Written by Li Jinglin
On February 2, 2024, a full week before the Spring Festival, the Three Squirrels New Year Festival ended. According to the war report, the three squirrels sold 53 million nut gifts during the Chinese New Year Festival, setting a brand record.
The New Year's Festival is the largest peak season for the nut industry, and the sales time of the 2024 New Year's Festival will reach two-thirds, and the sales of the three squirrels in all channels have exceeded the total amount of the whole cycle of last year's New Year's FestivalThree of the squirrels have achieved more than 100% growth in short ** live broadcast e-commerce.
This year's New Year is late, but the Three Squirrels New Year's Festival started earlier, and it bloomed across the board. In terms of the layout of the New Year's Festival, the three squirrels first did offline distribution (B-end channels, supermarkets, offline snack stores), and by January 10, all the products in the offline distribution channels were sold out, and the distribution business ended, focusing on the online TOC business. From the beginning of January to the Laba Festival, the focus of the Three Squirrels New Year Festival is on the live broadcast e-commerce channelIt is understood that the GMV of the two platforms of Douyin and Kuaishou exceeds 1 billionAmong them, brand spokesperson Jia Nailiang's one-hour GMV exceeded 100 million in Douyin's special live broadcast; After the Laba Festival, the three squirrels focused their sales on traditional e-commerce channels.
Guo Guangyu, co-founder of Three Squirrels, said: "The four channels of Three Squirrels (traditional e-commerce, live broadcast e-commerce, offline stores, and offline distribution) are all growing during the New Year Festival, among which live broadcast e-commerce is the mainstay, and the growth is the fastest. ”
Not only the New Year's Festival,Live e-commerce, especially the Douyin channel, is the core channel of Three Squirrels in 2023By doing a good job on Douyin, Three Squirrels has made a 300%-500% growth in the off-season of 2023, and the weak links that have always been made up by new channels have also pushed the peak season business of Three Squirrels to a new level.
In 2023, the snack industry will continue to be turbulent, and the offline snack leaders will compete and cooperate, burning money and low prices; Under the trend of consumption downgrade, high-end snack brands are generally facing a downturn, BESTORE's revenue and net profit are both declining, and high-end snacks are transforming to cost-effective. In 2022, the operation of Three Squirrels fell to a trough, and its revenue fell by 2535%, net profit decreased by 6861%, online channels narrowed, and more than 500 offline stores were closed.
Three Squirrels started from **, went public in 2019 and exceeded 10 billion in revenue, but declined all the way in the next three years. The three squirrels in crisis finally launched a "self-rescue".Live e-commerce (Douyin) and cost performance have become two lifesavers for the three squirrels.
According to the disclosure of the earnings forecast,In 2023, the three squirrels are expected to have a net profit of at least 200 million yuan, a year-on-year increase of more than 50%; The net profit after deducting non-profits was 100 million yuan to 1100 million yuan, a year-on-year increase of 14690%-171.59%。In the first three quarters of 2023, Three Squirrels' revenue maintained a year-on-year growth rate of 80%.
After four consecutive quarters of resuming growth, and growth gradually picked up, the three squirrels recovered.
What really made the three squirrels find a feeling on Douyin was a macadamia nut that became unexpectedly popular.
First of all, the accident comes from raw materials, and the snack industry is the raw material business, and the ups and downs will directly affect the brand's income. During the epidemic, macadamia nut raw materials were serious, and the three squirrels had in-depth cooperation with large farms around the world, giving them the opportunity to make macadamia nuts.
Raw materials*** plus to focus on Douyin, the three squirrels decided to do a big thing - to launch 19 for the Douyin channel9 yuan 10 packs of 360g macadamia nut products. Macadamia nuts, which were originally high-end dried fruits, were sold by three squirrels at an ultra-low price, and the sales volume exceeded one million in a short period of time, and the sales of this product directly rushed to 100 million yuan in the following months: "Before, we didn't sell such a large number of macadamia nuts throughout the year. According to ** report, a talent with less than 40,000 fans began to sell macadamia nuts on April 1, and sales exceeded one million that month.
This accident has so far made the three squirrels incomprehensible, and they were surprised and delighted by the explosive power brought by low-priced products and channels. Zhang Liaoyuan, the founder of Three Squirrels, said in an interview that this was a success that people "cannot ignore", and then pulled the team to a meeting and decided to roll up on Douyin.
Just do it, and the three squirrels expand on Douyin with extremely high execution. Guo Guangyu told Chop Pepper that in 2023, the three squirrels will have about 100 new products on Douyin, and there will be twenty or thirty new products on the shelves every month, "at the speed of a white label, or even faster than the speed of a white label"., fight for speed, fight for low price, three squirrels want to make a momentum on Douyin now.
Not only that, but the three squirrels who stand on nuts began to expand the category. The way of operation is almost a replica of macadamia nuts, or even more radical19.9 yuan 63 quail eggs, lower than white label products**; 19.9 yuan 700g with a total of 80 shaqima, in the 2023 natural year, it has made a single product of more than 100 million, and the live broadcast e-commerce channel contributed more than half of the sales.
Large single products, multi-category, cost-effective, is the method of three squirrels to roll Douyin. In this process, there are many items that the three squirrels have failed, but as long as they make a hit, it is enough to boost brand sales. When we asked Guo Guangyu whether he was worried that the nut label in the past would be diluted and the brand awareness established by Three Squirrels for more than ten years would be blurred, he said: "There is no need to deliberately consider the differences in the food industry, the key is to make cost-effective products on the basis of ensuring quality." ”
Looking back on the actions of the three squirrels in the past year or so, it can be found that the brand has maintained restraint in its investment, they are more pragmatic, and all actions revolve around quality and cost performance, pointing to only one goal-Use the greatest strength to sell and "roll" out the advantages in the snack category.
To roll up the results, sometimes it takes determination to do whatever it takes. In fact, many of the three squirrels' popular products in the Douyin channel may not be profitable, and the core purpose of the brand is to kill the premium, to "take care of the scale first, and then manage the profit". Guo Guangyu said franklyThe direct profit and loss of the three squirrels is indeed average, of course, it can't lose too much, the first task is to seize market share, "I have to have a market first, even if I lose some money in the early stage, but I can make profits through more optimization and transformation in the later stage." ”
In addition, in order to adapt to the changes in the sales side, enterprises are bound to make adjustments to the first chain. In the live e-commerce channel, the product is explosive, but the life cycle is relatively short, and the brand must constantly renovate and innovate, constantly test the user's new interests, and match them. Guo Guangyu said, for example, that the outbreak cycle of a new product is only about a week, like the daily nut outbreak of three squirrels takes one to two weeks, and then lasts for several months, "This is already a relatively long-term product."
Guo Guangyu is an employee of Three Squirrels No. 001, who was first in charge of the brand, and later went to do the offline business of Three Squirrels, and was not transferred to be in charge of Douyin until last year. In addition to the co-founder, he now has another title: the general manager of short ** e-commerce.
The three squirrels were transferred to Guo Guangyu to be in charge of e-commerce, with the consideration of iteration and synergy. At present, the three squirrels have an independent nut division and a snack division, which are equivalent to the first-chain product department, and the product department and the channel side are closely synergistic. In the past, the work of e-commerce operation was mainly to look at data, but now it needs to be co-created with the back-end product research and development department, and the store operation is transformed into a product manager"More will adjust the development of back-end products according to channel changes, such as recent emerging items or new consumer interest changes."。**The chain department needs to respond to the needs of the channel side in a timely manner, keep up with the reality of the rapid flow of platform traffic distribution, and keep up with the rhythm of rapid new iterations of products"Our entire ** chain is forced to respond quickly to channel changes. ”
The No. 1 employee went out to coordinate the front and back end, and the channel department had the bargaining power, and things went smoothly. It's a classic channel story of rebranding.
In the positioning of the three squirrels, Douyin is the focus market .
In fact, Three Squirrels laid out the Douyin channel in 2020, but at that time, Douyin was only regarded as an emerging medium, just a distribution channel for talents who could sell goods at the end of the year, and it was still similar to the traditional sales rhythm of Three Squirrels. It is not until 2023 that the three squirrels will regard Douyin as a normalized key operation position.
The employees of the founding team went down to focus on business, which shows that the three squirrels attach great importance to the Douyin channel. Zhang Liaoyuan also said to ** that from this year onwards, we will take out what we should on Douyin"volumes"capacity. In 2023, the three squirrels will separate the short ** e-commerce team from the traditional e-commerce team, with nearly two hundred people, including anchors, business, commodity operations, etc., with a huge lineup.
During the conversation, our biggest feeling is that Three Squirrels, as a listed company with more than ten years of brand development history, began to put down their bodies and use the white label to reorganize the country, and the most typical way of operation is to deploy KOC small and medium-sized businesses on Douyin on a large scale.
According to the New Year's Festival battle report released by the three squirrels,The number of dynamic sales in a single month exceeded 65,000, the number of live broadcasts in a single month exceeded 27,000, and the number of short sales in a single month exceeded 54,000. The number of small and medium-sized influencers who have cooperated with Three Squirrels has exceeded 300,000, and more than 50% of the influencers who have brought food on the Douyin platform have brought goods from Three Squirrels. In the eight months starting in April 2023, Douyin's influencer distribution business contributed more than 400 million yuan in sales.
The distribution of small and medium-sized talents and KOC was originally a routine for white and small brands, and now it is used by more and more big brands for reference. Lin Yi, an expert from Miyun's new e-commerce think tank, said in an interview that the KOC talent matrix is a large number of grass short, which can obtain natural flow at a low cost, and at the same time can precipitate the A0 A4 crowd of merchants. KOC distribution is a small and broad growth point for white-label merchants and brand merchants.
Guo Guangyu, who has been an offline channel for a long time, said that for me, KOC Xiaoda is a massive husband and wife store, through the Talent Alliance to distribute commodity links, or cooperate with the head of the group to distribute links, forming a very efficient distribution and distribution system, "Just hang a link, no need to transport goods, no need to make money, very efficient." ”
It is understoodIn the off-season of snack sales, KOC's small and medium-sized talent distribution can account for 80% of the sales of the three squirrels. Guo Guangyu said: "In the past few years, it was mainly a brand-based game, and now the way to play is how to better use talents at all levels to distribute valuable goods. When the three squirrels realized that white brands tend to grow faster in new channels than established brands, they decisively adjusted their thinking.
Of course, at present, the three squirrels maintain a comprehensive pace of development on Douyin, with 30% of their income coming from self-broadcasting, 40% of their income coming from Daren live broadcasts, and 30% of their income coming from **. The growth rate is also very fast, Douyin's self-broadcast sales have achieved 100% growth, and the corresponding figures of Dabo and ** are 800% and 1000% respectively.
During this year's New Year's Festival, from December 1st to 28th, in the self-broadcast live broadcast room of the Three Squirrels brand, there were more than 10 GMVs exceeding one million in a single game, and the proportion of transactions in the center market reached 36%; Chen Sanguo, Xiao Yang, Guoyue and other head experts brought 2 to the three squirrels100 million GMV, three squirrels Douyin official *** GMV increased by 500% year-on-year, and 3.1 million boxes of nut gift boxes were sold.
Now, the three squirrels have formed a stable closed loop in the Douyin position:Do a good job of self-broadcasting and talent, there will naturally be more search bonuses, and then promote the sales of ** commodity cards. In the first half of 2023, the three squirrels disclosed Douyin channel data in their financial reports for the first time, and the revenue of Douyin in the first half of the year was 43.6 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 2861%。Three Squirrels said that Douyin, as a key channel, has shifted from New Year's sales to sustainable management based on large single products.
All of the three squirrels' attempts are implemented closely around the high-end cost-effective strategy. A person in the snack circle said in an interview with Tiger Sniff: "So far in 2023, the three squirrels have actually done two main things: first, they have switched to Douyin online; Second, the entire strategy has been adjusted to 'high-end cost performance'. And the two are actually combined. ”
For a long time, three squirrels were indeed too expensive. Industry practitioners once said in an interview with **: "Price reduction will definitely win the favor of consumers and increase revenue in exchange." This shows that they were indeed too expensive before. The brands that are still in the snack industry will be taught a good lesson by the market in the future. "Since the end of last year, the snack industry has set off a wave of brand price reductions, with an average price reduction of 22% for 300 products of BESTORE, and a maximum price reduction of 45%; Laiyifen is engaged in **, updating a popular product every week, saying that it can save consumers 30%-60%; Baicaowei also took advantage of the New Year's Festival to increase profits.
After the three squirrels established a new strategy, they switched their thinking, and in the past, the brand was about premium, and it was necessary to make the best distinction among similar products. But not anymoreThe same goods should be cost-effective through the brand's own first-class chain ability, which is the essence of high-end cost performance.
The move of the three squirrels released two signals: first, by improving management efficiency and cost control at the first chain end, so as to achieve a balance between corporate profits and products; Second, strengthen retail attributes and create a "full category + omni-channel" business model.
According to the city report, the three squirrels have successively established nut raw material planting bases in Yunnan, Guangxi, Northeast, Anhui, Jiangsu, Xinjiang and other regions, and independently built four core nut category demonstration factories for daily nuts, macadamia nuts, pecans and pistachios. In the case of quail eggs, for example, the cost of the product is optimized by about 10% to 15%.
Vigorously do Douyin channels, also in order to transform the original factory model, and finally achieve cost control, Guo Guangyu said: "From the factory directly to consumers, the intermediate circulation cost is very low, so the product can also be made lower**." At the same time, the internal financial accounting is also simplified, according to the order accounting, each order earns money, this can be done. ”
From the front end, it seems to be a hard discount, but behind this is a complex and difficult ** chain and organizational structure transformation.
From struggling to bottoming, the three squirrels are now in a new cycle of starting ** and going up again. The three squirrels and the entire snack industry need to continue to run hard. As Zhang Liaoyuan said: "After every battle, every time you embrace a channel, the company needs to think about what I can get under the surface." ”