The advantage of Xibei Noodle Village is gradually dissipating, who will pay for Xibei?

Affected by the epidemic last year, catering companies have been on hot searches.
But it seems that Xibei is the only one who makes people feel sympathetic.

From: Visual China

During the epidemic, weeping poor, secretly raising prices, compulsory tea fees, saying that "you should not eat Xibei with an income of less than 5,000 yuan" was criticized by the public for improper remarks, but this did not affect Xibei's business.

"A single ancient-famous noodle bun sells for 21 yuan, and a slice of scallion romaine lettuce is 49 yuan.

" Xibei, which has been established for nearly 20 years and has more than 360 stores, has become popular amidst the scolding.

Xibei is still booming.

In the 2021 Spring Festival after the "not worthy of food" incident, most Xibei in Beijing lined up again, echoing the black heat of the hot search for Lixibe.

It's hard not to make people curious, who was eating Xibei before, but now?

1.

Who is still eating Xibei?

1.
Who is still eating Xibei?

Search for "xibei" on platforms such as Dianping, Douban, Zhihu, Station B, Baidu, Douyin, etc.

The most common comment is "expensive", and even search for "xibei" on Zhihu, the first thing that catches your eye Just "Why is Xibei so expensive?"

The search results for the keyword "Xibeigui" on Baidu were as high as 7,420,000.

Xibei is expensive and unpalatable, why do people still go to Xibei?

Things have to start from the beginning.

After the reform and opening up, the eastern cities of my country have developed rapidly.
Due to the uneven economic development, some people in the northwest and central plains have come to work and live in the eastern cities after weighing them.

According to data from the sixth national census in 2010, as many as 980,000 people migrated to Beijing from Henan Province alone, and the "eating" complex of Henan people has not been materialized in Beijing on a large scale.

Hometown food is not only the miss of wanderers, but also just in need.

Although Xibei has the name of Northwest cuisine, if you read the menu carefully, you will find that it actually unites people from several provinces that "do not eat Sichuan, Yuelu, and Huaiyang cuisine.

" To a certain extent, customers from Shaan, Gansu, Qing, Ning, Xinjiang, Inner Mongolia, Henan, and Shanxi, who are also the "Northern Stomach", will not be as "unfamiliar as they are in the Yangtze River Delta and the Pearl River Delta".
".

In the eastern cities of my country, there are very few mid-to-high-end restaurants for consumers in these provinces.

According to data from the National Bureau of Statistics, China's catering market was 4.
27 trillion in 2018, of which the northwestern vegetable market was only 0.
16 trillion, accounting for 3.
7%, ranking lower among all catering cuisines.
[1]

Many people talk about Northwestern cuisine without mentioning any brand name, let alone which one is delicious, which one is cheap and so on.

It is worth noting that the northwest restaurant that sells noodles, steamed buns, barbecues, and mutton, not to mention row after row on the streets of Beijing, is not too small.
This is determined by the basic needs of a large number of migrant workers.
However, there have always been only a few brands around Northwestern cuisine that are “on the table”-to be precise, Xibei is simply one of them.

According to Xibei's official data, Xibei Group's revenue in 2018 was 5.

6 billion, accounting for 3.
3% of the Northwest vegetable market, [2] basically consistent with the data disclosed in the Jiumaojiu prospectus.

For those who migrate from the northwestern and central plains to the eastern cities, want to eat northwestern dishes, or entertain relatives and friends with hometown dishes.

There are not too many restaurants to choose from, and Xibei has almost become an option that cannot be avoided.

Although Xibei dishes are expensive, at least for many people, his dishes are cognizant, expected, and the taste is okay, and it will not reach the level of unpleasantness.

Secondly, among the eight major cuisines in China (Lu, Sichuan, Cantonese, Fujian, Jiangsu, Zhejiang, Hunan, and Anhui), there are seven major cuisines in the central and southern regions.
The only northern cuisine, Shandong cuisine, is also comparable to Northwest cuisine.
Big difference.
At the beginning of Xibei’s founding, the Inner Mongolian cuisine is objectively far from the mainstream in the Chinese catering market.
If you want to use Mongolian cuisine to attract northerners, you must play a "Mongol and Han Confluence".
So far, Xibei is not a failure at this point.

As a result, for the "Northwestern Taste", only Xibei can be used to entertain relatives and friends, only Xibei brings the elderly and children to eat, and only Xibei is a proud "Northwestern Brand", which is also the flagship of Xibei.
Northwest cuisine, high-end, brand, the reason for the high premium.

Xibei captured the "nostalgia" of Northwesterners and aimed at their pain points when they could not find a suitable hometown brand in the market.
In fact, this kind of positioning marketing strategy is not uncommon in the catering market.
For example, the chain store "Baman", which focuses on Hunan beef noodles, simply puts the hometown dialect on the brand; Xi Shaoye focuses on meat and steamed buns, and undoubtedly targets the Northwest people.
In the early years, he slogans such as "Bingfeng" and sells "Bingfeng" soda.
And so on, are similar homework.

Even a Cantonese restaurant opened in Beijing would call "Luffa" "Shenggua" and "Pig Liver" "Zhurun".
When faced with these words for the first time, Beijing customers may be a little confused.
But if you don’t use these words, you run the risk of being “unauthentic” in a word.

You may also observe a phenomenon.
There are many families of three with children among Xibei diners.
Xibei also rarely has a large platform of 8 to 10 people.

Chili is a child's natural enemy.
If this is taken into account, a considerable number of popular catering brands in China's first-tier cities have to be eliminated from their parents' choices.

Xibei, as mentioned above, provides a relatively stable, non-spicy, and light-tasting recipe.
Although this is not popular with young people who are looking for the ultimate taste experience, it is naturally suitable for families with children.
For this reason, Xibei also specially launched children's meals, parent-child activities and so on.

A bowl of noodle fish, a scrambled egg, and a steamed bun.
In half an hour, even the children and their parents can solve it.
It is neither spicy nor oily.
There are not many seafood, fish and shrimps that many northerners have committed, the hot noodles of Xibei, the banquet of soup and water, and the impression of northerners' "home" are all summoned to the table.

No matter how big the nostalgia is, no matter how small the home is.
In Xibei’s video advertisements—you may have seen them in office elevators—the choice of elderly and children often becomes the main theme of the advertisement.
As a Northwester, you can find what you like to eat; here are what your parents and children like to eat.
Cool.
Why go outside to choose? The answer is in the "hometown".

2.
Why is Xibei so expensive?

2.
Why is Xibei so expensive?

A city with millions of Northwesterners will inevitably require a slightly high-end Northwestern cuisine brand.

Northwesterners work and live in this city, weddings and funerals.
They can eat Liangpi, biangbiang noodles, steamed buns and Rou Jiamo for daily work, but they always entertain friends, family gatherings, and business banquets.

But before Xibei, the first-tier cities along the southeast coast, including Beijing, had never had a northwest restaurant that was at least affordable, allowing them to treat people to a meal decently.

Therefore, Xibei chose the high-end route from the beginning to fill the vacancy where there are no mid-to-high-end northwestern cuisine restaurants in eastern cities.
Jia Guolong said on Weibo: “Just do the stuff well, the money is not enough to find customers! The profit from saving money is not competitive.
”

Simply put, Gui has always been a part of Xibei, and if it is not expensive, it is not called Xibei.

Everyone who opens a restaurant knows that Xibei has a high gross profit, but Xibei will not lower its prices because this is a marketing strategy.
The price is a top-level design and an end, not a means of control.

The price is a top-level design.
From the beginning, it is designed according to the profit you want to get, and it has nothing to do with the cost.
The same bowl of noodles costs 10 yuan, the market price is 12 yuan, and Xibei can be priced at 30 yuan.

Therefore, theoretically speaking, Xibei’s high-pricing strategy is to take a portion of users and completely ignore the pricing of its peers.
The noodle bun at the door sells for 5 mao, but you can’t treat it to guests, can you?

Jia Guolong said in an interview with reporters that his most respected Chinese restaurant brand is Ding Tai Fung.
The price of Ding Tai Fung's soup dumplings can be sold for 40-50 yuan, and the customer unit price is usually over 100 yuan, but there is a queue in front of the door.
The guests are still in an endless stream, and the turnover rate is quite high.
[3]

He also criticized the low-price strategy.
He believes that in China's market competition, due to the immaturity of consumers and the immaturity of merchants, the final result can only be bad money driving out good money.
For example, he said, "China has no good things.
Rich people go to Japan to buy rice cookers and toilet lids, but the prices are not cheap.
" [3]

From these interviews with Jia Guolong, we can see that Xibei is adopting a high-pricing strategy.
Only with high pricing can a high positioning be achieved.
High positioning can support Xibei to take the high-end crowd route and develop toward the "good currency" in the mind of Boss Jia.
This is the reason why Xibei is expensive.

But the reality is that the dividends that Xibei brought to Xibei due to the dual precise positioning of geography and price are disappearing, and this positioning also quickly touched the ceiling of its brand.

3.
Xibei's advantages are gradually dissipating

3.
Xibei's advantages are gradually dissipating

Xibei's word of mouth is polarized.
It is a group of people scolding on social platforms, and another group of people is always eating.

Both groups of people are actually from Xibei's overwhelming advertisements.

Where are Xibei's high profits mainly invested in? If you think about it carefully, the advertisement "I love you" in Xibei You Noodle Village, "Close your eyes, everything is delicious" is on the elevator, in the shopping mall, and everywhere.
In order to accurately screen customers, Xibei is more "hard-working" (with money) in advertising and marketing than other catering brands.

Xibei invited Huayuhua, the most expensive marketing company, to make suggestions for itself.
According to Yu Xin, the former public relations director of Xibei, Xibei spent more than 100 million yuan on maintenance and promotion of major platforms in 2018.
In contrast, Haidilao and Starbucks seldom put advertisements, and promotion mainly depends on public relations and word of mouth.

Why does Xibei put so much advertising on it? Of course it is useful.

Take Wong Lo Kat as an example.
Wong Lo Kat’s success is not only because of accurate positioning, but also because of the large number of advertisements.

Before Wong Lo Kat became popular, Guangdong "herbal tea" beverages were numerous, but no one dared to go to the whole country to promote them.
Wanglaoji backed by Jiaduobao enterprises, with solid funds as the foundation, a year of advertising investment of several hundred million yuan, "afraid of getting angry, drink Wanglaoji", then Wanglaoji went out of Guangdong and went to the whole country.

The same is true for Xibei, which has precise positioning and needs to invest heavily in advertising.
Northwestern cuisine can hit Northwesterners, but it also needs to hit office buildings.
"I LOVE " in the elevator, "Close your eyes, everything is delicious" is the main reason for capturing young white-collar workers, because they really don't know where to eat Northwestern cuisine or what to order.

However, too many advertisements can also cause a problem.
While attracting the target audience to the store for consumption, it also attracts many "innocent passers-by" to the store for consumption.
They do not necessarily like to eat Northwestern cuisine, and it is even more difficult to understand (of course also No obligation to understand) Xibei’s pricing and brand strategy.
One consequence is that there are mixed reviews of Xibei on the Internet.
Some customers think Xibei is okay, and some customers think it is super unpalatable.

On the other hand, Xibei's unpalatability is also relatively out.

When Xibei started its business, there were fewer brands of restaurants in Northwest, and the competition was not very fierce.
Even if there were, there were some mom-and-pop stores.
In terms of environment and dishes, they would not compete with the chain Xibei.
At that stage, Xibei filled the vacant high-end Northwestern cuisine in the market and earned a wave of market dividends.

However, with the passage of time, Northwest catering brands such as Jiumaojiu, Beijiang Restaurant, Tengritala, and Banmu Land have gradually emerged.
Consumers have more choices for Northwest cuisine, and Xibei is no longer the only choice.
Although those new brands are relatively "cheap", because they do not have such high marketing costs, their dishes and quality are similar to those of Xibei.
Over time, Xibei's old customers will naturally be diverted.

Another comparison is to compare yourself.

In the early days, Xibei was mainly opened on the side of the main street, with a large store area, usually 500-800 square meters.
All the dishes are made in the store, and they are cooked and eaten now, and the taste is good.

As Xibei moved into major shopping malls, some Xibei in big cities such as Beijing, Shanghai and Hangzhou switched to relying on central kitchens to make some dishes due to store space restrictions.
[3]

The production process of a standardized central kitchen will affect the taste of most cuisines, even Northwestern dishes that do not seem so exquisite.
Take Xibei’s popular "Huang Mo" as an example.
The ingredients are purchased from Suide, Shaanxi, and they are prepared in central kitchens in each city, then refrigerated and distributed to various stores, and then heated in a microwave oven.
The transportation time is longer than the production time, and the taste and texture can be as good as the "tip of the tongue".
As a result, inevitably, Xibei became more and more unpalatable.

It is understandable that standardization of central kitchens is a major trend in the catering industry.
But the problem is that this conflicts with the high-end positioning of Xibei's core.
After all, the technology of the Chinese central kitchen has indeed not reached the same level as the current cooking.
The taste of Xibei has deteriorated, but the price has not been adjusted, and even further increased with the price.

This huge gap is the reason why Xibei is criticized as unpalatable by consumers.

If Xibei wants to get rid of the infamy and launch a low-cost sub-brand, it would be a good choice to include stores that rely on central kitchen products into the sub-brand.
As for Xibei itself, if you go back to the high-end Northwestern store that is fried and fried, and spend less on advertising, you may be able to regain the top spot of "high-end".

Xibei seems to be aware of this, and launched a new brand "Jia Guolong Kung Fu Cuisine" in October last year.
But this new brand, which is said to be fully centralized, is only about 20 yuan cheaper than the per capita price of Xibei's shop.

The most embarrassing thing is that Xibei's own improvement seems to have not yet come.

Source: WeChat Official Account: AKASHIO

Note: All pictures in the article are reprinted on the Internet, and infringement will be deleted!

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