Egg tarts are as low as 50 cents each! Is it losing money to earn traffic or is there another mystery? Demystifying the seller's "secrets that cannot be told"

Chen Shengwen, trainee reporter of Henan Business Daily/Picture:

“Egg tarts are 5 cents apiece” and “Egg tarts are all 1 yuan” slogans have long occupied the front advertising column of bakery and cake shops with large layouts. Passersby are often seen by this festive The red-bottomed yellow slogan was pulled over abruptly. Even people who don’t like egg tarts often can’t help but add a few wools—50 cents apiece. Doesn’t that mean giving it for nothing?

is such a cheap egg tart, will it be tricky?

[A small egg tart with 5 hairs apiece, isn't it for nothing? ] There are not many low-priced egg tarts such as

in the Zhengzhou baked pastry market. They are usually smaller mini egg tarts, and the egg crust is about half the size of normal egg tarts.

As a comparison, a reporter from Henan Business Daily visited a number of bakery and cake shops and found that the price of a single tart generally ranges from 5.5 yuan to 9 yuan in larger chain stores.

The egg tarts of the Qianji chain store are 5.8 yuan each, and the Xiangxueer chain's egg tarts are 5.5 yuan each. The most expensive one is KFC's Belgian black clever cloud egg tart, which costs 9 yuan, and the daily price of KFC's Portuguese egg tart is also 7.5 yuan.

At this time, the egg tart of 5 cents in his hand suddenly "smelt". What is the difference between egg tarts at different prices?

Henan Commercial Daily reporter tasted the regular-sized egg tarts sold in chain stores and the "white" egg tarts in supermarket stores. Except for the excessive intake of protein and oil, which produced a slight greasy feeling, the taste seemed Not much different. The normal-sized egg tarts will be richer in materials, and some use double egg skins.

[Homemade egg tarts cost 1.5 yuan, but the merchant who sells 5 yuan can't afford it? 】Z2z

When we are eating egg tarts, we are actually eating egg yolk, milk, sugar and low-gluten flour, which are common raw materials for most egg tarts on the market.

Egg skin and egg tart liquid constitute the main body of the egg tart. Some golden egg tarts are usually accompanied by light cream, cranberry and red beans and other auxiliary materials. Obviously, with the simplification of the materials and the reduction of the raw material cost of the egg tart liquid, it seems reasonable to sell the mini egg tarts at such a low price for 50 cents.

But the cost that can be removed only by the simplification of the "quantity" is only a part, and the other part falls on the "quality". The person in charge of the

Xiangxueer chain store revealed that some low-priced small egg tarts use a blended egg tart liquid. The materials are used for simplicity, and the quality of natural raw materials is not as good as brand stores. “Most of the low-priced small egg tarts sold in supermarkets have certain quality assurance, but small workshops may have raw material quality problems.” According to the person in charge, most chain bakery and pastry brands have their own fresh-baked stores. Baked by hand, the materials are uniformly proportioned by the company. "The cost of making an egg tart is about 2 to 3 yuan." The price of an egg tart at

is 5 cents, which is even cheaper than making it at home. A reporter from Henan Business Daily calculated an account. It costs 26.8 yuan to buy 51 egg skins on an e-commerce platform, and it costs 0.52 yuan per one; 400 grams of egg tarts cost 20 yuan. According to the merchant’s description, 400g of egg tarts can make about 22 Mini tarts. So in total, it takes about 1.5 yuan to make a mini tart.

For shops, the production cost and labor cost must be added. Does a price of 50 cents mean that you can only lose money and make a scream?

[Low-priced mini egg tarts, the loss is "traffic"]

"Really sells at a loss." The owner of Peng Ji Pastry told the Henan Business News reporter, "Because it is a new store, it needs to attract customers with this low price."

But for a small store without self-owned brand, it seems to have achieved the goal by making money by shouting.

A reporter from Henan Business Daily found that the small egg tarts that are common on the market almost all come from supermarket stores and private workshops. And none of the chain bakery stores sells mini tarts.

In the era of traffic supremacy, chain brand stores with strong capital strength have their own set of online and offline promotion and diversion routines. Take a bakery chain store as an example. They put "viral" marketing videos online, used new media to initiate solicitation activities, and innovated a series of bakery products suitable for young people, such as bakery and girlfriend bakery.

At the same time, many chain stores also use egg tarts as a drainage tool, and a freshly baked pizza brand is in MeituanThe takeaway platform launched the “Buy Egg Tart for 0.1 Yuan” campaign, but the premise is to place an order with pizza.

But for private workshops that exist in the form of street shops, this kind of cost-based marketing is obviously not suitable for them.

In addition, there is a prerequisite for buying low-cost mini egg tarts in these small shops: recharge and apply for a card. The original price of the mini egg tarts sold by Pengji Pastry on the Future Road of Hanghai Road was RMB 1.5 and the member price was RMB 50. The original price of 8 mini egg tarts sold by Yujiyuan in Yizhan Plaza is 12 yuan, and 8 for members. Of course, you need to recharge 300 yuan first.

["Cheap egg tarts must have low-cost materials"]

For small shops, card application is the direction of drainage, and low price is the perpetual motion machine for diversion. As long as the low price attracts consumers’ attention, And let it successfully apply for a card to "invest in shares", and the purpose of small shop drainage marketing has been achieved.

As the person in charge of the Xiangxueer chain store said, egg tarts are actually accessories, and most customers will not deliberately come to buy egg tarts, but after choosing other products, they picked a few egg tarts and took them away. But for small shops, low-priced egg tarts are an introduction, “I’m here, why don’t you buy something else?”

So, can low-priced mini egg tarts be eaten? Are there food safety issues? According to the above analysis, mini egg tarts can reduce the cost to less than RMB 2 in a safe production method with streamlined materials, or promote other products in the store by losing money and earning traffic.

"Cheap egg tarts must have low-cost materials." Liu Qunli, founder of Zhengzhou Fujingyuan, said that consumers are not recommended to buy mini egg tarts that are too low.

(Henan Business Daily Editor Shi Shangjing Liu Mengge Chief Editor Huaijuan)