Leisure food independent Electric Dealer "ground gas" and die

How many people will remember? In 2011, there was a wave of the failure of the electric business in the industry. In that year, the fall of the West Rice net, Amoy Magpie nets, love picky nets, hot shellfish nets, 72 change snack net, postponed to now, there are 24 of small food, do not eat snacks, fruit beans bar, ant sinks, other unknown small sites are countless.

Casual food, also known as snacks, careful observation, you will find that the sale of such goods have several characteristics:

First, the South has developed better than the north. Many famous leisure food chain brands are produced in the south, such as Shanghai's "to Iraq", Hong Kong's "excellent Products", "0 food language."

The second to 0th food franchise entity store develops well. Especially in the streets and lanes of the northern city, you can find a lot of nuts and nuts franchise stores, the road is slightly better, you can see people lined up to buy. In the south, it goes without saying that there are fifty or sixty "0 food-language" chains in a tiny tiny place like Hong Kong. Entity shop is the most pursuit of real profits, if the level of profit is not high, has long been closed.

Third, online, cat, Taobao and other platform stores than independent shop development well. Leisure food to move online to sell is not without the future, at least on the big platform Taobao, there are countless casual food stores, there are a lot of good business.

However, why the independent electric business of leisure food can not do it? Once popular in Beijing white-collar office snack electric Shang Ximi net from the birth to the death of the story may explain some problems.

Entrepreneurs are small, don't inflate.

The West Meter net is forced out. One day in 2008, entrepreneurs Liu Wandering on the streets of Beijing, at a loss. He had just freed himself from the last failed venture, with only 8000 dollars left in his bank card. But what can you do with 8000 dollars? He looked at the bustling working crowd, thinking of his girlfriend at a bank in Jinrongjie to eat a snack but lazy to buy the habit, suddenly had a business idea, as if to sell snacks to these office white-collar.

This is really a small-profits job. Take a website, for it male Liu, have little cost. Take 5000 yuan into some biscuits, plum, pistachios and other delicious and small snacks, and then spend 3000 yuan to print colorful pages of advertising, color on the page of the snack pictures appear beautifully attractive. The starting area does not need to be too big, a white-collar population is dense enough business circle on the line, for example Jinrongjie. January 28, 2009, when Liu with pioneering partners in the vicinity of Jinrongjie Subway mouth, Junction issued more than 500 ads, opened on the first day to attract more than 50 orders, Liu know, this time he can be made of the West meter net.

Now it seems that the network can successfully rely on the precise positioning and careful service. For office white-collar workers, the west meter nets more than 200 kinds of girls love to eat dried fruit, candied fruit and peas and other snacks gathered together, formed a very impact of the snack site, and boldly put forward the "office snack" concept, the price is unified 10 yuan or 20 yuan, which for the girl who is too troublesome, Saved a lot of time and mood of calculation.

In the cost control aspect, the West meter net also uses the bulk purchase, then the small box, the small package, pastes on own brand label, some snacks also very carefully sends a wet paper towel, has promoted the popularity, also promoted the profit margin. For some not willing to online shopping white-collar, from 2009 onwards, the West Meter network in Beijing's main business district of the shopping malls laid shop shop. "Open in the mall, to ensure that people flow, do quickly eliminate the greatest need is the flow of people, at the same time like shopping malls young people are also with the West Rice customer positioning, accurate to reflect in all aspects." "Liu said.

Network plus entity shop parallel, by May 2010, with Office white-collar virus Word-of-mouth spread and mass media coverage, the West Meter network "office snacks" in Beijing has a certain degree of visibility. According to the media disclosed at the time, the West meter net in 2009 to achieve sales revenue of 7 million yuan, as at the end of May 2010, sales revenue has exceeded 6 million yuan, registered membership number of more than 300,000.

Its time is the rise of the group buying site, the West Meter network and hot group buying site to promote cooperation. According to Liu's recollection, with the United States Regiment of that single, its group buys the number to reach more than 3,000 people, the attention degree is very high. When the Cimetidine net order more than 300 orders per day, the West Meter network in the logistics and distribution of the mishap presented. Neither speed nor guarantee the integrity of the product packaging.

Liu boldly chose to build logistics and warehousing, in Beijing, the main business Circle commitment 2 hours delivery, in Zhongguancun, Fuxing Gate and Sanyuan Bridge shipped near. By the bus point of departure from the inspiration, the West Meter network also stipulates delivery 30-40 minutes to go out once, to ensure that the three-ring within two hours of delivery. At that time, Beijing Television has a program is concerned about the speed of distribution, invited the West Meter network to participate. After the program broadcast, the West meter net 2 hour distribution becomes the bright spot, has greatly promoted the consumer's shopping experience.

The Dark Horse Reviews: self-built logistics and warehousing are Liu's fatal failures, it is like van, Jingdong, such as the big electric platform talent things, it has a wealth of channels and goods turnover experience, to be able to accurately balance the scale and cost of business, blindly build logistics and warehousing is easy to get themselves into the "cost black hole", Death doesn't know how to die at last.

In the rapid development of the West Meter network, Liu also frequently began to contact with the wind. According to Liu's assumption, if the financing smoothly in place, the West meter net from 2011 will be in Shanghai, Shenzhen and Guangzhou three successively on-line.

According to the Liu interview: "The West meter network needs to quickly seize the wider market." At the same time, we have opened four in Beijing, the entity shop under the line, although it is out of publicity and enhance the user experience of the consideration, but also do not rule out online and offline combination of the development model. On the other hand, Cimetidine has added fresh fruit, tea drinks and other channels, office snacks is only the starting point for development. Next, Cimetidine wants to gradually expand into other categories, eventually becoming a professional food-for-goods website. Like buying a book, buying clothes will think of Vancl, one day, you need to buy food, you first will think of, is the West Rice. ”

A dark Horse comments: Open entity shop is another big mistake. The IT-born Liu team didn't have the experience of having a physical store, the above mentioned a lot like "come to Iraq" and other street snack shops can make money and earn a lot, but that needs in the category selection, location, decoration and even store promotions and so have a wealth of experience, it is not a overnight can be practiced. Although Liu imagined very well, line online under the combination, similar to the O2O (online to offline) mode, but on the line did not achieve the ultimate, the funds are not in place, hastily dispersed resources to do the offline entity shop, it is not their own death? What's more, the West metre rashly expands the category to the fruit, the tea product and so on, Fruit is a perishable category, where snacks like dried fruit are easy to control costs?

However, not to enter the wind, October 27, 2011, the West meter net home hanging out notice, announced "Curtain call", Liu said "casual snack this industry, the value of each kilogram is too low, resulting in logistics costs are too high, so the sales are very large but has been unable to profit the plight." After more than 2 years of hard work, I decided to change my business and change my life-style. Finally made a decision to close the snack business, the cruelty ...

Cimetidine death is inevitable, not death is a miracle

West Meter Network is a small cost of entrepreneurship, the typical enterprise, it can be 8000 yuan start-up funds, within 1 years to quickly achieve 7 million yuan income is really a bit of dog luck.

The reason for the death of the West Rice, the above has summed up two----to build logistics and warehousing, let themselves too fast into the "cost black hole", open the physical shop and introduce the consumption of perishable fruits and other categories, increase the company's operating costs, so that the company cash flow quickly tense.

Of course, it is another cause of death that the VCs are not drawn. In the course of the development of the West Rice, from beginning to finish did not get a tradition vote of favor. According to Liu afterwards to the author tells, at that time can see the VCs all saw, but did not cast, only a small wind cast some interest, came to investment and gave up.

Liu Summary, the wind is not cast for several reasons, one, the margin is not high, 35% of gross margin although not too low, but food is a special category, there are production cycle, shelf life, storage conditions and other restrictions, loss is relatively large, comprehensive, profit margin is not high. Second, the industry threshold is too low, peer opponents too much, it is difficult to make a large enterprise. Small rich that Ann can, but to the whole into a public enterprise is difficult, and if not listed, VCs do not have a good exit road.

A dark Horse reviews: The domestic entrepreneurial circle seems to have formed a strange theory, does not seem to get financing is not a start-up, the West can be made into a small and beautiful "office snack Factory" Ah, earn money, in office white-collar have a good reputation, slowly accumulate users, increase stickiness, why must get financing?

Said the leisure food industry does not do very much, actually also not necessarily, at least to the entity Enterprise's leisure food chain brand "come to Iraq" is not. "Come to Iraq" is headquartered in Shanghai, the leisure food brand, mainly in their own store to sell bulk snacks, from candied fruit to meat products, such as the top ten series.

In addition, Liu also uses "per kilogram value" This fresh word to boil down the reason why the West meter net closes: "... Attention must also be paid to the indicator of ' high value per kilogram '. Yes, the profit of leisure food is no problem (35%), single all No problem (80 yuan), turn heads, conversion rate is no problem, but the value of only 30-40 yuan per kilogram. ......”

After the collapse of the West Rice network, the famous people in the electric business Wen to discuss. Once created the first brand of Taobao essential oil "liv" Essential oil carving ye (real name Meng) analysis, the West meter network failure is not "per kilogram of low value", "according to the logic of the Austrian razor, the invention of the word itself superfluous, in fact, the reason for losing money is nothing more than two: first, can not systematically reduce costs; ”

Carving Ye said, either continue to expand the scale, rely on the scale effect to continuously reduce costs, in order to obtain the future profit space-this is the east, the passenger road. Or, it can only through value innovation, play the difference, to obtain high enough gross margin, to support the future more brutal competition.

In the current electric business, leisure food (or expand the concept of "food") most only as a General Electric quotient of a category, for example, Jingdong Mall, one shop, there are also special food independent electric dealers, such as Cofco group's "I buy the net" and the rapid delivery of the "Shun Fung Optimization", both backed by the Giants, There is plenty of money to support how the future remains to be seen.

In the entrepreneur, after the West meter net, "three squirrel" or can serve as the western meter net another kind of development mirror reference.

"Three Squirrel" by the famous electric trader "Shell father" Chapter Prairie Fire was founded in July 2012, products and used to be similar to the west, the main sales of nuts, dried fruit, tea and other products, but only on line 65 days, its sales in Taobao cat nut industry leaped first; 2012 "Double 11", The realization of daily sales of 7.66 million yuan, ranked on the whole network of food dealers on the day sales revenue first.

A dark Horse comments: Liu students hurriedly look at others "three Squirrel" selected category, are nuts, dried fruit and other easy to save, easy to transport, high margin category, if coupled with the so-called brand emotional output, can sell higher prices.

Chapter A Prairie fire is very simple, he had also written an article on how to do the food electronics business after the collapse of the network, and the chapter's view was that there was no need to pay attention to the issue of "value per kilogram", but the concern was: how does a business model itself achieve profitability? and the answer to that question is simply, " I have to be a brand, because "when you are only a brand, customers will please you, will pay more money to buy your products." To know that nuts are still in the food of luxury, most of the object is white-collar, in fact, they do not lack a little more money, but also willing to pay their own postage, the key is whether you let customers have to buy your reasons, and this reason must not be cheap. ”