Under the constraints of multiple negatives such as declining turnover rate and difficulty in making profits in a single store, Haidilao, which has been brutally expanding for several years, has no choice but to press the pause button and announce the closure of 300 stores. At the same time, the company also launched the "Woodpecker Plan" to break the game. However, behind the dilemma of Haidilao, is it really just that the company has expanded too much? Consumers are gradually desensitized to the characteristic "standardized service" of Haidilao, and the strategy of "hot pot+subdivided track" provided by other hot pot brands makes the company feel at a loss in this mess of the hot pot industry.

Haidilao is swallowing its own bitter fruit.

165438+15 October, Haidilao announced that it had decided to gradually close 300 Haidilao stores with relatively low passenger flow and unsatisfactory business performance before 65438+3 February/0.

At the same time, Haidilao also released the "Woodpecker" plan, aiming at rectifying the stores with poor business performance.

This is the first time that Haidilao has opened such a large-scale store closing tide since its listing. According to Haidilao's previous financial report, as of June 30th, 20021,Haidilao had 1597 global stores. Based on this calculation, the number of closed stores accounts for about 18.8% of the total number of stores.

Haidilao sent a letter to friends who care about Haidilao through the official Weibo, explaining the main reasons why the performance of some stores of the company failed to meet expectations.

Including the unreasonable location of some newly opened stores, the change of internal organizational structure, which makes managers at all levels "incomprehensible and exhausted", the shortage of excellent store managers, excessive belief in KPI indicators linked to interests, and insufficient corporate culture construction, have all become the reasons why Haidilao needs to slow down.

But can closing 300 stores solve these problems?

"Woodpecker" Plan in Haidilao

The financial report shows that in just 20 19 years, Haidilao opened 308 new restaurants, with a total of 768 stores, and the turnover rate was stable at 4.8 times a day. By 202 1, there were 1597 shops in Haidilao, and the layout gradually shifted from first-tier cities to second-,third-tier and below cities, but the turnover rate has dropped to three times a day.

Faced with the declining turnover rate, Haidilao chose to close some stores.

In terms of closing standards, Haidilao said that it would comprehensively consider factors such as the maturity of the external business circle where the store is located, the passenger flow, the density around the store, and the financial indicators of a single store. "The average turnover rate has not reached 4 times/day. In principle, there will be no new branches on a large scale."

While shrinking stores, Haidilao will also carry out a series of internal structural adjustments. Including strengthening some functional departments, restoring regional management system and strengthening internal management and assessment mechanism.

Haidilao called this broken arm survival move "Woodpecker Plan". "Woodpeckers are good at finding pests under bark and are tenacious. The relevant person in charge of Haidilao said this when talking about this plan.

Now many Haidilao shops have long lost the bustling scene of long queues. All this may be attributed to the original expansion strategy.

The strategic mistake of expansion swallowed the bitter fruit.

During the 20 19 epidemic, the catering industry was in a collective downturn, and many small catering enterprises had no choice but to close their stores because of the sparse passenger flow and the sharp drop in diners. Even if they are better than Siebel under the influence of the epidemic, they are a little overwhelmed and helpless.

However, the collective cooling of the catering industry has enabled Haidilao to see new opportunities. In June 2020, Zhang Yong judged that the epidemic would end in three months, and resolutely decided to start expanding against the trend.

According to public information, in 20 19 and 2020, Haidilao opened 308 and 544 stores respectively, and 299 stores were added in the first half of this year. It can be seen that in the three-year expansion plan, in 2020, the company has the fastest pace of opening stores, with a year-on-year growth rate of 76.6%.

After Zhang Yong pointed out the direction, the expansion of Haidilao proceeded as scheduled, but the "evil consequences" of the contrarian expansion soon appeared.

According to the company's 2020 financial report, the average turnover rate of Haidilao dropped from 4.8 times a day in 20 19 to 3.5 times a day in 2020.

The sharp drop in turnover rate also began to cause the company to increase revenue without increasing profits. According to the company's 2020 financial report, Haidilao achieved revenue of 28.6 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 7.8%; The net profit was 309 million yuan, down 86.8% year-on-year.

Expanding stores has always been a magic weapon for Haidilao to maintain long-term performance growth, and it has also made him highly respected in the capital market. On February 6th, 20021,the company's share price reached a record high of HK$ 85.754 per share, with the highest increase of 65,438+087.9%.

At the beginning of the company's performance changes, the market attributed all the problems to "affected by the epidemic", thinking that as long as the company was given a certain period of time, the impact of the epidemic would eventually dissipate and the company's performance would return to the upward channel.

However, the time has entered 202 1. Although the severity of the epidemic has gradually eased, the company's performance is still very weak and even worse.

202 1, H 1, the turnover rate of the company's core data further decreased. According to the company's financial report data, the overall turnover rate of 202 1H 1 company was 3.0, of which the turnover rate of first-tier/second-tier/third-tier and below/overseas cities was 3.0/3. 1/2.9/2.2, which were flat/declining1kloc respectively.

After all, the decline in turnover rate has affected the performance of the profit side. According to the company's financial report, in the first half of 20021,the same-store sales of Haidilao was 84,800 yuan, the net profit of a single store was only 59,200 yuan, and the net interest rate was 0.48%. In the same period, it was 20 143700 yuan and 65433 yuan respectively.

In this regard, Zhang Yong, the chairman of the company, admitted his mistake at the half-year performance exchange meeting and said, "I judge that the epidemic will end in September, but as of today, our stores in Taiwan Province Province and Singapore are still unable to open due to the epidemic.

I misjudged the trend. Last June, I made further plans to expand the store. Now I am really blind and confident. When I realized the problem, it was already 65438+ this year 10, and when I realized it, it was already March. "

Admit your mistake and you will get a cliff-like decline in market value. Since February of 17, the company's share price has fallen by more than 75.79%, which is nearly HK$ 350 billion less than the peak in the year.

"Hidden feelings" behind Haidilao Customs Store

In fact, behind the difficulties in the development of Haidilao, it may not be completely "misjudging the epidemic situation, and the company is greatly affected by the epidemic situation" as Zhang Yong said. The catch-up of the latecomers and the gradual disconnection of the company's marketing model have caused today's scene.

As we all know, the domestic hot pot market is a market full of opportunities and challenges. Huge industry space, numerous market players and fierce industry competition have all become one of the labels of the domestic hot pot market.

In the early years, Haidilao relied on its unique "standardized" quality service to survive in the fierce competition of deus ex.

According to public data, in 20 15 years, the number of stores in Haidilao was only over 100, which was more than 10 times higher than the current 1597.

Behind the ultimate service experience is its profound management wisdom. The quality of ingredients is the foundation of excellent catering enterprises, and management ability is the catalyst for outstanding catering enterprises to stand out. Good quality foundation of ingredients and excellent management ability give Haidilao the ultimate service experience and build its brand moat.

It's just that the label "good service" has been a bit embarrassing in the past two years, and many consumers have a lot of complaints about the company's services. In a survey in Weibo, 49.5% of the participants thought that the service of Haidilao was excessive, and only 1 1% of netizens chose "I like this enthusiasm". In fact, some people in the industry have indicated that trained services and actions are more aimed at increasing the wastage rate of consumers.

In addition, the company's "good service" model is difficult to replicate in a short time, and the company's service personnel reserve can't keep up with the company's expansion demand, resulting in a decline in the company's turnover rate.

Earlier, some media reported that due to the lack of practical experience, newcomers could not adapt to the work intensity of Haidilao, which led to an increase in the turnover rate of new employees. Coupled with the serious shortage of middle-level cadres, there is a serious shortage of personnel in Haidilao, which directly leads to the continuous rise of new stores. The extension of the climbing period has dragged down business.

In fact, Haidilao is currently facing not only "internal worries" but also countless "external troubles". More than 140 companies are on the way to listing on the 700 billion hot pot track.

Since the beginning of this year, in addition to the well-known fishing king, several Sichuan-style hot pot restaurant chain brands such as Zhou Ge and Banu have successively received hundreds of millions of yuan in investment and financing; In addition, there are hot pot take-away retail brand Jingpai fresh brine and Chaotianmen Wharf, which specializes in hot pot bottom materials. The institutional lineup behind it is luxurious, including IDG Capital, Jiayu Fund, Tiantu Investment, Black Ant Capital, Tomato Capital and other institutions that focus on consumption.

Hot pot is a homogeneous industry with serious competition. In order to break through, it is necessary to have its own characteristics, which makes major hot pot brands explore subdivided tracks one after another and strive to find a breakthrough at a single point.

Taking Lao Wang as an example, the company cut into the market with "hot pot for soup", focusing on the new consumption concept of health and wellness. Open all kinds of comment software, and most of netizens' comments are "soup is fresh and dripping with the tip of their tongue", "clay pot rice YYDS" and "punch in and drink soup every month". Not to mention Xianhezhuang, which focuses on pot-stewed, Tan Duck Blood, which breaks through the track with duck blood, and Ge Laoguan, which uses beautiful frogs as a means.

However, if Haidilao can't keep its own territory, it will be even more difficult to regain its share from these rising stars in the future.