The sinking Zhong Xuegao, the biggest mistake is to sell with a dollar ice cream

At present, in the eyes of consumers, Zhong Xuegao has two dislocation: first, the price is dislocated, the cost of three or four yuan is sold for one or twenty dollars, the price and quality are not matched; The two low -end ice cream are mixed together, and the consumers who do not want to buy it become a "ice cream assassin", which is the dislocation of the channel.

Wen | Cao Mohan Cao Tingting

Edit | Hu Liuji

Operation | Painting Fire

"Assassin's Head"

Standing in front of the buzzing freezer, a customer seemed unable to start. There are many ice cream in the freezer, and the flowers and green spaces are packed in a basket, but there is no price.

She picked up two, and asked the salesperson in the supermarket: "How much is these two?" One four, one, three. She immediately put them back again. "Is there a dollar?" She asked. Only old popsicles, buy ten get one free. She took a plastic bag and packed a few old popsicles. —— For this kind of consumers who put the lower below, they are generally not stabbed by the "ice cream assassin". But for some consumers who check the goods directly without asking the price, they often bear the pain of being stabbed.

In this small supermarket near the sixth northwest of Beijing, there are four large freezers specializing in ice cream, and the most prominent "Zhong Xue Gao" is printed with the most prominent entrance. There are five baskets in the cabinet, and three of the ice cream lying in the three are lying in the remaining baskets. Zhong Xuegao's cheapest light beef cream was sold 13 yuan, and the price of half or even one -sixth of the ice cream was sold together.

▲ Zhong Xuegao has set a separate freezer offline. Cao Tingting / Photo

Zhong Xuegao, who has been on fire for several years, may not expect it. In such a scene, the label of the "ice cream assassin" suddenly fell on his head.

As an ice cream brand that mainly relies on online sales channels, Zhong Xuegao has entered the offline since 2020, and spent more than two years to put his own tile -shaped ice cream into more than 200 cities nearly 400,000 cities nearly 400,000 cities. In the terminal freezer, from chain convenience stores in first -tier and second -tier cities, living supermarkets to family wholesale stores in the south, and to the university sellers of young people, Zhong Xuegao's figure is active.

In May of this year, Zhou Bing, the co -founder and vice president of Zhong Xue Gao, mentioned in an interview that Zhong Xuegao is entering the territory of the traditional giant. It is a very fragmented and huge market. , Retailers, terminals and many other links will encounter obstacles to existing channel brands.

Just two months later, Zhong Xuegao fell in this market. Since July, Zhong Xue has been in a dozen hot search, while being questioned with high temperature and non -melting under the fire, while facing the accusations that are too expensive and unrealistic.

Netizens seem to discover that this summer, a large number of "assassins" emerged in ice cream and lakes -they seem to be lying and lying on your familiar chocolate cone and mung bean pops. The price of pieces or even dozens of pieces will be "stabbed you" at the cashier -it is not very embarrassed; just paying it like this, it feels slaughtered. Zhong Xue Gao became the object of being discussed. Even, it is also known as the "assassin's head", taking the lead in destroying the atmosphere.

On the evening of July 10, Luo Yonghao poured oil on Zhong Xue's high fire: "You bake a ice cream with fire, and you must have a problem."

Luo Yonghao, who gave Zhong Xuegao many times, questioned in the live broadcast room: "So many people who claim to support domestic goods and patriotism, why the ice cream of foreign brands sells expensive, and domestic brands are selling expensive. ? "

After three days of "Xiti" two hot search lists, Zhong Xuegao's founder Lin Sheng sent a circle of friends, "Hot search for hot searches," the marks of the water army are obvious. " What makes him feel angry is that "it is obviously a product that is far beyond the quality of the national standard, and is taken out of the pseudo -scientific context."

The latest progress of the matter is that the Nanjing Market Supervision and Administration Bureau recently sampled Zhong Xuegao's five products, including the "burning" sea salt coconut ice cream, and the results showed that they met the national standards of food safety.

But this does not seem to calm the anger of consumers.

Born by marketing

Since its establishment for more than four years, Zhong Xuegao has suffered such a large -scale resistance for the first time. Prior to this, it was the leader of the new consumer track, an Internet celebrity in the ice cream industry.

"Good raw materials and high quality", once Zhong Xuegao's major propaganda selling point. According to its propaganda copy, the formula of light cream ice cream "does not add sucrose or sugar, but selects imported cream from France, and uses frozen ice egg yolk as a natural emulsifier." The velvet cream cream is "combined with the combination of Ghana cocoa powder, Cortda cocoa liquid block with the Australian Sunshine Ranch." These two are the earliest products launched by Zhong Xuegao, and they are all best -selling models.

▲ Five basic price ice cream, including velvet cocoa, light cream ice cream. Photo / Visual China

In 2018, Zhong Xuegao launched a pink cake -like tile -shaped ice cream and named it "Ecuador Diamond". The raw materials are not only good, but also rare -natural pink from Ecuador may be 3 tons in China, and Japanese lemon pomelo only concluded once every 20 years. Because it was too rare, Lin Sheng said "cost is nearly 40 yuan."

Many people were moved by the story of making a piece of ice cream across the two continents. They were scrambled to pay for rare, limited to 20,000 copies, and they were sold out for 15 hours. This allowed Zhong Xuegao to defeat the traditional enterprises that deeply cultivated ice products and became a sales champion of Tmall Double 11 Ice Category. Successful experience is very sweet, and Lin Sheng does not hesitate to share his experience with the outside world. At the end of 2018, at a forum gathered by investors, he settled the development of Zhong Xuegao: he must be an Internet celebrity first, and then from the Internet celebrity to the brand. To create an Internet celebrity, it seems to be particularly simple in his opinion. In a total of three steps: the first step is to create products that ordinary people do not accept, which attracts attention; the second step is to create a topic to make it crack on the entire network; The third step is to create potential, find stars, Internet celebrities, and cross -border brands to endorse.

"Ecuador Pink Diamond" is the product that the average person is not very acceptable and is called "very abnormal" product by Lin Sheng himself. In a speech, he stated that in order to warm up in the early stage, he gave Zhong Xuegao's investor's head and latitude and latitude. The main sales channel Alibaba, as well as the headquarters of the supply chain partner SF, sent a box of ice cream respectively to ask them to shoot. Share the photo, and then Zhong Xuegao is distributed with the entire network.

In this way, Zhong Xuegao used this kind of marketing to complete the early brand breakthroughs. Later, he invited stars such as Li Liya and Wang Ziwen to endorse a circle from social platforms to try to capture potential consumers. Thousands of evaluation promotion on Xiaohongshu, special invitation advertisements in Zhihu brand, and launching joint models with multiple brands and launching limited flavors every year, let Zhong Xue Gao play and understand young people's labels more and more eye -catching. Essence

However, the marketing is too hard and it is easy to turn over.

In 2019, Zhong Xuegao was punished twice and stepped on the fake propaganda. The well -known Turpan Basin's core grape planting area is a special -grade red mention, which is actually the first level of bulk; the specially selected Japanese northern tea is actually mixed with tea. Even the slogan of "without a drop of water, pure beef milk" was hammered. The ingredients of their own products stated that it contains drinking water components.

The face seemed painful, but it did not affect market performance.

In 2019, Zhong Xuegao's sales over 100 million yuan is a good result for a new consumer brand that has been established for two years and mainly sells for online channels.

However, this number and the two major dairy companies in Yili and Mengniu won 5.631 billion and 2.561 billion in sales comparison in the cold drink sector. According to statistics, the market size of the domestic ice cream industry in 2018 reached 138 billion yuan, of which offline sales accounted for more than 90 %.

This year, Lin Sheng fell his second step against Zhong Xuegao: After becoming an Internet celebrity, the goal became "tear off the Internet celebrity label". Zhong Xue was eager to try and planned to eat bigger cakes offline. First, she launched the new price of "Li Da Orange" to test the water through traditional offline channels; then take out part of the energy and open an offline experience store.

At the end of 2019, Zhong Xuegao held the first investment promotion in Shanghai Jinmao Building, convened more than 120 dealers from the country, and finally reached cooperation with more than 60.

Chen Jin is one of them. That year, Zhong Xuegao's online performance impressed her. For example, the "broken sliced ​​ice cream" launched by Luzhou Laojiao in the new product.

She remembered that at the time, many dealers felt that Zhong Xue was too expensive. How to sell it, a less well -known domestic ice cream had to sell more than a dozen dollars offline, which was very challenging. However, the convenience stores she cooperates are different from the boutique supermarket channels. The brand is not the most important. The popularity, flow and quality are what she needs.

Zhong Xuegao and the dealers who believed that it would succeed offline will take a big step forward. Unexpectedly, it was not all the way ahead.

▲ Figure / Vision China

Sink

Zhong Xuegao moved to offline, and his eyes first fell in a family, Rosen and other convenience stores in first- and second -tier cities, as well as new channels such as Hema, Ding Dong, and even community group purchase platforms. New products.

But the freezer in these places is extremely limited. Especially for convenience stores with a small area, generally only 1 to 2 ice cream freezers can be accommodated. There are only one or two types of ice cream categories that can be placed in each freezer, and resources are extremely tense.

If a new product wants to squeeze into the freezing of the convenience store, you must not only pay the barcode fee for the nature of the voucher and the right to use the position of the freezer, but also pay the display fee to make your products get better.

It is not that the price is high. "After you buy (position), you have to contribute to the sales contribution." Chen Jin said that there must be a location for many years of cuteness and dream dragon. New products want to enter the field. To make the purchase of convenience stores believe that this new product has the potential to sell well.

The time for the market to test new products is very short, and basically it can be seen in two or three months. According to Chen Jin's experience, "If you can sell it, you can see it in the first month that it can't be sold, and it is difficult to go back in the second month. If your sales are miserable, you will not stay "It's".

A potential problem is that for convenience stores, one or two dollars of ice cream is cheap and volume, but it is not an ideal product. Chen Jin said that consumers go to convenience stores, and most of them buy an ice cream to eat by themselves. At this time, the store must consider the return of profit. Can I earn 40%of the gross profit? How much do I have to sell for the electricity costs in one day? "There are products like Zhong Xuegao, with topics and cognitiveness in young groups, which is the target of convenience stores. More importantly, the high -priced Zhong Xuegao can ensure the profit of the convenience store.

Although Lin Sheng once said humblely in an interview that Zhong Xuegao’s gross profit, compared with the gross profit of normal traditional cold drink companies, "really is really slightly higher", but the dairy analyst Song Liang told the daily characters that every person every day, every person, every day, every day, every day, every day, the daily characters are every day. The average cost of the basic model Zhong Xue Gao Ice Cream is about 3 yuan to 5 yuan, which is already a high level in the industry. It is calculated that the return of transportation, cold chains, and dealers and retailers is from 8 yuan to 13 to 13. Between Yuan. Compared with the channel price of 13 to 22 yuan, the profit space is quite considerable.

As a result, Zhong Xue high -priced ice cream began to seize the space of low -cost ice cream. Many netizens complained that from when it started, convenience stores rarely saw one or two dollars of "ice cream Bodhisattva". Indeed, Hema only introduced 2 yuan of green tongue this month. In addition, the cheapest is the old saltwater stick they produced, one nearly 3 yuan. In a convenient bee in Beijing International Trade Area, the Zhongxue high velvet of 18 yuan is the price of this freezer, and the lowest price product is Yili Xiaoxue, a minimum price of 3.5 yuan.

▲ The label information of the convenience bee did not directly write the price, only 7.5 % off Zhong Xuegao was marked. Cao Tingting / Photo

For Zhong Xuegao, the story is here, everything is smooth.

However, Zhong Xuegao decided to continue to expand and sink, enter more cities, and go to a greater market. In May 2020, Zhong Xue's high -end channels ushered in a new general manager Ma Zheng. His task was to build a hard -working sales team for Zhong Xuegao and develop more traditional ice cream dealers.

In a report of 36 氪, Ma Zheng wanted to mention his frustration experience in Suzhou: I visited the local dealers one by one, and the other party had heard Zhong Xuegao. At the end of that year, the spring inventory and market plans were planned to be planned immediately. The dealers needed to pay prepaid. "No one cares about you in an instant." It is not difficult to understand that the cooperation between dealers and manufacturers bear the sales indicators. In case of failure, the return and commission have nothing, and they have to digest their own inventory.

The traditional channels of ice cream are firmly grasped in the hands of the old companies that have been cultivated for more than 20 years. The dense retail terminals and mature dealer systems are their moat. Taking Yili as an example, as of the end of 2020, it had more than 6 million terminal outlets across the country, of which more than 1 million township outlets were; by the end of September 2021, the number of Yili dealers had a total of 1,4559.

Among them, the freezer is the lifeblood of the ice cream business. There are two options in front of Zhong Xue Gao, either paving his own freezer or squeezing into the freezer of others.

In the first and second -tier cities, there seems to be only the second choice. Although Zhong Xuegao had previously made freezers in some boutique supermarkets and put on her own ice cream, it is no longer 20 years ago that Hagagen -Dazs entered China. Put of it in cinema, five -star hotels and other places, no one competes with them at all.

"Today you get a freezer and carry it for others?" Chen Jin said, even if there is a place in the convenience store of the earth, there is a place that placed an electronic cigarette may be much more cost -effective than selling ice cream.

In the sinking market, there are more places to leave Zhong Xue Gaopu freezer, but this is also a price. The freezer itself is costly. One thousand yuan. If you want retail stores to accept it, you have to pay for electricity fees for the owner, one or two hundred a month. In addition, like traditional food and beverage giants, it is necessary to equip the channels with huge number of salespersons, replenishment, and arrange in time to ensure the utilization rate of terminal freezers.

But reality is often violated.

Zhao Jia and his wife run a couple shop in Nancheng, Beijing. In the Zhong Xuegao freezer in the store, there is only a small basket containing Zhong Xuegao, and the remaining space is filled with the ice cream of other brands. There is no way, Zhong Xuegao, who sells only two flavors, "is not full of a cabinet." The goods are also slow. When the sales volume is the most prosperous in the summer, Yili's freezer can make up for more than ten boxes a day, and Zhong Xuegao's salesperson does not necessarily come up once a month.

The practice in the industry is that the freezer of ice cream manufacturers is free to use for the store, and requires only its own products in it, or other homes can only occupy a limited part. However, the reality is that the manufacturer's salesperson will organize the photo regularly when the shop tours the store, and reach a tacit understanding with the boss.

Zhong Xuegao, who was thinking about squeezing into the freezer of others, had to face the fate of "蹭" by his freezer.

▲ Most of Zhong Xue Gao's freezer is other products. Cao Mohan / Photo

dislocation

Li Hai has been an ice cream dealer in Beijing for more than ten years. In his impression, 2018 is a special year. Before that, the industry was silent like a lake, and occasionally fighting for price war between peers and brands, but the overall market pattern became stable.

That year, Ao Xue launched a black coconut ash, and accidentally rushed out of the siege; by the end of the year, Zhong Xuegao fluttered with Ecuador powder. The industry smelled the sweetness brought by the Internet celebrity, and there were more and more brands who wanted to share a cup. According to data from the Foresight Industry Research Institute, as of August 2021, the domestic new ice cream brand has exceeded 300. The first time I saw Zhong Xuegao at the Bingpin Show, how could I sell such a great impact on Li Hai? He didn't care, and never thought about selling. But later, a lot of retail customers asked him if there was any ice cream of this brand. If he wanted to find a little to sell it, he really began to understand the brand and began to embrace the wave of red ice cream.

In the district Youth Huijia Garden opposite to Daiyue City, Beijing, there is a small door with no signboard. For less than 10 square meters, there were four horizontal cold cabinets in size, and the heat dissipation pressure was a little large. If you want to cool in the room, it is not enough to hit the light and air -conditioned temperature to 16 degrees, and the fan must be shaken.

This is the stronghold of Li Hai in May this year. It is used to display the most competitive ice cream this summer. Unlike the caution many years ago, in addition to the traditional ice cream that has been selling well for many years, there are many new online celebrities.

Most of the "assassins" and "Bodhisattva" that netizens have been seen here can be seen here, but they meet each other at a lower value -Zhong Xue high velvet Coco, which is 18 yuan a piece of convenience store, sells 13 yuan here; A one of the old popsicles on the market only costs 5 cents.

It was so low that the price was because Li Hai rented a cold storage of more than 50 square meters in the East Five Ring. He took the goods directly to the manufacturer.

This summer, he got the "sharp goods" through the relationship in the industry -Maotai ice cream, the most watched Internet celebrity this year. Due to the official purchase channels, this ice cream injected into Moutai is not available in most cities and regions including Beijing. The official price of 59 yuan to 66 yuan a cup has a maximum of up to 250 yuan on the e -commerce platform.

Li Hai's price does not exceed 100 yuan per cup, which is more expensive than the official price, but he consciously consciously conscience than the Internet. The demand for the naked eye can be visible to the naked eye. From time to time, there is a flash of little brother to pick up the door in the same city. At most, you can sell more than 200 cups a day.

This is a new opponent in front of Zhong Xuegao. In 2018, Lin Sheng found that many industries have been upgraded. "Ice cream is still lying there." When Zhong Xue got up, the traditional giant woke up in God. It turned out that I could make ice cream to the high -end.

Yili came, and launched "must be happy". While selling more than a dozen dollars, he also took the national tide. Not long ago, the ice cream with a group fan pattern was launched. Mengniu is here, Moutai Ice Cream is looking for it. The light is named after Yan, Ying, and Qi, and the "Valley Wind" series ice cream is launched, respectively. The raw materials come from grain grains.

Even Zhong Xuegao has used the "without a drop of water" copywriting, which can also set off a "king of king" -The new product is called "pure milk milk, fresh milk content ≥39%" "no" "no" "no" "no" "no" Add a drop of water. " Light uses the word -of -mouth endorsement of Youbei Fresh Milk to launch "Youbei Fresh Milk Ice Cream". The first place in the ingredients "Fresh Cow Milk ≥60%" is still "no drop of water."

▲ Moutai Ice Cream, which caused heated discussion this summer. Cao Mohan / Photo

While the opponent's "volume" came to the door, Zhong Xuegao also quietly changed.

At the beginning, Lin Sheng's positioning of Zhong Xuegao's target group was still the family. "We are not like selling popsicles one by one on the road. We hope that everyone will take home, like storage of eggs and milk, storage -type consumption." Essence But everyone knew the later stories. Zhong Xuegao squeezed into convenience stores and small supermarkets, and he started a bitter business one by one.

For Zhong Xue Gao, he can enter the traditional channel and let the words "Zhong Xue Gao" as much as possible in the freezer, which is a victory in itself. Without the current crisis of public opinion, it will continue to advance the front in a strange battlefield.

Until this July, the high -priced Zhong Xuegao and the angry consumers collided.

After experiencing the long -term impact of the epidemic, many consumers' wallets have been stunned, and consumption is quietly downgraded. Originally I just wanted to buy an ice cream with three or five dollars, but the result was 17 or eight. For the good -looking Chinese, most of the time they chose to grit their teeth and be stabbed. As a result, more and more people found on the Internet that "you have been pitted". In the end, the angry dark currents gathered together and impacted the "ice cream assassins" headed by Zhong Xue Gao.

Not only do you conquer the "ice cream assassin", "restaurant assassin", "fruit assassin", "yogurt assassin" ... "Assassin" is everywhere. The consumerist bubbles that have been advocated in the past few years seem to be broken.

In addition, the over -marketing of Zhong Xuegao's past seemed to become a backfraction against the brand.

In the eyes of an industry, in the eyes of consumers, Zhong Xuegao has two misplaces: first, the price is dislocated, the cost of three or four yuan sells for one or twenty dollars, the price and quality are not matched; the second is that channel dislocation is misaligned , Positioning high -end ice cream, mixed with one or two low -end ice creams, and sold it in the eyes of consumers who do not want to buy it. This is the dislocation of the channel.

When Lin Sheng responded to Zhong Xuegao's popularity, he attributed it to accident: "Even if I deliberately operate, if I did not encounter the right time point, I did not encounter some people at that time.On a group of emotional people, a little star fire, instantly spreading all over the mountains.Lin Sheng may not dream of "doing such a thing."

▲ Figure / Vision China

(Zhao Jia, Li Hai, and Chen Jin in the text are pseudonym)

The article is original for daily characters, and infringement must be investigated.

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