This article is from WeChat official account:Time Weekly (ID: timeweekly)< span class = "text-remarks">, author: Liang Shi Ting Shi Enze, the original title: “50,000 people line up before the holiday, the Festival brutally” cut ankle, “super Friends of IP packets and how many” pit “to step on? “, the head picture comes from: Visual China
During the Qingming holiday, Shenzhen Super Wenheyou officially opened a store to welcome customers. With the pop-up store of the online black tea drink chain brand “Tea Yanyue Se”, which set foot in South China for the first time, Wen Heyou quickly rushed to the Weibo hot search list.
Shenzhen Wenheyou has a long line outside the store on the first day of opening. (Image source: WeChat screenshot)
Times Weekly reporters saw at the scene that on the first day of opening on April 2, more than 50,000 consumers were waiting to enter Shenzhen Super Wenheyou with numbers. The queues stretched from the entrance to the Buji River next to it. After turning a few turns, the traffic police department was even concerned because of the traffic jam, and Wen Heyou also claimed to be very anxious internally about this issue. According to a person close to Wenheyou Shenzhen, since the opening on April 1, the main creative team has held meetings every night until 2 to 3 in the morning.
At the same time, tea Yanyue color is also in short supply. A Times Weekly reporter learned from a second-hand trading platform that the purchasing agent of Shenzhen Chayanyuese learned that the price of off-market cattle buying Chayanyuese was as high as 168 yuan per two cups on the 2nd, and on the 3rd, Chayanyuese was implemented. After the purchase limit of two cups per person, the purchase price even rushed to 258 yuan per two cups.
Left: Over 50,000 tables lined up on the first day of opening; Right: Only 7 tables lined up at 8pm on April 6. (Image source: network screenshot)
But after the Ching Ming Festival holiday, the popularity of Shenzhen Super Wenheyou quickly declined. At 8 o’clock in the evening on April 6, a Times Weekly reporter found that the number of people waiting in line at that time had been “ankle-cut”, and the number of people in the line was only single digits.
To recreate a super Wenheyou in Shenzhen, is it a copy and paste of the Internet celebrity culture, or as Wenheyou said in response to a question from a Times Weekly reporter, “We are adding to the city by digging out the city’s character in Shenzhen. Prosperity, vitality and fireworks”?
1. It’s hard to find a room nearby
Luo Jingjing (pseudonym), a business owner who has entered Shenzhen Super Wenheyou, witnessed the influence of this influencer brand on the surroundings since its preparation. The most direct one is the penetration and impact of the business environment: the price of accommodation in nearby hotels has been rising all the way.
“The rent is different before and after the year. The rent of our staff dormitory can be clearly felt. Last year it was 6,000 yuan a month, and now it is 6,800 yuan.” Not only that, according to Luo Jingjing, The room booked at the Hyatt Place Shenzhen near Wenheyou was 350 yuan last night, and this year it has risen to 500 yuan,” and in the days before Wenheyou’s closed beta test, all nearby hotels were full. .”
Such a strong consumer enthusiasm, even for a prosperous commercial area like Luohu District, Shenzhen, is also rare.
“Accelerating the construction of the core area of the international consumption center city” is the development strategy set out in the work report of the Luohu District Government in 2021. Last year, Shenzhen Dongmen Pedestrian Street was included in the second batch of the Ministry of Commerce’s second batch of pedestrian street renovation and upgrade pilot projects. Luohu District hopes to build it into a national demonstration pedestrian street and a high-grade pedestrian street. The store site of Shenzhen Super Wenheyou is located in Dongmen Pedestrian Street.
Song Ding, Dean of Guangdong Cultural and Commercial Tourism Planning and Research Institute, accepting Times WeeklyDuring the interview, the reporter analyzed that Luohu District will actively promote the development of new consumer businesses and models based on the regional strategic positioning of building the core area of an international consumer center city and combining the advantages of being close to Hong Kong.
Super Wenheyou, born in Changsha, Hunan, is exactly the same as the development positioning of Luohu District-Wenheyou is not so much a large-scale catering complex, as it is a public space for urban food and culture.
And its unique nostalgia, retro tone, has a huge appeal in current social media and young people.
In July 2020, Guangzhou became the first stop for super writers and friends to leave Changsha. Similar to the style of Changsha Super Wenheyou, Guangzhou Super Wenheyou spent 200 million yuan to build a nearly 5,000 square meter food theme amusement park in the center of Guangzhou. When it opened, there were 3,000 tables in line and an average of 4 hours in line. The pomp.
Guangzhou’s huge consumer market is the primary goal of attracting writers and friends. According to the “Guangzhou Blue Book: Guangzhou International Trade Center Development Report (2020)”, In 2019, Guangzhou’s accommodation and catering industry achieved retail sales of 127.017 billion yuan, an increase of 8.1% year-on-year, and Guangzhou’s per capita catering consumption expenditure has remained the country’s first for many years. .
Wen Heyou has set up Shenzhen again. The iconic concrete floor, colorful signboards, rusty iron windows, etc., once again reproduce its distinctive characteristics. Shenzhen also has a diversified catering consumption market and huge market potential. According to the “Statistical Report of Shenzhen Catering Service Industry Association 2020”, Shenzhen’s catering service industry operates more than 130,000 stores with an annual turnover of nearly 90 billion yuan. scale.
In the early stage of Shenzhen’s rapid economic development, with the advantage of industrial foundation and the superior location advantage adjacent to Hong Kong, the Luohu District chosen by Wen Heyou has always been a well-deserved CBD area in Shenzhen, with many skyscrapers. The continuous development process also gave birth to the export shore sector, the Dongmen sector and the China Resources Vientiane City sector, which together formed the Golden Triangle commercial consumption space in Luohu District. In Song Ding’s view, these basic conditions have laid a very good foundation for Luohu’s commercial development. “From the current commercial transactions, the MixC is still the commercial center with the largest annual transaction volume in Shenzhen, and Luohu’s commercial confidence is still very strong.”
Interestingly, at a distance of 700 meters from Shenzhen Super Wenheyou, Luohu Dongmending Commercial District has been standing there for nearly 30 years, where the first McDonald’s in mainland China was born. On the first day of the opening of this McDonald’s store, the queues waiting for dinner often line up from the second floor to the first floor, sometimes around the Guanghua Building next to it.ring. This scene is deja vu today.
When a reporter from Times Weekly visited the Dongmen Ding commercial district, he noticed that compared with the huge super Wen Heyou, the density of shops in the Dongmen Ding commercial district food street is higher, with skewers, barbecue, and stinky tofu. , Lampblack and human smoke flourish. A flower beetle powder shop owner told Times Weekly that he was not worried that Wen Heyou 700 meters away would affect his business. On the contrary, he believed that Wen Heyou would be more helpful to businesses around Daiwang.
But the shop owner said that he is not optimistic about the future development of Wen Heyou-In his opinion, Wen Heyou is doing a high-risk “capital business”.
Shenzhen Dongmending Food Street. (Photo source: Times Weekly reporter photo)
In Song Ding’s view, for the traditional commercial form of Luohu District and even Shenzhen, the emergence of Wen Heyou is both a clear stream and a spoiler. Compared with traditional shopping malls, Wenheyou is a major change, breaking the routines and models of traditional shopping malls.
“Wen Heyou is a very bold attempt in commercial and cultural consumption. If we follow this route and effectively introduce this innovative concept, innovative format and new scenes, I think Luohu will develop into The international consumption center will have a larger space scene, which makes me full of expectations.” Song Ding said.
Second, VC circles are popular, merchants use their feet to vote
However, the question of the flower beetle powder shop owner is not an individual case. There are still many controversies in the market regarding the development prospects of Super Wenheyou.
But even so, many venture capital institutions (VC)I still want to circle the “dark horse” of Chinese and You. Among them, Canadia Capital Management Co., Ltd., which focuses on the field of large consumer services, “killed” one competitor in 2020, and invested nearly 100 million yuan exclusively in Wenheyou, who is “not short of money”.
A person close to Jiahua LP(investor) revealed to a Times Weekly reporter that Wen Heyou’s core competitiveness lies in: it A bunch of trendy shops have been gathered to create a place for young people to shop. In this person’s opinion, Wen Heyou now has enough “potential energy”, “As for the content operation mode inside, you can slowly explore.”
The person believes that a brand with “potential energy” already has certain media attributes, such as the ability of a brand to attract traffic, the ability to lead and educate users, the ability to generate content, and the ability to output cultural connotations. “Wen Heyou, as a sacred place for users of Xiaohongshu, undoubtedly has a certain cultural output ability.”
In an interview with a reporter from Times Weekly, Yang Ning, director of Yuanshi Capital, also believed that Wen Heyou is a good stage for “letting go”. “Now is the best time for Wen Heyou to explore the business model. Take advantage of the highest potential energy, step on all potential “pits”.”
Compared with Guangzhou Super Wenheyou, which opened a store last year, the Shenzhen store has added many offline experience items. For example, a Dongmen game hall was created on the B1 floor; on the 3rd floor, he teamed up with Bubble Mart to lay out the trendy cultural shopping scene; and the immersive drama “Dream” runs through the entire Shenzhen Super Wenheyou store.
Obviously, Wen Heyou’s development plan is far from limited to the catering industry.
At present, most of the VC circles have voted in favor of Wenheyou’s development path. “I think Wen Heyou’s current thinking and evolutionary state is very healthy. When the first batch of department stores in China opened, isn’t the state of the influx of people exactly the same as the current Wen Heyou? In the future, Wen Heyou will definitely do it too. Evolve towards a more enhanced entertainment offline experience.” Yang Ning said.
However, with the investment cost of hundreds of millions of yuan at every turn, whether Wen Heyou can form a clear and sustainable profitable business model as soon as possible is still worth questioning.
Because traditional shopping malls can attract many brands of different categories and sizes, they can obtain stable and diversified sources of income. However, the majority of Wenheyou’s shops are concentrated in various small and medium gourmet restaurants. A major problem that frequently arises in the operation of gourmet restaurants is that because of moreIt is fast, and entry leads to unstable cash flow.
Earlier, the media revealed that the first batch of more than 20 merchants that settled in Guangzhou Super Wenheyou adopted a revenue-sharing cooperation method, that is, they do not pay the rent and utilities, but they must pay 30% of the turnover and Wenheyou is divided into (generally, the proportion should not exceed 25%). However, due to the waning trend of Guangzhou’s super-literature and friends in the later period, the sales of the shops were not as good as expected, which triggered the opening of less than half a year, and many well-known merchants have withdrawn.
A creative director of a 4A advertising company believes that Wen He Younei’s store is not unique enough. “According to the current situation, the goods sold here do not require people to come to the offline Wenheyou store to buy.”
“In fact, it is very easy for Wen Heyou to become a’one-time’ photo check-in place. To get rid of this dilemma, Wen Heyou needs to give customers a reason for this. For example, by introducing limited sales Shops selling trendy brands attract groups with purchasing power to repeatedly line up to participate.” said the creative director.
From a commercial point of view, this means In the future, Wen Heyou can’t just stay at the current stage to be a “chartering wife” in the catering industry, but need to build a user-sticky and integrated A business model where revenue brings stable cash flow.
3. How far can selling culture go?
To establish a new business model, Wen Heyou is also doomed to remove the original label.
Song Jie, director and director of the commercial real estate department of DTZ Shenzhen Company, pointed out in an interview with Times Weekly that what Wen Heyou needs to do is to remove most of the cultural labels of its own “Changsha, Hunan” and re-label a nationwide consumer The cultural label of cognitive consensus. “Otherwise, if you just copy Changsha Wenheyou to major cities across the country, you are essentially doing something to make Changsha’s market culture bloom all over the country.” In her opinion, this is almost impossible.
But finding new cultural labels is not easy. For example: Wen He You introduced the new concept of “Urban Wen He You” this year to replace the original “Super Wen He You”. For example, the menu of Shenzhen Wenheyoudian removed the crayfish characteristic of Changsha and reshaped a localized brand-“Shen Sheng oyster”
But for the non-registered populationFor Shenzhen, which accounts for more than 60%, oysters do not seem to be the “common memory” of Shenzhen people. Some netizens left a message on the review site that they did not buy Wen Heyou’s oysters.
Some netizens said that they did not buy Wen Heyou’s oysters. (Image source: network screenshot)
At the beginning of the Guangzhou Super Wenheyou store opened, some locals once mentioned that the most iconic arcade and Xiguan House in Guangzhou were not visible in the store.
In fact, Wenheyou’s three branches in Changsha, Guangzhou and Shenzhen are almost the same in terms of interior decoration style. Especially when the same market culture is placed in the north and south, it will also present different scenes. Take Beijing, the representative city of the north, for example. In addition to the familiar hutongs and courtyards, the city culture also includes the Jiuqi Drum Tianqiao City, which is very different from the city culture in the south. Whether the local literary and friends who are trying to integrate into the local community possess sufficient local attributes seem to have become an obstacle that is difficult to break through.
However, Zhi Dongliang, the head of Savills’s South China business department and senior director, believes, “I think the outside world should give Wen Heyou more time to observe. After all, as a super IP, Wen Heyou does not appear in time. Long. Since it is a new thing, we have to give it some room for trial and error.”
Song Ding also believes that Wen Heyou chose to explore an adaptive development route all the way south, instead of rushing northward. Obviously, it is also considering that Wen Heyou’s commercial format is suitable for growing in a more market-oriented and densely populated space.
But Wen Heyou’s pace of expansion continues. According to the recruitment information released by Wenheyou’s WeChat official account, Super Wenheyou has a new host-Nanjing.
Wenheyou’s official recruitment information. (Image source: Changsha Wenheyou WeChat Official Account)
On February 2, the signing ceremony of the “Changle Road Cultural Business Travel Project Strategic Cooperation Agreement” was held at the People’s Government of Qinhuai District, Nanjing, announcing that the fourth super Wenheyou will land in Nanjing. Public reports show that Nanjing Super Wenheyou is located at No. 132 Changle Road, Qinhuai District, in the middle area between Confucius Temple and Laomen East. The total investment of the project is 500 million yuan and it is planned to open at the end of 2021.
In this regard, Song Ding believes that Nanjing is located between the north and the south, and culturally still belongs to the Yangtze River Basin. “It is not ruled out that Wen Heyou will continue to travel northward on the basis of the success of Nanjing Wenheyou. Xi’an continues to expand more business formats.”
According to Wenheyou’s previous strategic plan, with the Changsha Hisense store model as the prototype, Wenheyou will open 10 super stores in Beijing, Shanghai, Hong Kong, Los Angeles and other global first-tier cities in the future. Regarding future plans in the northern region, Wen Heyou said in response to a reporter from Times Weekly, “The future is infinitely possible. If there is an appropriate opportunity to go northward.”
It is worth noting that a person close to Wen Heyou revealed to a Times Weekly reporter that Wen Heyou has plans for an IPO in the second half of this year. However, Wen Heyou said in response to a reporter from Times Weekly that it is inconvenient to reply to this question.
Although it has become a super IP on social media, In the capital market, it is still unclear whether Wen Heyou’s ability to tell a good story will win the favor of investors. But a person doing equity investment business in CITIC Securities told a Times Weekly reporter that Wen Heyou needs to have a presence in the domestic first-tier and major new first-tier cities in order to have a certain amount of investment in the capital market. Persuasive.
This article is from WeChat official account:Time Weekly (ID: timeweekly) , Author: Liang Shi Ting, Shien Ze