Tik Tok tobacco and liquor shop

In front of Maotai, no matter how big the e-commerce giants are, they have to bow and scrape.

For example, at the tender meeting of Tian Fei Moutai e-commerce platform in July, Moutai Sales Co., Ltd. gave a series of conditions: the main business income in 20 18 was more than 50 billion yuan, and the liquor sales was more than 500 million yuan; Total warehouse quantity of FMCG 15 or more; More than 50 million registered users of the self-operated platform; The coverage rate of offline physical stores (distribution points) in provincial capital cities exceeds 80% ...

According to this condition, only three integrated e-commerce platforms, such as Tmall, JD.COM and Suning, are expected to be shortlisted, and they will share 400 tons of sales. Accordingly, in the second half of 20 19, Maotai plans to put10.8 million tons, and the remaining 9 1% Moutai is still sold through offline channels.

Not only does Maotai favor offline channels. According to the data released by Hao Hongfeng, chairman of Brewmaster Net, the e-commerce penetration rate of the whole liquor industry is even less than 5%.

Wine is the crown jewel in the retail field. In 20 18, the industry sales revenue was 536.383 billion yuan, accounting for 66.04% of all kinds of drinks. In terms of profit, liquor performed better, with a total amount of1250.5 billion yuan, accounting for 84.7% of all kinds of drinks. Beer is hard to compare with wine.

This is a market of hundreds of billions, and retail terminals are dominated by deserted tobacco hotels, clerks who drink tea and brush Tik Tok all day, and cigarette and liquor stores patronized by large chain stores. ...

The offline channels of liquor are still in the era of chaotic and scattered separatism, and no offline retailer's revenue reaches10 billion.

The reason is not complicated. Dong Ru, a senior distributor of liquor industry, told Prism English that liquor did not meet the needs of online retail. "First of all, it does not rely on price reduction; Secondly, liquor often needs to be purchased immediately, and generally will not be purchased in advance; Finally, liquor consumers often have irreplaceable fixed purchase channels. "

However, under the icy sea, the fire is burning. Who will end this "Warring States Period"?

The reason why liquor retail channels are "ancient and traditional" has its historical inheritance factors.

1In July, 1988, the State Council officially liberalized the sales prices of 13 kinds of tobacco and alcohol, and gradually liberalized the price control of liquor. The liquor industry has changed from a planned economy to a market economy, and retail channels have begun to play a more important role, but they are still crossing the river by feeling the stones.

According to Dong Ru, from 1989 to 1997, the liquor retail industry is quite chaotic. "High-end liquor brands like Maotai and Wuliangye did not have perfect retail channels at that time, mainly relying on orders from corporate governments."

Before the distribution of Wuliangye, Dong Ruzhu wanted to help a northeast liquor company engage in retail work. "Due to information asymmetry, there were upstream and downstream resources such as restaurants, KTV and wineries, and the income was still quite large. But later, some high-end liquor brands began to establish their own specialty stores, and the days of intermediate dealers were not good. "

The birth of the store model is the inevitable development of the industry. "When the price of liquor was released, there were not many fake wines in the industry and there was no brand demand. The store model can not only eliminate fake wine, but also become an important brand image display in a certain region. " Dong Ru recalled.

After 2000, well-known wineries such as Maotai, Wuliangye and Jiannanchun tried specialty stores all over the country, and even some important dealers began to establish their own specialty store systems.

Wang hong started to operate Maotai store in Tianjin in 2006. At that time, the income of the store was really good. "The investment in opening a store is quite high. Maotai requires that it must be its own facade and cannot be rented. In addition, the one-time investment of deposit and wine money will probably cost one or two million. But the sales volume is good and the profit is high. The principal can be fully recovered in about one year. "

The exclusive store in wang hong employed two employees at that time. "Together with the basic salary and the commission for selling wine, the average monthly income of employees is almost 654.38+0 million yuan."

The golden period of the store lasted for ten years, and wang hong closed the Maotai store on 20 13. "In 20 12 years, due to the introduction of the' eight regulations', there were restrictions on high-end consumption, and some old customers and group customers greatly reduced their purchases. After selling for about a year, I applied for a tobacco license and changed the Maotai store into a tobacco hotel. "

The initial total cost of Maotai stores was as high as 20 million yuan, but around 20 13, the franchise fees of some high-end liquor stores, such as Maotai and Wuliangye, were greatly reduced, and wang hong said that they had even dropped to less than 5 million yuan in some areas.

According to public data, the revenue growth rate of liquor industry reached its peak at 20 1 1, in which government consumption shrank sharply due to the influence of policies, and the proportion of consumption decreased from 40% to 5%. At the same time, personal consumption took over government consumption, and the proportion of consumption increased to 45%.

Dong Ru told Prism English that high-end liquor stores in the industry are now divided into self-operated and authorized. "Needless to say, self-management is equivalent to the function of superimposing advertisements on the local warehouse of the winery, and it is also the place where winery sales talk about business; Authorized shopkeepers are old shops and have a mature customer system. The cost has long been recovered, and fewer and fewer people have entered the industry. "

Beijing Michael Chen Tobacco Hotel is located near He Shili Furniture City and has been operating for nearly 10 years.

This small-scale tobacco hotel displays hundreds of liquor brands and dozens of cigarette brands, but consumers buy most summer seasonal products such as drinks and ice cream in the freezer.

In Beijing, Xiaoyan Hotel was initially similar to the booth of Zhongguancun Electronic Store. "Many times you come to buy cigarettes or wine, and the store is out of stock, so you call to make a temporary deployment." Michael Chen used to be an old customer of these tobacco and liquor stores. "The biggest problem is that there are too many fakes."

He later came up with the idea of running a tobacco hotel. "The main reason is that there are some related resources in hand, and the investment is not high. Applying for a tobacco license is the biggest investment. "

Small tobacco hotels are the products of small and medium-sized regional wineries.

The work experience of Chen He and wang hong shows that the best sales of liquor in their tobacco hotels are not high-end liquors such as Maotai and Wuliangye, but regional liquors such as Hongxing and Niulanshan.

According to the data of China Food and Drug Administration, there are as many as 506 wineries with production licenses in Maotai Town alone, most of which have no national marketing and retail capabilities.

The rest of China is similar. Except for a few head liquor brands, most regional brands are sold by small smoke hotels.

20 15 Dahe newspaper quoted Duan Yuzhong, member of the Standing Committee of Xiayi County Committee in Shangqiu City, Henan Province, as saying, "Without accurate statistics, there are about 6,543,800 Xiayi wine merchants in China."

Most of these Xiayi wine merchants are the most common small-scale tobacco hotels in the market, and the mode of wholesale+retail+cleaning up long tail goods occupies the most important channel of liquor retail.

"The sales tonnage of this model still accounts for at least 90% of the liquor retail market." Dong Ru told the prism.

More importantly, the profit rate of small smoke hotels is even higher than that of specialty stores. "They often have some regulars and a group of individual travelers. Individual customers like to buy 100 yuan or even low-end liquor below 50 yuan. Although the price is low, the profit may be higher than some high-end brands. " Wang hong said.

Insiders of Nuoyan, an emerging brand of glutinous rice wine, told Prism English that glutinous rice wine below 100 yuan was basically blended.

"As the old saying goes, three kilograms of grain and one kilogram of wine, but in the actual brewing process, considering the loss of' head and tail wine', five kilograms of glutinous rice (the cost is higher than that of 30 yuan) can brew one kilogram of glutinous rice wine. Plus the cost of packaging, transportation and hand-making, the cost of a kilo of glutinous rice wine will not be lower than that of 60 yuan. The cost of most glutinous rice wine, yellow rice wine and white wine on the market is lower than 100 yuan or even lower than that of 50 yuan, which means that edible alcohol is basically added (the cost is lower than that of 2 yuan) instead of pure grain wine. " According to an insider.

This kind of wine is the main wine of small tobacco and liquor hotels, and its profit can often reach 100%, which is recognized by wang hong and Michael Chen. "The store sells a bottle of white wine around 70 yuan or a pair of 150 yuan white wine, and the possible purchase price is only 20 yuan. However, a bottle of Wuliangye with a price of 1000 yuan may cost more than 800 yuan. "

Xiaoyan Hotel monopolizes the offline retail terminal, but in the circulation system of China wine industry, the change of dealer system is hard to ignore, and Internet platforms such as e-commerce are latecomers.

At the beginning, liquor companies often like the model of big distributor+buyout. "Some dealers with resources and funds will buy out some related products of wineries and sell them slowly. Now some dealers still have a considerable amount of wine in their hands. For sale. " In Dong Ru's view, the inflated prices of some liquors are also related to dealers' hoarding.

With the improvement of the marketization of liquor categories, the buyout mode of large distributors is no longer the mainstream.

Take liquor distributor 19 19 as an example. Before the transformation of retail channels, 19 19 was a third-class liquor wholesaler in Chengdu. In 2006, its founder Yang Lingjiang decided to transform into a retail store. So far, more than 65,438+0,000 offline stores have been set up in China.

Different from other consumer goods, liquor has its own unique characteristics, such as cultural, regional, and even some have collection characteristics. Therefore, different categories of liquor show completely different sales models offline, which makes it difficult for e-commerce platforms to change the sales model of liquor industry like other categories.

Moreover, many alcohol e-commerce platforms often choose B2B mode instead of B2C mode of traditional consumer goods. In 20 18, 19 19 and other B2B-oriented companies and Yijiu Plate received large investments from giants such as Alibaba and Tencent respectively.

At the new retail conference of China liquor industry on 20 18, Yang Lingjiang said that in the expansion of 20 19,19 paid more attention to the integration of offline distributors, and at the same time, it would upgrade or provide service support to the specialty stores of some well-known liquor enterprises.

Also at this meeting, Brewmaster. Com and Liquor Direct also announced similar plans.

In view of the strong voice of offline dealers, the words used by these liquor e-commerce platforms to express their strategies are "integration" rather than "transformation".

Large-scale integrated e-commerce platforms also have awe of liquor retail.

2065438+In March 2009, Yan, Senior Vice President of the Group and President of the Retail Group of Electronics and Consumer Goods, said, "JD.COM. COM will respect this ancient and traditional industry. We have enough patience and are willing to explore the development path of this industry with colleagues in the industry, and will not do things that are quick for quick success and hurt the industry. "

Not only is the dealer system a hard bone, but traditional wine companies also make the e-commerce platform a headache.

Dong Ru revealed to the English version of Prism.com that since 20 15, many e-commerce platforms have been in contact with Wuliangye. "But traditional high-end liquor manufacturers prefer the traditional offline channel, not only because the clearance of goods is faster, but also because the offline channel of liquor is too important compared with other retail industries, and no liquor manufacturer will really give up."

Traditional wine companies also choose to touch the net actively.

In recent years, a number of traditional wine enterprises have announced the digital transformation layout: Maotai joined hands with ZTE, LU ZHOU LAO JIAO CO.,LTD and Huawei reached a cooperation, and Wuliangye's partner was IBM. Some liquor factories are trying intelligent brewing, intelligent packaging and other related attempts, using digital identification of waste and loss in the manufacturing process, and gradually reducing the cost of liquor production and manufacturing.

Judging from the current development situation, their digital transformation is still in its infancy, and even the heads of wine companies equate digital transformation with e-commerce sales.

(At the request of the interviewee, Dong Ru, wang hong and Chen He are all pseudonyms. )