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according to tianyancha data, there are only 14 financing related to traditional tea enterprises in the past two years, and new brands such as small pot of tea, Chali in tea, and Xiaokong in tea have obtained financing. Before the formal IPO of Lancang ancient tea, the prospectus showed that only in 2018, Jingmai new industry and Fusi invested 15.8 million yuan and 9.5 million yuan; In 2019, Qingcheng Kaiyi and junquanxin invested 29.9 million and 20million yuan. Until September 2021, before the impact on Hong Kong shares, a group of capital increased their capital and became shareholders.
seems to be “neglected” by traditional tea enterprises compared with the new tea drinks, represented by Xi tea and Naixue, which are sought after by capital, and the bistro formats such as Helens.
“capital doesn’t like drinking tea” has become an argument. Fengweidong, managing partner of Tiantu investment, once said in an interview with Chinanet: “for the tea industry, before that, everyone was still telling stories about small producing areas and small producing areas, which were seriously fragmented and difficult to be a big one. Only by walking on the path of standardization and combining with the experience of service can we tell a big story.”
1. Low concentration
according to the report on China’s tea production and sales in 2021, the total domestic sales of China’s tea in 2021 was 312billion yuan. According to the prospectus of Lancang ancient tea, the first place in the Pu’er tea market in 2021 had a revenue of about 2.38 billion yuan, and its market share of tea products was measured to be about 0.76%. Judging from the public data, the probability of this brand is that of Dayi group.
. According to the 2021 financial report data of “Tianfu”, a Hong Kong stock tea enterprise, its tea sales revenue is close to 1.4 billion yuan, and the tea product revenue of Bama tea industry is close to 1.5 billion yuan in 2021. It is estimated that the market share of the two is about 0.45% and 0.48%; Lancang ancient tea, with an annual sales scale of about 510million yuan, accounts for about 0.17% of the market. The top four players in the industry account for less than 2% of the total market.
as a comparison, the previous “Naixue’s tea” Hong Kong stock prospectus showed that in 2020, the market share of the top three brands in China’s current tea industry totaled 29.5%; The total market share of the top seven brands is 50.4%.
the low concentration of Bama tea industry to the industry is explained as follows:
due to the low threshold for tea to enter the market, the scale of enterprises in China’s tea industry is relatively small, private enterprises and manual workshops are in the majority, the degree of standardization is low, there are few leading enterprises, and the market concentration is low. Many small and micro tea enterprises lead to low average output value of the industry, fierce market competition, and it is difficult to generate economies of scale. In addition, under the condition of limited product development ability, products with unstable quality, poor transparency and single variety are difficult to bring satisfactory experience to consumers.
2. It is difficult to standardize
coffee and tea as crops, their quality and yield are affected by uncontrollable natural conditions such as soil and climate. Some coffee lovers told e-commerce online that at present, coffee brands generally adopt the method of “bean blending” to stabilize the quality and supply of products by improving the diversity of raw material structure.
but for tea, “blending” is still not a conventional means, unless it is made into tea bags. For example, “Lipton” realizes the standardized taste through “tea bags”. Tea bags sold by Xi tea and Naixue can increase the supply of goods and improve their gross profit in addition to the existing tea drinks. But for Chinese consumers who are most “fastidious” about drinking tea, the sense of ceremony in the process of making tea and the cloud of tea in the cup are indispensable narratives. The annual sales of Lipton, the main tea bag maker in
, has also been declining. The market once lamented that “one Lipton is better than ten thousand tea enterprises”. This is just an exaggerated statement. In fact, Lipton’s sales are not as good as China’s top tea enterprises.
“drinking tea is pure and authentic. A pile of tea is mixed together. Even if it is prepared based on the overall unified taste, the real tea drinkers will not touch it.”
this also indirectly shows that the tea bag is not the optimal solution for the tea market. Lancang ancient tea, Bama tea and Tianfu tea all have tea bag products, but they are mainly used to educate new users and meet the needs of “sinking market”, and their sales are far lower than conventional tea products.
products that are difficult to standardize and industry concentration that are difficult to achieve are related to each other and lie in front of tea enterprises. It also discourages capital from the tea market.
. At present, domestic tea enterprises mainly include “Dayi group” with the first share of Pu’er tea market, “Lancang ancient tea” with the second share, “Bama tea” with the first share of Oolong tea, and Tianfu tea with a broader category. According to the prospectus information of Lancang ancient tea and Bama tea, “e-commerce online” observed that the current large-scale tea enterprises mainly operate through direct sales and franchising, Online and offline Omni channel:
“from the perspective of business model, on the purchasing side, the company exports Bama products and service standards to a large number of suppliers and franchisees of finished tea, tea sets and tea food, and actively integrates upstream tea factory resources. Most of the company’s products are purchased from qualified suppliers in the form of customized procurement. On the sales side, the products sold by the company are branded as” Bama ” Sales in the form of other sub brands or joint brands. The company uniformly sells its products through the omni channel sales system of “direct sales + franchise” and “Online + offline” The products exported by the
brand include tea, tea sets and offline teahouses, but the latter two make little contribution to the revenue. Taking Lancang ancient tea as an example, the income from teahouses and tea sets accounts for less than 3% of the total revenue.
. The franchised distributors of tea enterprises are scattered all over the country. The data show that by the end of 2021: Lancang ancient tea has 531 franchised stores nationwide, and Bama tea has 2203 franchised stores, which are geographically concentrated, highlighting the regional differences in China’s tea consumption habits. For example, Bama tea has 229 franchise stores in Fujian Province, Lancang ancient tea has 176 franchise stores in Guangdong and Guangxi, and 52 in Yunnan. The statement of the business model in the
prospectus can be simply summarized as follows: purchase products from upstream tea factories and tea cooperatives, customize them, process them and sell them to downstream distributors to earn a price difference. This is also the main source of income for the head tea enterprises. In 2021, about 890million yuan of revenue of Bama tea industry came from franchisees, accounting for 51.5% of the total revenue; The franchisee income of Lancang ancient tea in the same period was about 310million yuan, accounting for 83.5% of the total income.
. Since 2020, due to repeated epidemics, further improvement of e-commerce penetration in social retail and other environmental changes, it has become the consensus of consumer brands to strengthen online operation.
tea enterprises’ direct sales channels mainly include online and offline direct sales stores: Lancang ancient tea has 26 offline direct sales stores and 12 online direct sales online stores, with a sales volume of 42million yuan, accounting for 7.5% of the total revenue; Bama tea has a total of 410 Direct stores, with a sales amount of 834million yuan, accounting for 48.21% of the total revenue, of which 20.98% is contributed by e-commerce channels, with an amount of 363million yuan, and the growth rate of e-commerce channels is much higher than the overall market.
e-commerce channels of tea enterprises mainly include tmall, jd.com, vipshop, etc. According to the prospectus of Bama tea, its e-commerce is divided into online self operation and platform warehousing. The former is mainly tmall flagship store, and the latter is JD self operation procurement. In 2021, the sales volume of the two companies will be 272million yuan and 90million yuan respectively. It can be seen that the self operated tmall flagship store is the core e-commerce platform of tea enterprises.
. Through the observation of the actual sales of products of various brands on e-commerce platforms, we find that no matter Lancang ancient tea, Bama tea and Tianfu tea, their online products tend to follow the line of parity and youth compared with offline products.
take Lancang ancient tea tmall store as an example. The “black gold” of the high-end line is priced at 9880 yuan / kg, and the “0085 tea cake” is 4706 yuan / kg. Their online sales are very few, and the high sales are mostly cheap canned and bagged tea of dozens of yuan.
in this regard, the prospectus of Bama tea industry explains:
“under the network sales mode, the company does not need to bear the housing rent, site expenses and other related sales expenses. In order to seize the online market and accurately cover the online customer group, the company has developed a product line of Online sales channels. Its product positioning and pricing range are more people-friendly than offline channels, but its gross profit margin is lower than offline direct sales channels.”
at present, the further e-commerce and the strengthening of e-commerce live broadcasting are regarded as the “breaking point” path that brands can try:
for the tea industry, it can make full use of Internet big data to better study the needs and changes of consumers, and make use of new online marketing means for precision marketing, so as to adjust the development strategy, product direction and innovation content of the enterprise. At the same time, under the new retail mode, tea enterprises can enhance the digital construction of the whole chain, transmit consumer demand to the production end faster, reduce costs and improve efficiency. The above
is the statement of e-commerce value in the prospectus of Bama tea, while the prospectus of Lancang ancient tea illustrates a more specific approach: in addition to expanding the territory of our self operated online stores,
will also provide professional support and guidance for our dealers, so that they can make good use of experiential E-commerce and open their own online stores on live and short videos. We plan to enable offline stores to open more than 100 online stores on major live and short video platforms by the end of 2022.
as a matter of fact, in 2021, the sales volume of Bama tea industry through the two modes of store self broadcast and talent with goods accounted for 5.38% of the total revenue.
for tea enterprises, brand is category: Lancang ancient tea, Dayi group and Pu’er are bundled; More than 50% of the sales of Bama tea comes from Oolong tea. On the one hand, the local supply chain and distribution system allow brands to enter the local market. On the other hand, the offline store expansion efficiency is low, and the local market educated by the offline distribution system is easy to be limited in taste. For example, Zhejiang people drink green tea and Fujian people drink oolong.
by sales channel with the increasing online penetration of the tea market and the improvement of supporting logistics infrastructure, it is expected to break the regional differences in tea consumption, expand the market scale of a single variety of tea, and promote local consumers to try and accept more diversified tea varieties.
this is of indirect benefit to the industry concentration, product standardization and differentiation.
has suffered repeated defeats in the capital market, but the primary and secondary markets, which take sustainable profitability as the primary standard, may not be biased against tea enterprises. After all, the top players in the industry are listed. For example, the revenue of 1.74 billion yuan of Bama tea industry can only earn 160million yuan of net profit; Tianfu group has a revenue scale of 1.924 billion yuan and a slightly higher net profit of 359million yuan.
net profit margin is generally not high, and the revenue structure tends to be single. Tea food, tea set, teahouse and other derivative industries have not yet brought stable income. The financial situation of large-scale tea enterprises is not ideal.
secondly, taking the tmall flagship store of Bama tea industry as an example, the total number of users with more than 7 single ID transactions in 2021 is 3178, accounting for 0.68% of the total number of users. Although the overall number of high-frequency consumer users is increasing, there is a wide gap between the consumption frequency of users in milk tea, coffee and other industries who are prone to one cup a day. Moreover, tea has no obvious advantages over milk tea and coffee in terms of price per customer.
of Bama tea industry. In the long run, it is believed that tea with a long history will grow into “the first share”. But there is still a long way to go.
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