Hankou No. 2 Factory of Cyber Pop Drinks has been a bit miserable recently.
Just past the May Day holiday, many tourists hit the flagship store of Hankou No.2 Factory in admiration of the name, but they were all empty handed.
The once Wuhan landmark and online red card punching shop are now empty, leaving the whole place in a mess.
In addition to the closure of the flagship store, the operation of Hankou No.2 Factory is also a chicken feather.
Since 2022, there have been scandals of layoffs and salary arrears in Hankou No.2 Factory. It is reported that the layoff rate of Hankou No.2 Factory is as high as 50%.
Most of the employees did not get all their salaries. The total amount of unpaid salary was up to 4 million yuan. It is common for employees to be owed 100000 yuan.
After the incident, Jin Yawen, the actual controller of Hankou No. 2 Factory, kept silent, while Li Ming, one of its partners, was also reported to have restricted the high level of elimination.
In the Jingdong store of Hankou No.2 Factory, only a few products are on sale, and many classic products are "out of stock".
The former Hankou No. 2 Factory, relying on the brand of "Feeling", led the national trend in the beverage industry and was regarded as a model by countless marketers.
In the past few years, the once popular Internet users have become Laolai.
Why did no one pay for the sentiment card of Hankou No.2 Factory?
Snow for 17 years, Assassin
Today's domestic soda has gradually become a "soda assassin".
The price of soda, which used to be seen everywhere in barbecue stands and big stalls, will rise as long as the skin of retro design is replaced.
Any bottle of orange flavored "domestic" soda starts at 5/6 yuan. Now that Coke and Sprite are still at 3.5 yuan, domestic soda has entered the field of "middle-class consumption".
The leader of the "more fashionable and more expensive" beverage circle is Hankou No.2 Factory.
The flagship products of the second factory's soft drinks, such as "bayberry exhalation" and "cherry blossom and peach", are sold at a regular price of 8 yuan, or even about 10 yuan in some channels, and can sell two bottles of 2L iced black tea.
Even though the price is so high, Hankou No.2 Factory is still popular in its heyday.
In 2019, the annual sales of Hankou No. 2 Factory, which has only been "revived" for two years, will reach 300 million yuan, on a par with the Shaanxi time-honored brand Bingfeng.
The second factory has spent a lot of effort on selling soda water that is so good. The first move is to play with feelings.
The original "Second Factory Soda" is actually the local "Riverside Soda" in Wuhan, which was popular in the 1980s, but was acquired by Coca Cola Group around 2000, becoming history.
Until 2017, a pop-up store in the style of a small shop brought the "second factory soda" back into view.
The package and taste of the returned "Second Factory Soda" are not only very restored, but also the price is 35 cents.
The shop doesn't support scanning code, but only cash. Many people in Wuhan exchanged nickels for it everywhere, but in only three days, 50000 bottles of inventory were wiped out.
In fact, this "second factory soda" is not the "Binjiang brand" soda in the past, but a new brand operated and planned by Wuhan Hengrunshi Operation Management Co., Ltd.
After the flash, the "Second Factory Soda" was renamed as "Hankou Second Factory", and a series of fruit flavored sodas with 8/9 yuan were launched.
Although the price is not cheap, and it is not a real time-honored brand, "Hankou No.2 Factory" has successfully moved many Wuhan people with feelings.
After all, all Wuhan people don't want to lose their childhood again.
After getting through the feeling card, Hankou No. 2 Factory's soda water showed its second move: to become an online celebrity.
Having won the first round with the retro classic, Hankou No. 2 Plant is very clear that it is difficult to continue to support it through feelings.
In order to get hold of younger users, Hankou No.2 Factory has made great efforts in packaging and playing methods.
The first name is very popular, such as "Happy Water for Breaking up", "Love Soda" and other unusual product names.
The name is wonderful, and the bottle play is also rich, such as the wrapping paper of love Soda, which will appear a witty love word after being baked with fire.
"Break up happy water" is just the opposite, only after freezing can you see the hidden text.
In addition to this "egg shaped" play, the Second Factory also turned soda into an online celebrity bar.
The Second Factory opened a self-service flagship store in Wuhan, which was not only very popular in decoration to attract people to punch cards, but also used to mix their favorite soda flavors in the store, playing methods and strategies once became popular.
Grasp old customers with feelings, and win young people with online celebrities.
Hankou No. 2 Factory, which has made good plans, has neglected its biggest loophole.
The "early online celebrity" that became famous overnight,
Targeted by peers
Hankou No. 2 Factory became famous overnight, leading the time-honored soda water group to become "national trendy".
Beijing's time-honored brand, the Arctic Ocean, took the lead in opening an experience store and designed a silly and cute big white bear as the mascot.
Lao Guang's favorite Asian salsa soda also plays a big role in the packaging of the national trend, and also actively mocks the "safflower oil" to cater to young people.
However, after following the direction of Hankou No.2 Factory for a period of time, many brands have found the loophole of the "No.2 Factory Model".
Vulnerability 1: persistent personnel, wrong payment channels.
In the eyes of ordinary consumers, soda has always been the representative of "cheap dopamine", and is the best partner of hot pot barbecue street stalls.
But Hankou No.2 Factory doesn't think so. In order to maintain its high price, Hankou No.2 Factory has been trying to maintain its "middle class" staffing.
The first is the channel. From the very beginning, Hankou No.2 Factory did not think about making efforts in catering, ordinary supermarkets and other channels, but targeted the middle class supermarkets such as China Resources ole and Hema, as well as the convenience stores such as Rosen and 7-11 in the first tier cities.
When Hankou No.2 Factory appeared near Paris Water and Starbucks, I felt that the price of about 10 yuan was not so expensive.
When Hankou No.2 Factory actively laid out the middle class channel, the catering channel that he had never looked up to was welcomed by a dark horse.
In just a few years, the soda kiln from the northwest has won the barbecue and night snack stalls in the whole north.
With the extremely sinking channel, the sales of Dayao reached 3.2 billion yuan in 2022, more than 10 times that of the peak Hankou No. 2 Factory.
Vulnerability 2: feelings fade and pricing is awkward.
"Pingdi Economics" is popular. Young people are no longer willing to pay for feelings, but focus more on the cost performance of products.
The Beijing time-honored brand Arctic Ocean, which was once popular because of its high price, also launched a large bottle of soda "Laodong No.1" worth 5 yuan, which changed its delicate route to a "cheap bucket".
It was its hometown, Wuhan No.2 Factory, that completely lifted the table of Hankou No.2 Factory.
Although both brands are called "Second Factory", they have nothing to do with the Binjiang brand soda.
The "Wuhan Second Factory", established in 2023, is a new brand created by Lan Shili, the former richest man in Hubei Province, and is also playing the sentiment brand of Binjiang brand soda.
Wuhan No.2 Factory, however, used a series of price wars to fight Hankou No.2 Factory.
When it was launched in May last year, the second factory in Wuhan put forward the slogan of "9.9 yuan for three bottles of national package mail". The price of the new soda launched in October was as low as 1.99 yuan.
Lan Shili's original intention of establishing Wuhan No.2 Factory is to lower the price of soda. He said:
"The ex factory price of a product that consumers buy for 10 yuan a bottle is only 3 yuan. I think this is extremely unreasonable, so we should rewrite this rule to completely reduce the price of soda."
With the strategy of low price, Wuhan No.2 Factory has completed 30 million sales in just two months after its launch, and has also completed the curve listing.
At the same time, Hankou No.2 Factory is already facing a dangerous situation of declining sales and revenue, and has to start downsizing to survive.
When feelings are offset, cost performance becomes the match point.
It is difficult for domestic soda to be friendly to the people, and there are some difficulties behind it
The collapse speed of Hankou No. 2 Factory can be seen by the naked eye from online pop to Laolai.
In fact, Hankou No.2 Factory is not waiting to die, but actively seeking a way out.
Since 2020, Hankou No.2 Factory has been actively distributing other products, including milk tea, zero sugar gas water, low alcohol wine and many other products.
Among them, 0 sugar drinks not only match the standard of Yuanqi Forest, but also bring the price down to 5.5 yuan, taking the route of relative parity.
But these new products, which Hankou No. 2 Factory placed high hopes on, failed to open the market.
The collapse of reputation does not happen overnight. The main reason for the decline of Hankou No.2 Plant is that: The supply chain is pulling.
Although Hankou No.2 Factory has its own "factory" signboard, it has never built its own factory. Since its establishment, it has always used the "OEM" mode similar to Zhong Xuegao's.
According to the survey, the soda products of Hankou No.2 Factory are all OEM by Luohe Changda Group Kapona Beverage Co., Ltd., while the newly produced sugar free gas bubble water is guaranteed by Shanghai Ziquan and other manufacturers.
Relying too much on the OEM, although it can quickly create products, the disadvantage is also obvious: product quality cannot be guaranteed.
According to the analysis of the insiders, Hankou No.2 Factory has focused most of its resources and energy on the marketing of products such as packaging and playing methods, but has not made enough efforts in product creation.
This has also caused the taste of Hankou No.2 Factory to be criticized by consumers all the time. "The bottles are beautiful, but expensive and hard to drink" has almost become the unified label of Hankou No.2 Factory.
In terms of supply chain, many domestic beverages have faced the same dilemma as Hankou No.2 Factory.
They all started in local cities, and their factory capacity is limited, so they can't distribute goods on a large scale. The additional costs of transportation and storage add to the cost of products.
Many soda brands are popular, but they are always limited by logistics and storage.
For example, although the gross profit rate of Bingfeng in Shaanxi is as high as 46.73%, at least 80% of the annual sales of 300 million yuan are from the province.
Brands that are unwilling to follow the OEM route and want to go global can only increase the price to ensure the gross profit margin.
However, many brands have long recognized the importance of supply chain.
Dayao soda, which started in Inner Mongolia, almost "drives the factory wherever you go", and has opened factories in Inner Mongolia, Ningxia, Liaoning, Jilin and even Anhui.
In the Arctic Ocean, which is determined to go out of North China, 120 million yuan was smashed early, and the factory was opened in Anhui, and the new factory in Chongqing is also under construction.
The market has not moved and the channel has taken the lead, which has become the iron rule of the consumer industry.
Conclusion:
The "expensive" of Hankou No.2 Factory is not helpless. At the beginning of its establishment, there was an internal conflict within the team because of pricing.
Tian Ming, a partner, believes that Hankou No.2 Factory should follow the path of parity, and the price should be around 3 yuan, so as to win the market by volume.
Jin Yawen, another founder, believes that 5~10 yuan in the beverage market is a vacuum zone, so the product price should be around 7 yuan.
Finally, Tian Ming led the team to leave, and Hankou No. 2 Factory finally established a mid - and high-end pricing of "5~10 yuan", which turned into today's "soda assassin".
Born proud of Hankou No.2 Factory, I didn't understand one thing:
Compared with packaging and playing methods, cost performance is the most "emotional" killer of old Chinese goods.
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