Various "new Chinese" consumer goods are still emerging, but a number ......of new Chinese teahouses have quietly closed down
This article was originally published by Red Meal Network (ID: hongcan18), author: He Peiling;Editor: Wang Xiuqing.
Since last year, the "New Chinese Teahouse" has become a popular check-in place for many consumers, and entrepreneurs have also smelled the business opportunities and joined this track.
Looking back on this business now, we find that some new Chinese teahouse entrepreneurs are "quitting the pit", and the new Chinese teahouse is no longer as good as it used to be on social platforms.
From the phenomenal popularity to the withdrawal of entrepreneurs, what happened in between?Is the new Chinese teahouse still a good track to start a business?
Open a day and lose a day,
Young people don't like to drink tea anymore?
In late March this year, Shen Xi opened an 80-square-meter new Chinese teahouse in a community in a fourth-tier city in Sichuan, focusing on tea**, 1 pot of tea + 2 snacks, priced at 56 yuan. Including decoration, purchase and rent deposit, Shenxi invested a total of more than 200,000 yuan in the early stage of opening.
However, since its opening, the business of Shenxi Teahouse has been bleak.
Sales have been low, with zero turnover for almost 20 days for several months. Shen Xi told Red Meal Network that it is difficult to expand new products, and nearby consumers will basically not come again after coming once.
In order to save the store's performance, Shen Xi has tried many methods, such as inviting local short** Internet celebrities to check in at the store, organizing Hanfu and photography enthusiasts to do activities in the store, etc., "But it is difficult for the guests attracted through the event to become repeat customers." ”
Shen Xi roughly calculated, the monthly turnover in the first 3 months of opening was only a few hundred yuan, not to mention recovering more than 200,000 investment costs, and even the monthly fixed expenses of the store could not be covered. In September this year, Shen Xi decided to close the teahouse he had founded.
The decision to close the teahouse was not easy, and Shen Xi had a strong personal interest in opening the teahouse.
In the second half of last year, Shen Xi resigned and returned to his hometown to start a business, and successively inspected milk tea shops, beauty salons, stationery stores and other projects.
The eventual failure of the teahouse business also made Shen Xi think, "Is it that I can't do business, or is it difficult to make money in this business itself?"”
Shen Xi's situation is not unique. On social platforms, there are still many new Chinese teahouse owners who have closed or are preparing to close their stores like Shen Xi.
Xiaohongshu blogger "Xiaoye Loves Tea" said that his new Chinese teahouse opened in August this year and closed three months later. In the 3 months since the teahouse opened, there have been many questions that have plagued him, such as "Can the tea soup be put in a beautiful container and then paired with a few desserts to make young people accept", "Can the tea soup bring a layered sense of tea drinking", "Is the new Chinese teahouse new**", "Is the check-in business really done for a long time", ......
After thinking about it to no avail, Xiaoye chose to close the teahouse, planning to re-explore a tea space model that allows consumers to drink tea well.
Red Dining Network searched on social platforms and found that in the notes and short ** related to the entrepreneurship of the new Chinese teahouse, keywords such as "avoiding pits" and "entering with caution" appeared frequently.
At the same time, the appeal of the new Chinese teahouse to consumers is also weakening.
Zhang Shun (pseudonym) is a tea culture lover living in Hangzhou, according to him, Hangzhou's tea culture is profound, 2 years ago, a new Chinese teahouse in a scenic spot in Hangzhou is still very popular with young people, per capita consumption of more than 100 yuan, weekends are difficult to find, but since this year, the number of customers who have come to the store to consume has decreased significantly, and this store has also launched many times**, discounts and other ** activities, "The wind has passed, consumption is down, and young people may not like to drink tea again?".”
Yoyo, a food exploration blogger, also told Red Meal Network that although the new Chinese teahouse is still a place that young consumers like to go to, compared with last year, he also feels that the popularity of the new Chinese teahouse has declined, "Compared with the beginning of the rise, there are fewer 'check-in parties' in the store, and only those who like to drink tea go."
"Earning money while standing" is not easy
A group of entrepreneurial novices pay for their ideals
There are so many new Chinese teahouses on the market, are they all in crisis?In fact, Red Restaurant has observed that some new Chinese teahouses are developing well. So, what kind of new Chinese teahouse is falling?
First of all, from the perspective of business entities, many fallen new Chinese teahouse entrepreneurs are catering novices or entrepreneurial novices, and the idea of opening a store is too idealistic, and the concepts of business positioning and profit model are not very clear.
In recent years, there have been a group of young entrepreneurs, with their own consumption vision and high taste, who regard drinking tea and chatting with people as elegant hobbies, rather than a real business in operation, and have not thought clearly about what the core competitiveness of the store is, how long the payback cycle takes, and who are the main target consumer groups. Fang Liming, general manager of the legal counsel team of Weifang Catering, said.
Fang Liming, for example, once met an entrepreneur who opened a new Chinese teahouse in a prosperous area of a first-tier city, with a total investment of more than 6 million yuan and a store area of more than 200 square meters. The courtyard of the store is stacked with rockeries and strange stones, surrounded by flowing water, which can be described as a scene of one step and one scene, and only 4 private rooms are set up, "* The price is about 200 yuan, which is already high in the surrounding area, but no matter how it is calculated, this pricing cannot reach the daily breakeven line." It is estimated that such a store must sell at least 30 ** per day, with an income of more than 7,000 yuan, in order to protect the capital. Eventually, the store closed after 2 months of opening. ”
Shen Xi also told Red Meal Network that she originally thought that the business of the residents in the community was easy to do and the customer flow was stable, but she did not expect that the main consumer groups in the community, family consumption and elderly consumption, were not interested in her teahouse. "Some old people asked me if there was a mahjong room, and when they heard that there was none, they left. ”
A number of teahouse owners and upstream tea merchants also told Red Meal Network that most of the stores that are currently closed down are independent teahouses opened by individual shopkeepers.
Secondly, some independent teahouses lack core competitiveness, blindly chase hot spots, and finally can only close their stores and stop losses.
Some well-known chain teahouse brands on the market often have rich product lines, and they also have enough funds to invest in the decoration and product research and development of teahouses to create "one store, one scene". Behind these core competitiveness are brand barriers such as capital, first-class chain, and talent team.
For independent teahouses, with the emergence of various "new Chinese" stores, it is difficult to continue to operate simply by imitating the new Chinese style and creating a sense of atmosphere.
The owner of a new Chinese teahouse in Guangzhou, Pang Pang (pseudonym), told Red Meal Network that his store is located in a certain Internet celebrity block, and a new Chinese teahouse has opened nearby in the past 2 years.
For example, customers who buy tea bags can enjoy discounts on incense, and I will also recommend tea leaves suitable for incense burning to customers who buy incense. "Chubby, for example.
The investment is high, the turnover is low, and the payback period is long
The new Chinese teahouse is "good-looking and not easy to do".
The new Chinese teahouse looks glamorous, but it is much more difficult to operate than many rigid categories.
1. The main sense of atmosphere is not low, and the investment cost is not low
First of all, the creation of a new Chinese atmosphere requires sufficient store space and high-quality furnishings and scenery.
Zhong Sheng, the owner of the teahouse, told Red Restaurant that taking a 200-square-meter rough store located in an office business district in a second-tier city as an example, it takes at least 500,000 yuan to make a new Chinese style decoration cost, and "it is difficult to make an effect for a store with an area of less than 150 square meters."
If you open a community store, although the decoration cost of a 50-square-meter store can be controlled at about 100,000 yuan, it is necessary to constantly update the soft furnishings to create a sense of freshness and atmosphere in the later stage, and the tea and tea sets also need to be constantly updated.
2. The effective operation time is small, and it is impossible to use the takeaway platform to expand revenue channels
According to the accounts of many New Chinese Tea House owners and public reviews, a New Chinese Tea House is often only open for about 6-8 hours a day, from lunchtime to 9 p.m.
At the same time, from the perspective of consumption Xi and consumer cognition, the format of the new Chinese tea house is relatively simple, it is difficult to expand to breakfast, supper and other scenes, and it is difficult to extend business hours to increase revenue.
In addition, teahouse consumption pays attention to tea brewing and drinking, scene experience and social functions, which also makes it difficult for teahouses to sell through takeaway channels** and expand revenue.
3. The number of seats is small and the turnover rate is low
Teahouses are a business with a very low turnover rate, and it is not uncommon for customers to order a pot of tea and drink it all afternoon. At the same time, due to the focus on creating a sense of atmosphere in the new Chinese teahouse, a large number of store area needs to be used for scenery, so the customer capacity of the store is much smaller than that of the restaurant.
Winnie Wenjing, a Xiaohongshu blogger who once invested in a new Chinese teahouse, lamented in a post, "The upfront investment is large, but the [store] capacity is low, and even if it is full every day, it still takes a long time to become profitable." ”
If the turnover rate remains unchanged, the store owner needs to find a way to increase the unit price or repurchase rate to improve the ping efficiency, otherwise it will be difficult to cope with the rising cost of opening a store.
However, considering customer retention, it is not realistic to directly increase the unit price of the product.
As a result, many teahouses adopt the form of "tea + meal" to increase added value, such as "cooking tea around the hearth", which is to introduce the afternoon tea scene into the teahouse. If the tea fee is charged per person, it is generally 20-60 yuan, and if you provide "tea brewing around the hearth"**, then a unit price can reach more than 100 yuan if you include "tea + tea desserts".
However, "tea + meal" can also bring new problems.
Winnie Wenjing said in her notes that the problems encountered since the opening of the store are mostly focused on tea, and many customers can't accept more than 120 yuan of tea**, some people say that the ** of 128 yuan is high, and the dim sum given is too little, and it feels not worth the price. In the end, due to the increasing number of complaints caused by the tea**, she canceled the store's tea for two**.
In general, the new Chinese teahouse may not be a pseudo-demand, and consumers are not resistant to pure tea and new Chinese style consumption scenarios. However, as a business with a relatively high investment threshold and a long payback period, it is not easy to operate a new Chinese teahouse.
It is not easy for operators to explore a feasible business model on the basis of accurately meeting the needs of consumers. To put it bluntly, "this road can be walked, but it is difficult to walk". Kunpeng Project