Interface news reporter | Lu Yibei
Interface news editor | Ya Hanxiang
Internet celebrity noodle restaurants have quietly put down their bodies.
In the past, they relied on higher-end decoration, brand vision, and stores in shopping malls to sell a bowl of noodles for more than 30 yuan. However, as cost-effective catering consumption becomes the mainstream demand, many brands are consciously using various methods to lower the overall order price.
For example, among the new products launched by Hefu Noodles on December 15, there are many products priced below 30 yuan, such as angelica pork bone soup with plum meat, bamboo shoots, truffle mushrooms and other soup noodles priced at 25- 29 yuan, and the promotion of "Selected Workers" is also used in marketing and promotion. Judging from the overall menu structure, Hefu Lo Mian currently has about 20 SKUs of noodles and rice products, 8 of which are priced below 30 yuan, and 5 of the nearly 7 SKUs in the snack category are below 10 yuan.
But in the past, the unit price of this brand could be as high as 40-50 yuan. On Dianping.com’s menu last October, among 16 noodle and rice products, only one, premium beef noodles, was priced below 30 yuan.
The price reduction of Xiaomian seems even more fierce.
The work meals it will launch in September 2023 will be reduced to less than 20 yuan across the board. This activity continues to this day, and in the second half of the year, Meet Xiaomian successively launched marketing activities such as 11.1 yuan noodle coupons and 9.9 afternoon tea. Currently, there are about 30 SKUs in the menu of Meet Xiaomian, including noodles, rice and other staple food categories, half of which cost less than 30 yuan per unit.
Overall, 30 yuan seems to be a watershed.
A survey by iiMedia Consulting shows that Chinese consumers are mostly concerned about the price of Chinese fast food in the 20 yuan price range. Among them, 43.7% of people have a budget of less than 20 yuan, and 85.2% of people accept a price of no more than 30 yuan. However, in the past, brands often charged 30-40 yuan per customer, which made it easy for such rice and noodle brands to get cold feet in the market when they expanded.
However, brands that are now trying to lower their profile do not directly reduce prices, but strengthen their appeal through product portfolio adjustments or promotional activities.
Li Xuelin, the founder of Hefu Laomian, said in August this year that the brand has made many actions in 2023, including price stratification and increasing the proportion of products within 30 yuan. In addition, it also operates multi-dimensional and granular membership operations, such as high-end crab noodles priced at 108 yuan, and provides a 38 yuan discount to some customers.
Price reduction is not an easy task for these Internet celebrity noodle restaurants.
narrow-door restaurant data shows that 76.9% of Hefu Laomian stores are located in shopping malls, and the proportions of first-tier and new first-tier cities in urban distribution are 45.5% and 30.6% respectively; 61.6% of Yanmei Xiaomian stores are open in shopping malls. 75% of the distribution is opened in the first line; in addition, the proportion of Chen Xianggui Lanzhou Beef Noodles Mall stores also exceeds 71%.
This also means that the cost of Internet celebrity noodle restaurants is not low. "Adjusting price bands for chain catering brands is a systematic project. Whether it is an upward or downward adjustment, it requires the adjustment of the corresponding store model, so we are very cautious." Long Zhen, a franchise evaluation expert and founder of Jiameng Data, told Jiemian News explain.
But they have to adjust their prices to keep themselves alive.
"The price war in the catering industry this year makes people very anxious. Sometimes I also wonder whether Chen Xianggui should also lower the price to 9.9 yuan. But after thinking calmly, I found that this is not a wise decision." Chen Xianggui Lanzhou Li Yang, CMO of the beef noodle brand, said in a recent public speech, "Brands need to pay attention to competition in the same price range, rather than constantly lowering prices."
In fact, Chen Xianggui is also currently launching some more cost-effective products. For example, the 9.9 yuan Roujiamo is cheaper than the market price of about 13 yuan in the business district, but it is still not comparable to the street price. In addition, this brand also opened franchising in November this year.
However, price drops mean that brands not only have to compete for consumers, but also convince more franchisees. It also tests the foundations of supply chain, standardization, management and operations.
Meet Xiaomian rarely discloses its operations to the outside world. Judging from the current public information, it has also carried out cost reduction and efficiency improvement in the past year. One of them is to form an internal technical core team to improve user dining experience and improve store efficiency. .Therefore, labor costs can be reduced to a certain extent.
For now, after brands have adjusted their prices, they have also consciously improved their expansion efficiency and used their scale advantages to dilute supply chain costs.
"We are now at the time when the number of brand stores is the highest." Su Xuxiang, co-founder of Meet Xiaomian, told Jiemian News that the current total number of this brand's stores is 250. In July not long ago, it announced its expansion plan when it had 200 stores. In the future It will open 100 new stores a year, focusing on cities and regions in the Yangtze River Delta. In addition, it will also explore the Hong Kong market this year.
Chen Xianggui recently disclosed that operating income from January to November 2023 increased by 62% year-on-year. As of November 2023, Chen Xianggui has opened 72 new stores this year, plus 13 planned to open in December, bringing the number of new stores throughout the year to 85; Hefu Laomian has 441 stores in May, and its public account by November It was announced that the total number of stores has exceeded 500. Previously, Hefu Lo Noodles issued an internal letter in the middle of the year stating that in the first half of 2023, Hefu Lo Noodles' revenue and the number of new stores hit a record high, and its single-month revenue continued to rise.
Now that Internet celebrity noodle restaurants are quietly cutting prices, the uncertainty of the general environment and the pressure of high catering costs are posing more challenges to brands. After adjusting the price band, how to gain scale advantage in the fiercely competitive fast food track is also a question they must think about.
