Mixue Bingcheng , known as the county's "ace tea drink", is actively "going overseas" and quickly opening stores overseas; on the other hand, it is continuing to "sink" and once again opened up franchises in villages and towns.
The Red Star Capital Bureau noticed that on June 28, Mixue Bingcheng issued a notice—townships are open to franchise applications. According to Mixue Bingcheng’s official website, currently, Mixue Bingcheng has approximately 20,000 franchise stores across the country.
"There is no point in opening a store in a township. You should go to a bigger city." Mr. Zhao, a franchisee of Mixue Bingcheng who has opened a store in a township for several years, told Red Star Capital Bureau that the flow of people in townships is relatively small, and the average daily sales of his store in the peak season are two or three. Thousands, two or three hundred in off-season. "It used to be much cheaper to open a store than it is now, and the capital can be paid back in one year. Now more funds need to be invested, and I don't know whether the capital can be paid back in the first year."
And the Red Star Capital Bureau found that even in larger stores In the city, the franchisees of Mixue Bingcheng are not doing well either. "Looking at the good business, it's very slow to return the money now, so I'm considering other projects." Ms. Wu, a franchisee, said.
As Mixue Bingcheng becomes more and more famous, some franchisees complain that life is getting harder and harder. What's the problem behind this? Red Star Capital Bureau interviewed nearly 10 Mixue Bingcheng franchisees and heard these key words from their voices: store density, gross profit, regional manager, stocking up...
(1)
reopening of township franchises
nationwide There are more than 20,000 stores
Red Star Capital Bureau noticed that Mixue Bingcheng released “good news about the opening of franchise applications in towns and villages across the country” on its official WeChat public account on June 28.
According to Mixue Bingcheng’s official news, this township franchise is only open to old customers across the country and those who meet the franchisee’s level 1, 2, and 3.
“There is no beginning.” Mr. Zhao, a Mixue Bingcheng township franchisee, lamented to Red Star Capital Bureau. Mr. Zhao said that when he opened the store two years ago, Mixue Bingcheng opened up township franchises, but did not publicly announce the news. He introduced that the store's average daily sales are two to three thousand yuan in the peak season and two to three hundred yuan in the off-season. "There are relatively few people in rural areas, so it is better to open a store in a larger city." Mr. Qian, a franchisee of
who has been operating the store for about three years, told Red Star Capital Bureau It was revealed that opening a store in the countryside can make money, but not much, so it is more suitable to open a family store. The official franchise hotline of Mixue Bingcheng told Red Star Capital Bureau that it is not recommended for new franchisees to open stores in towns and villages. It is best for people with certain experience in site selection and operation to open stores.
In 2022, according to the franchise investment department of Mixue Bingcheng headquarters, Mixue Bingcheng has approximately 20,000 franchise stores across the country.
One of the specific manifestations of this number is that the store density is very high: there are two Mixue Bingcheng stores downstairs in an office building in Jinjiang District, Chengdu, with a walking distance of only 140 meters. Franchisee Mr. Zhao also told Red Star Capital Bureau that has opened about 5 Mixue Bingcheng stores on a commercial pedestrian street in a fourth- and fifth-tier city.
“It’s definitely a business grab, there’s no protective distance in these places.” Mr. Zhao told Red Star Capital Bureau.
Mixue Bingcheng Chengdu Branch Investment Department introduced to the Red Star Capital Bureau that the distance and number of stores mainly depend on the results of the actual audit, and will be based on factors such as the flow of people in the business district where the store is located, customer groups, development status, and payback cycle. Certainly.
However, an interesting phenomenon is that in order to prevent their business from being robbed, some franchisees will choose to open new stores in the same area under the "reminder" of Mixue Bingcheng. "Maybe if you see two Mixue Bingcheng on the same street, they may be opened by the same owner." Media reports said. Such internal friction of
is not a long-term solution. The reopening of township franchises this time also reflects the difficulties faced by Mixue Bingcheng - counties city franchising has been basically saturated, and new markets must be developed.
As for the development of new markets, Mixue Bingcheng has made many attempts in the past few years: it launched the high-end tea brand "M+", opened stores abroad, and created the coffee brand "Lucky Coffee".Among them, the high-end brand "M+" is now hard to find on the market, which means that Mixue Bingcheng's high-end route is not going smoothly. Now it has changed its direction and continues to sink. It seems to make sense: after all, there are super brands in China. 38,000 township-level administrative divisions.
(2)
There are franchisees with an annual net profit of 200,000 to 300,000
There are 8 steps to join, and you still need to take the exam
In 1997, Zhang Hongchao, the founder of Mixue Bingcheng, was still in college.
At that time, Zhang Hongchao, who was studying in college, opened a small shop called "Cold Current Shaved Ice" in front of the school. After that, Zhang Hongchao tried desserts ( candied haws ), Chinese and Western restaurants, and home-cooked restaurants, but all suffered serious losses.
It wasn’t until the spring of 2006, when Mixue Bingcheng launched 1-yuan ice cream, that the “code to wealth” was finally found. In 2007, Mixue Ice City directly used ice cream as its main product and opened an ice cream shop at the intersection of Dongfeng Road and Information College Road in Zhengzhou, Henan, and the business was booming. Within a few months, 26 franchise stores were opened one after another. The beginning of
Mixue Ice City has also become the main line of its subsequent business story development. With low prices and large items as its main selling points, Mixue Bingcheng continues to gain revenue and expand its influence through the franchise model.
With the rise in popularity, Mixue Bingcheng has become the first choice for many people to join the milk tea franchise. But franchisee Mr. Qian told Red Star Capital Bureau that it is increasingly difficult to join Mixue Bingcheng.
Now, if you want to join Mixue Bingcheng and successfully open a business, you need to go through about 8 steps, including a written examination and an interview.
The Red Star Capital Bureau noticed that in the Mixue Bingcheng southwest region franchise application form, not only the ID card information of the franchisee is required, but also a bank card that can prove one's assets, a screenshot of the balance of Alipay , etc. and a description of oneself Store management plan and personal franchise advantages. , the filled-in content of personal franchise advantages will affect franchisees to become VIP customers.
Mixue Bingcheng Chengdu Branch Investment Manager explained to the Red Star Capital Bureau that VIP customers refer to franchisees with an investment amount of more than 2 million or franchise advantages. VIP customers can enjoy services such as high-quality store resource recommendations. More details are in You can only know after becoming a VIP customer.
"The current company's (franchise) policy can be said to be one in a million." Franchisee Mr. Qian said: "If you are a newcomer and have never done Mixue (Ice City), you have no chance to open it. If If the old franchisees are not doing well, the company will basically not open the franchise to you. is now going to open Mixue Bingcheng. The first is a good location, and the second is the old franchisees. "
In July 2021, according to . The Beijing News reported that hundreds of people come to the Mixue Bingcheng headquarters for interviews every day, and the initial pass rate of franchisees is less than 10%.
"You can make a lot of money by following the company's big platform." Mr. Qian, a franchisee, said that he thinks it is no problem to make a net profit of 20,000 to 300,000 yuan a year in a popular area. He currently holds the franchise license for Lucky Coffee, a coffee brand owned by Mixue Bingcheng, and is ready to start working on the coffee business.
(三)
The other side of "hotness"
The cost of joining is getting higher, the return speed is slower, and the management is stricter
But is joining Mixue Bingcheng really so good? Red Star Capital Bureau learned that on the other side of the heat, many franchisees are considering quitting. Mr. Zhao, a franchisee of
, told Red Star Capital Bureau that he had joined for about two years. At that time, the store invested nearly 300,000 yuan in , about 13,000 yuan in franchise fees and licensing fees, more than 100,000 yuan in rent, and about 60,000 yuan in decoration, plus the purchase of machinery and equipment and raw materials. In the peak season of
, the average daily sales can reach two to three thousand, but in the off-season (especially on rainy days) the average daily sales may only be two to three hundred. Mr. Zhao said that it took about a year for to make back its original investment, and it has now earned about 200,000 yuan. However, Mixue Bingcheng is urging people to renovate and change the storefront. Mr. Zhao estimates that will cost another ten or two hundred thousand. "Do you think it's interesting to make so little money and then spend it?"
Now, the start-up capital requirements for joining Mixue Bingcheng are also increasing.
Red Star Capital Bureau checked the official website of Mixue Bingcheng and found that if you want to open a Mixue Bingcheng in a county-level city with the lowest franchise fee, you must first pay a deposit of 20,000 yuan, spend more than 100,000 yuan on renting a house, and about 80,000 yuan on equipment. Decoration costs about 80,000 yuan and raw materials purchase starts at 60,000 yuan. Franchisees also need to pay 13,800 yuan in franchise fees, management fees, and consulting service fees every year.
According to its official website, Mixue Bingcheng now expects to invest more than 370,000 yuan in , but in reality, it may require even more funds.
The cost is higher, and the number of stores is more divided, so the speed of return on costs will naturally become slower. On June 28, the situation interviewed by the Red Star Capital Bureau was: Mr. Li, the franchisee, had opened the store for 9 months and had not recouped the cost; Mr. Zhou, the franchisee, had opened the shop for 1 year and had not recouped the cost. Mr. Zhou told the Red Star Capital Bureau that it is estimated that one Only half a year will do.
Ms. Wu, a franchisee who has been a franchisee for three years and opened in front of the county middle school, directly advised Red Star Capital Bureau: "There is no need to do it now. The business is good, but the return on capital is very slow now, and I am considering other projects."
And What makes franchisees even more uncomfortable is the "unimaginably strict" management at the headquarters.
Mr. Zhao, Ms. Wu and many other franchisees said that Mixue Bingcheng’s management of them is mainly carried out through regional managers. The regional managers will randomly check the hygiene and operating conditions of their stores from time to time. If is not compliant, they will be directly fined. After a certain number of fines, the franchisee will not be able to renew.
Mr. Zhao told Red Star Capital Bureau that beginning in 2021, Mixue Bingcheng store management will gradually become stricter. Also in this year, news came out that Mixue Bingcheng was preparing to go public, and food safety issues were also exposed: the clerk at the Yong'an Street store in Zhengzhou only changed the "expiry date tracking card" and failed to discard expired ingredients and replace them with new ones in time; Jinan At the Daguanyuan store, the "validity tracking card" posted in the store has not been modified for a long time; clerks at the Mixue Ice City Jinan Daguanyuan store and Wuhan Mahu Commercial Street store used overnight ice cream mix and milk tea for many days in a row.
Regarding the issue of changing the date of ingredients, Mr. Zhao also talked about the difficulties faced by franchisees: "Even if you sell 10,000 a day, you will still have materials that will expire. Some (materials) have a shelf life of only two or three hours, and someone will change the expiration date. "
(4)
Franchise + Sell Materials
Mixue Bingcheng's Way to Make Money
Red Star Capital Bureau found that there are about 20,000 franchise stores, and Mixue Bingcheng can receive at least 2.6 in franchise fees, management fees and other fees every year. More than 100 million yuan. Mixue Bingcheng also stipulates that the decoration be changed every three years. The decoration team is entrusted by Mixue Bingcheng to a third party to carry out the overall decoration, and the franchisee is responsible for paying.
According to a video released by the franchisee "Chuanchuan's Entrepreneurship Road", the decoration cost of Mixue Bingcheng's 7th generation is close to 3,000 yuan per square meter. Assuming that each Mixue Bingcheng franchise store is only 20 square meters, with a decoration standard of 3,000 yuan per square meter, the total decoration cost is 1.2 billion.
In addition, franchisees can only use raw materials from Mixue Bingcheng. Mixue Bingcheng staff previously told the Beijing News that the first batch of raw materials needed for franchise stores costs 60,000 yuan, and some stores can use them up in one month.
Mixue Bingcheng has built its own raw material production factory. Except for a small number of raw materials supplied by designated suppliers, most of the core raw materials are produced and supplied by the company itself. Self-built warehousing and logistics system, 19 major warehousing centers cover all stores nationwide.
A franchisee revealed to Red Star Capital Bureau that in addition to the normal purchase of goods, regional managers will also ask franchisees to offset orders and inventory for the sake of performance. In order to "build a good relationship" with the regional manager, some franchisees even spent more than 50,000 yuan more to purchase unplanned materials. It was also the large amount of inventory that caused the franchisee's material expiration problem.
As the number of stores increases, the monthly raw material purchase fees collected by Mixue Bingcheng will snowball. This may have given Mixue Bingcheng the courage to go public. It is understood that on September 29, 2021, Mixue Bingcheng filed for guidance with the Henan Securities Regulatory Bureau, and plans to issue and list its shares initially on the A-share market .
As the snowball grows, will the snowmaking machine , which keeps working but does not have enough energy supply, be scrapped on a large scale? Time will tell.
But it is worth noting that although many franchisees of have complained about Mixue Bingcheng and are considering quitting, most of the franchisees interviewed said that the store is still making money as a whole, and "losing money will not affect" . With this alone, Mixue Bingcheng has defeated many brands that are open to franchise in the current new tea beverage industry.
(Note: In order to protect the privacy of franchisees, Mr. Zhao, Mr. Qian, Mr. Sun, Mr. Li, Mr. Zhou, and Ms. Wu in the article are all pseudonyms, and the surnames are in the order of hundreds of surnames, which have nothing to do with the real surnames of franchisees.)
Red Star News reporter Yu Yao Zhang Luxi
editor Yang Cheng
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