Which one is the first casual snack?
Editor’s note: This article is from the micro-channel public number “node Finance” (ID: jiedian2018), Author: William.
In the domestic leisure snack market, the three squirrels and Liangpin Store have a high right to speak. Both are chasing after me at the top of the industry pyramid, trying to establish their own differentiated advantages.
In contrast, due to differences in product positioning and corporate strategy, the two companies have gone out of different development paths: Three Squirrels started out on the Internet and used traffic dividends to become a national-level snack food giant; Best Shop Starting from offline physical stores, they gradually label themselves “high-end snacks”.
Recently, as the most representative listed company in the leisure snack industry, Three Squirrels and Liangpin Shop have successively released their 2020 financial reports. It can be seen from their respective financial statements that the market performance of both parties in 2020 is remarkable, but there are many differences in detailed comparison.
Is the “first share of national snacks” dominant? Or is the “first stock of high-end snacks” promising? It seems difficult to say. In this article, Jiedian2018 makes a horizontal comparison from the core levels of the four major industries, including business data, brand strength, sales channels, and product matrix, in order to see the corporate strength and future growth of both parties.
/ 01/
Comparison of operating data:
Which one is better at earning money?
The so-called “business in business” refers to the “good or bad” of the company. The profitability is naturally the most rigid reference index. Let us first look at the operating conditions of both parties.
First of all, in terms of operating income, in 2020, the three squirrels will lead the entire leisure snack industry with an absolute advantage of 9.794 billion yuan, and the revenue of Liangpin Store will be 7.894 billion yuan, which is also not inferior. However, it should be pointed out that due to the impact of the economic environment last year, the snack food industry as a whole failed to maintain the high growth of previous years. Among them, the revenue of the three squirrels dropped slightly by 3.72% year-on-year. Although the good product store achieved positive growth, it only increased by 2.3 percentage points.
Data source: Three Squirrels and Liangpinpu’s financial report
In terms of profit, in 2020, the three squirrels and Liangpin Shop will achieve 301 million yuan and 344 million yuan in net profits belonging to shareholders of listed companies, respectively, which is slightly higher. However, this does not mean that the profitability of the latter has been greatly improved. You know, the net profit attributable to shareholders of the listed company of Liangpin Store only increased by 0.95% in 2020, while the year-on-year growth rate in 2019 was as high as 42.68%.
Data source: Three Squirrels and Liangpinpu’s financial report
In comparison, the profit growth of the three squirrels is more eye-catching. Although the total net profit is slightly lower than Liangpin Shop, the good news is that the net profit attributable to shareholders of listed companies in 2020 has increased by 26.21%. This growth rate has greatly reduced the profit gap between the two companies, and the two companies have truly entered the same profit. Stage PK. What is more worth mentioning is that the three squirrels financial report revealed that if the impact of the strategic loss of the new brand is not taken into account, the company’s net profit will increase by 43%.
In the past, the three squirrels with tens of billions of revenue had certain shortcomings in profitability, and they even fell into the vicious circle of “increasing revenue but not profit”. Now, with the strong return of profitability, the company has stronger control in the leisure snack industry.
/ 02/
Brand strength comparison:
National Brand VS High-end Snacks
In the differentiated competition between the two companies, the difference in brand strategy is a very obvious feature. In recent years, Best Stores, holding the banner of “high-end snacks”, gradually walked out of the “high cold” route that is different from their peers; and the brand strategy of Three Squirrels, in the words of its founder Zhang Liaoyuan, is “to benefit consumers.” “, to deepen the cultivation of a more people-friendly mass market, and take the route of national brands.
Image source: Three Squirrels Earnings Report
High-end branding often means that companies have higher profit margins. This seems to explain why the profit of Best Store is slightly higher than the three squirrels. So, where is the high-end advantage of Best Store? What is the gap between the two sides?
Liangpinpu pointed out that the high-end brand positioning comes from “continuously increasing investment in product research and development, and building technical barriers for product research and development.” The financial report shows that in 2020, the company’s total expenditure on research and development will be 33,716,900 yuan, and the total investment will account for 0.43% of operating income. But this data is slightly embarrassing in comparison with the three squirrels: the R&D expenditure of the three squirrels in 2020 reached 52,524,600 yuan, accounting for 0.54% of revenue.
Specifically, as of the end of 2020, the three squirrels have a total of 213 R&D personnel, accounting for 4.14% of the total number of employees. There are 18 food R&D rooms and testing rooms, and 388 intellectual property-related patents have been established; good products The number of R&D personnel in the shop is 160, accounting for 1.43% of the total number of the company, and 5 laboratories have been built and put into use.
Data source: Three Squirrels and Liangpinpu’s financial report
It can be seen that even though the Best Store is known as the “first share of high-end snacks”, it has lost to the three squirrels in key indicators such as R&D expenditure, the number of R&D personnel and institutions. The high-end goal is more through improved product packaging and invitations. Traffic star endorsements and other ways to achieve, this also makes people question whether the relationship between its high quality and high price match.
In fact, as the two largest domestic snack brands, the success of Three Squirrels and Liangpin Shop is largely inseparable from upstream supplier channels. Under this circumstance, to truly achieve high-end, it is necessary to work hard on improving the efficiency of the supply chain and ensuring product quality. However, in March of this year, BESTORE fell into a crisis of trust due to product problems, and the industry began to reflect on the true meaning of “high-end packaging” and “high-end quality”.
/ 03/
Sales channel comparison:
How to balance online and offline?
Three Squirrels was established in 2012. The company started as an e-commerce company, and quickly became a representative of Internet snack e-commerce; Liangpin Store was established in 2006, and was initially offlineStores were mainly operated, and then gradually expanded to the whole country centered on Central China. In recent years, the two parties have increased their sales channel expansion and started to move towards a route of “balanced online and offline development”.
Judging from the current online and offline revenue share, the channel development of BESTORE seems to be more balanced. According to the financial report, in 2020, Liangpin Store’s online channels achieved revenue of 4.01 billion yuan, an increase of 8.35% year-on-year, and the proportion of revenue was 50.68%; offline revenue was 3.685 billion yuan, a year-on-year decrease of 5.69%, which is already very close to online Revenue level.
Data source: Three Squirrels and Liangpinpu’s financial report
However, it should be pointed out that the reason why Best Stores can achieve the “equal distribution” pattern between online and offline has a great relationship with the impact of the 2020 epidemic. Since the base camp of Best Stores is located in Central China, where the epidemic is severe, the revenue of offline stores has experienced a serious decline that year. Therefore, there has been a situation of “one declining while the other is strong”.
Relatively speaking, the three squirrels are still in the adjustment period of their sales channels, and they are showing a strong momentum of online and offline integration. The financial report shows that in 2020, the three squirrels offline stores will achieve operating income of 2.498 billion yuan, accounting for 26% of the total revenue. Compared with 2017, this value has increased by nearly 6 times.
For a long time, the three squirrels have a relatively high advantage in Internet channels, but their offline layout is relatively weak. In recent years, the company has vigorously promoted the “online + offline” strategy, gradually getting rid of the restriction of a single channel, and improving the company’s ability to resist risks while expanding into new markets. Thanks to years of brand management, the three squirrels have firmly occupied the minds of consumers and can quickly achieve large-scale offline replication. Moreover, because of the use of the advantages of e-commerce to achieve a large amount of data asset precipitation, the three squirrels have also outstanding performance in scientific site selection and warehouse building.
In terms of offline channels, both parties also showed a trend of catching up with you. According to the financial report, as of the end of 2020, there were 2,701 offline stores and franchise stores of Liangpin Store, distributed in 162 cities in 21 provinces/autonomous regions/municipalities across the country; three squirrels will add new stores in 2020 alone There are more than 700 companies, with a total of 1043 as of the end of 2020. Compared with that, there is still a lot of room for expansion. This will become the company’s new growth driver in the future.
/ 04/
Comparison of product matrix:
Selected VS full coverage
In addition to the distinction between “high-end” and “nationalization”, the product layout of Three Squirrels and Liangpin Shop are also very different.
Best Shop mainly expands more SKU products to meet the diversified consumption needs of different consumers in different scenarios. As of the end of 2020, the company has 1,256 omni-channel SKUs, covering meat snacks, seafood snacks, and vegetarian food. Thirteen physical categories, including preserved plums, preserved plums, dried red dates and nuts, have tried their best to cover the snack market as much as possible.
Different from Liangpin Shop’s emphasis on the “full” category, the three squirrels emphasize the “fineness” of the category. In 2020, the three squirrels drastically adjusted their category strategy, clarified the positioning of “nuts + selected snacks”, and streamlined it from more than 600 SKUs in the middle of that year to 300, making the category matrix more clear, three-dimensional, and focused on categories. The market advantage is more prominent. The financial report shows that in 2020, the three squirrels have a total of nearly 2 billion-level single products such as daily nuts, macadamia nuts, pecans, dried mangoes, and dried pork, among which daily nut sales have exceeded 1 billion yuan.
In terms of brand building, the two companies play differently. Liangpin Shop launched two sub-brands, namely Liangpin Xiaoshixian and Liangpin Feiyang, for children and general fitness groups, and achieved a certain market share. However, because the sub-brands still focus on “good products”, they are in brand innovation and consumers The degree of recognition is not so outstanding.
In the second half of 2020, the Three Squirrels will successively launch 4 independent new brands: “Little Deer Blue”, “Raised a Hairy Child”, “Tie Gongji” and “Xi Xiaoque”, corresponding to baby food, pet supplies, and generation The field of fast food and wedding gifts. At present, the four sub-brands have achieved total revenue of 76.11 million yuan, of which Xiaolulan achieved revenue of 54.494 million yuan. With the help of the company’s advantages in talents, capital, and supply chain, the sub-brands have grown into new growth points.
In short, the three squirrels are more pragmatic in brand building and product development. In the future, they will need to continue their efforts in the expansion of offline stores; the high-end positioning of Liangpin stores is worthy of recognition, but in terms of brand expansion and food safety control We still need to work hard, otherwise we will win the “face” and lose the “lizi”.
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