three times a day.

Faced with the declining turnover rate, Haidilao chose to close some stores.

In terms of closing standards, Haidilao said that it would comprehensively consider factors such as the maturity of the external business circle where the store is located, the passenger flow, the density around the store, and the financial indicators of a single store. "The average turnover rate has not reached 4 times/day. In principle, there will be no new branches on a large scale."

While shrinking stores, Haidilao will also carry out a series of internal structural adjustments. Including strengthening some functional departments, restoring regional management system and strengthening internal management and assessment mechanism.

Haidilao called this broken arm survival move "Woodpecker Plan". "Woodpeckers are good at finding pests under bark and are tenacious. The relevant person in charge of Haidilao said this when talking about this plan.

Now many Haidilao shops have long lost the bustling scene of long queues. All this may be attributed to the original expansion strategy.

Why did Haidilao close 300 stores? Haidilao's industry is surging. According to the consulting data of Ai Media, the market scale of China hot pot industry will reach 499.8 billion yuan in 20021year, up by 18% year-on-year, and it is estimated that the market scale of hot pot catering will reach 641300 million yuan in 2024.

The prospect seems bright, but in fact, the concentration of hot pot industry is very low. According to the report of China Commercial Industry Research Institute, the concentration of China hot pot market is only 5.5%, and giants such as Haidilao only occupy 2.2% of the market, which is bound to be a hot market.

"The biggest dilemma faced by hot pot catering at present is the serious homogenization and fierce competition, so the hot pot category has been extremely subdivided, and almost every single product has a main and deputy brand." Su Peng, an observer of catering industry and founder of chopsticks thinking, told AI Finance & Economics that hot pot is the largest category of Chinese food, and the track of this category is wide enough, the market capacity is large, the industrial chain is mature and easy to copy, and the format does not need chefs, so everyone gathers in hot pot.

From the product point of view, like Haidilao, in the case of poor state, relying on its high-end hot pot brand to pull back a game, make up the newly launched crab powder yellow croaker pot this year, and win the attention of many young consumers with exotic ingredients; Yuwang has gained a lot of fans by relying on healthy Cantonese hot pot and imported dishes.

The old rival Banu clearly emphasized productism, reduced SKUs, eliminated large and complete dishes, focused on hairy belly, and even opened stores directly next to Haidilao in several shopping malls in the first-tier cities of Beishangguang. Du, the founder of Banu, also revealed that the high-consumption groups, mainly Haidilao, are also the targets that Banu hopes to cover.

Emerging rivals are also rising and starting to compete for creativity. Jiumaojiu, the parent company of Taier pickled fish, settled in Sichuan-Chongqing Hot Pot, the largest sub-category in the hot pot industry, and launched "Chongqing Hot Pot Factory" in August 2020, emphasizing that there is no charge for tea places, paper towels and seasonings. In September 2020, Box Horse also registered the trademark of "Box Horse Hot Pot" and entered the hot pot market, focusing on creative pot bottoms such as sour radish old duck, spring mutton, lamb chops and sheep tail pot bottoms.

In addition to hot pot restaurants, retail hot pot restaurants are also here. For example, the brand has opened more than 7,000 stores to promote "eating hot pot at home", saying that its price is 40%-60% lower than that of restaurants and 30%-40% lower than that of supermarkets, and it has won capital bets from CMB International and Tiantu Capital.

Many brands choose to cut in from subdivided tracks and pay attention to differentiated management. Haidilao is still that Haidilao. At the exchange meeting with investors in June this year, some investors asked Zhang Yong that the service of Haidilao was good, but the taste was average. How to consider the taste?

Zhang Yong's answer is, "There is a difference between catering and rockets. Rockets have standards, but the catering industry has no standards. It's just that some enterprises emphasize taste, but we don't. Looking at the report, our marketing expenses are zero. " The implication is that Haidilao just didn't spend money to promote products.

On June 5438+ 10 this year, Xu, a strategic positioning expert, told the media that if a hot pot brand wants to be invincible, it must always take consumers as the center and provide high-end value. If there is only high-end price, but the service, management, dishes, catering, standardization and so on can not keep up, and finally can only go down.

At present, the price system of Haidilao is still high among similar brands. The company's financial report shows that in 2020, the per capita consumption of Haidilao has increased to 1 16 yuan, and the per capita consumption of first-tier cities has reached 1 16 yuan. However, 20021Report on the Survival of Hot Pot Market points out that only 33% hot pot brands spend 80- 100 yuan per capita, and 46% hot pot restaurants spend 50-80 yuan per capita.

At this point, Zhang Yong once soberly discovered on 20 18, "If customers say that sea fishing is not delicious, it may actually be that the price is too expensive." In March 2020, Haidilao, which was shut down for two months after the epidemic, raised the price of ingredients. A Beijing diner found that half of blood donation rose from 16 yuan to 23 yuan, and half of potato chips 13 yuan, which was counted as a potato 1.5 yuan; Self-help seasoning 10 yuan alone; A bowl of rice in 7 yuan.

From a commercial point of view, the cost rises during the epidemic, and the price increase of Haidilao seems reasonable, but consumers are very sensitive to the price. After the incident was exposed, Haidilao had to continue its usual style and apologize immediately, saying that the price increase was the wrong decision of the management and the price was restored to the level before the closure.

According to the data of Haidilao's mid-year report this year, as of June 30th, the per capita customer price of the store has dropped from 1 12.8 yuan in the same period last year to 107.3 yuan.

From the business point of view, when the average turnover rate is less than 4 times/day, it is decided to adjust and shrink stores and stop opening new stores on a large scale, while the price increase channels are relatively narrow. Compared with the product direction of peers, Haidilao dishes are relatively few, and there is still no irreplaceable place in the segmentation field. Now, we still rely more on service and feelings to move forward.

But for some diners, Haidilao is still a choice that lacks characteristics, but it will not go wrong.

1On the evening of October 5th11p.m., the familiar birthday blessing song rang at Haidilao store in the East Fifth Ring Road in Beijing. As usual, the shop assistants waved light signs and smiled to help customers celebrate their birthdays.

At the dinner table, young diners are not surprised by this, but at least, tonight will be spent without mistakes.

Why did Haidilao close 300 stores more than three years ago, Haidilao took Haidilao to the altar with a book called "Haidilao You Can't Learn".

From then on, people will pay more attention to Haidilao. As long as there is any unexpected service in Haidilao, it will be recorded by netizens with a lens.

For example, some time ago, some employees of Haidilao actually helped their children with their homework in the restaurant. I am afraid this kind of service is what parents want. After all, tutoring homework is a big problem. What is even more outrageous is that the restaurant waiter came to coach, which was really unexpected, so he went on a hot search.

However, please don't give up everything. The core competitiveness of hot pot restaurants must be the food itself. The food is not delicious and the service is good. I'm afraid it won't help.

Unfortunately, Haidilao didn't give people too many surprises in the taste of the food itself. Many netizens said that it is no different from other hot pot restaurants, and the taste can only be said to be quite satisfactory.

For many socially fearful consumers, they don't want to be over-served. They prefer to eat better food than their peers, that's all.

This is the difficulty of hot pot restaurant. It's really difficult to distinguish products. After all, they are all raw products. What really sets them apart is the snacks, desserts and seasonings in the restaurant.

Some consumers who are familiar with Haidilao said that the types of spices in Haidilao are not as rich as before, and many free ingredients have been cancelled.

There is really not much room for Haidilao to play, but Haidilao is not aware of this problem.

In addition, when there are few shops in Haidilao, people can show their taste and personality by eating Haidilao. However, when Haidilao blossomed everywhere, Haidilao has become an ordinary restaurant, and its previous advantages have disappeared. What is even more cruel is that there will also be competition between shops in Haidilao, resulting in a continuous decline in the turnover rate.

It is understood that the average turnover rate of sea fishing in 20 19 is 4.8 times/day. In 2020, the epidemic impact will drop to 3.5 times/day, and the turnover rate will drop to 3 times/day in 20021year.

Haidilao without turnover rate is like a fish without air, only a dead end.

In China catering industry, don't be superstitious about myths, any brand will encounter bottlenecks, and how to break through is an eternal topic!