This article**: Consumer Reports Author: Huang Jing
It's only been a year since the last price increase, and the price of Niulanshan has increased again.
According to the announcement, Niulanshan Winery will raise the price of 4 Niulanshan aged liquors, with a price increase of 6 yuan per box. Among them, the well-known 42 degrees 500ml Niulanshan aged "White Cow Er" is also among them.
Before that, Niulanshan had repeatedly announced price increases.
Whenever Niulanshan Erguotou is mentioned, people will always think of its simple packaging and people-friendly **. Will the price increase make Niulanshan farther and farther away from consumers?
Six price increases in four years.
On January 13, according to the announcement, in view of the increase in production and operation costs, Niulanshan Distillery plans to raise the price of 4 Niulanshan aged liquors above 42 ° 125ml, 42 ° 265ml, 42 ° 500ml and 52 ° 500ml, with a price increase of **6 yuan per box. The ** adjustment plan will be implemented from February 1, 2024.
In other words, the average price of the 4 Niulanshan aged wines increased by 0$5.
On February 21, "Consumer Reports" checked the official website of Niulanshan Jingdong and saw that the whole box of Niulanshan aged 42 degrees 500ml ** was 185 yuan, with an average of 15 per bottle$4.
On February 21, "Consumer Reports" visited a number of offline supermarkets and convenience stores in Guangzhou and saw that the current Niulanshan Erguotou sold by the owners of offline supermarkets and convenience stores are concentrated in two types: 42 degrees 500ml and 52 degrees 500ml. The low-degree model** ranges from 15 yuan to 17 yuan, and the high-degree model** ranges from 17 yuan to 19 yuan.
An offline supermarket shelf display in Guangzhou (photo by Consumer Reports).
Many stores have not received the news of the price increase. When the owner of a comprehensive liquor store heard the news of the price increase, he asked the reporter, "Didn't it rise before?"He told reporters that the price in the store only rose once more than half a year ago, and the low-degree model rose from 15 yuan to 16 yuan.
An offline supermarket shelf display in Guangzhou (photo by Consumer Reports).
In addition, the reporter visited some offline supermarkets and convenience stores in Dongguan City and found that the prices of 42 degrees 500ml and 52 degrees 500ml models are also concentrated between 15 17 yuan and 17 19 yuan. A shopkeeper told reporters that he had received a notice of price increase, which was about 3 5 yuan per box. As for whether the retail price in the store will be due to this**, the store owner said that he intends to clear the inventory on hand before deciding whether to increase the price.
In fact, the pace of price increases in Niulanshan has been very frequent in recent years. In January 2021, February 2021, January 2022, May 2022, and January 2023, Niulanshan raised the prices of the century-old Niulanshan series, Niulanshan aging, and some low-priced products.
Among them, on January 1, 2023, Niulanshan has adjusted the price of 5 Niulanshan aging liquors above 42°125ml, 42°265ml, 42°500ml, 42°750ml, and 52°500ml, with **6 yuan per box.
It is worth noting that in December of the previous year, Shunxin Agriculture, a company owned by the Niulanshan brand, also publicly replied on the interactive platform that "the company has no price adjustment plan for the time being".
Repeated price increases have not been effective, and the promotion of new products has not met expectations.
Although Niulanshan has taken many price increase measures in recent years, from the actual data, the price increase has not brought considerable growth to its performance.
According to the 2023 semi-annual report, Niulanshan's parent company, Shunxin Agriculture, achieved a total operating income of 621.1 billion yuan, of which the liquor business achieved operating income of 455.3 billion yuan, down 726%。In terms of sales volume and inventory, in the first half of 2023, the sales volume of the core single product 42 degrees 500ml Niulanshan Aging Liquor will be 18040,000 kiloliters, down 393%；Inventories increased by 269 year-on-year22% to 2650,000 kiloliters.
At present, consumers' purchasing consciousness is gradually becoming rational and paying more attention to cost performance. The price increase has undoubtedly weakened the "cost-effective" attribute of Niulanshan's traditional large items.
Zhu Danpeng, an analyst of China's food industry, believes that Niulanshan itself no longer has the space and ability to raise prices, and it is an unreliable thing to rely on price increases to increase performance and profits.
In addition, with the increasing quality requirements of consumers for ration wine, Niulanshan's main low-price advantage has gradually lost its attractiveness.
In Zhu Danpeng's view, with more and more entrants in the entire bare bottle wine track, Niulanshan's shortcomings are also vividly expressed, from packaging, taste quality to anti-counterfeiting and other aspects, there are no advantages. "After other brands of bare-bottle wine continue to enter the game, the whole gameplay of Niulanshan has deviated from the core needs and demands of the entire new generation of consumers. ”
In fact, the bare bottle wine track is becoming more and more crowded. According to the data of the China Liquor Industry Association, the bare bottle wine industry has entered the fast lane since 2013, with sales from 35.2 billion yuan** in 2013 to 114.6 billion yuan in 2022, and the proportion of liquor industry revenue has also increased from 7% in 2013 to 184%, it is expected that by 2024, the domestic bare-bottle liquor market is expected to exceed 150 billion yuan. In the case of the overall congestion of the bare bottle wine market, the market in Niulanshan is also divided and squeezed.
Niulanshan is not completely unaware of its situation. In 2022, Niulanshan will launch the "Gold Label Aging" positioned as a mid-range liquor, positioned at 30 40 yuan. At the dealer conference and gold label aging marketing pledge meeting in September of the same year, Niulanshan publicly stated that it would take four years to build gold label aging into "the first single product of Chinese liquor 30 40 yuan ** with pure grain light bottle liquor", and planned to sell 2 million cases in 2022 and exceed 5 million cases in 2023.
However, the promotion of Niulanshan's new products does not seem to have met expectations.
In the first half of 2023, a total of 4,14098 thousand liters. The size of one bottle of Gold Label Aging is 500ml, and based on a single box of 12 bottles, the cumulative sales of Gold Label Aging in the first half of 2023 will be about 690,000 cases, which is only 13 percent of the annual target for 20238%。
Consumer Reports visited a number of offline supermarkets and convenience stores in Guangzhou, and searched large online express supermarket platforms, but did not see any gold label aged products for sale.
In response to product price increases, new product channel distribution, etc., "Consumer Reports" recently sent an interview letter to Niulanshan, but did not receive a reply as of press time.