Selling ice cream for 3 yuan, how does the milk tea Michelle Ice City make money with an average price of 8 yuan?
Have you been brainwashed by the Michelle Ice City theme song in the past two days?
Because of the magical theme song "You love me, I love you, Michelle Ice City is sweet", Michelle Ice City has become popular on social media such as Weibo, Station B, and Douyin.
Relying on 3 yuan ice cream, 4 yuan lemonade, and 8 yuan milk tea, Michelle Ice City has exceeded 10,000 stores in June last year.
Can't help but let the outside world marvel that there is still money to be made with such a cheap product?
Michelle Ice City
On June 3, the Michelle Ice City official account uploaded the theme song MV "You Love Me, I Love You, Michelle Ice City Sweet Honey" on station B, and then uploaded the Chinese and English bilingual version with magical melody and The simple lyrics made this theme song MV received more than 12.82 million views and 650,000 likes.
After the theme song became popular, there was news that Michelle Ice City offline stores can sing the theme song for free, attracting many netizens to "check in and sing" at Michelle Ice City stores.
However, many netizens overcame the "social fear" after singing and dancing at the Michelle Ice City store, and did not receive free rewards. The store staff also said that they did not publish such activities.
On June 20, the Red Star Capital Bureau called the Chengdu branch of Michelle Ice City, and the relevant staff said that the activity of "Singing the theme song to get free bills" was not an official activity of the company, but was spontaneously organized by some stores. Only some stores participate in this event.
Whether it is an official event or not, Michelle Ice City has earned a lot of popularity and gained a lot of popularity, #不怪蜜雪冰城歌此耳熟#, #蜜雪冰城社死直播#, #蜜雪冰城主题曲#, etc. Many hot searches, as of June 20, the number of readings of related Weibo topics exceeded 130 million, and the topic of Douyin also had 790 million views.
In fact, the melody of the theme song of this magical upper brain comes from a folk ballad "oh, Susanna" (transliteration "oh, Susanna"), which is a country folk song written by Stephen Foster in 1847. It has a history of 174 years.
The theme song of Michelle Ice City selected one of the content with strong sense of rhythm and simple melody. Through simple adaptation and repetition, although only 13 words were short, it realized rapid spread.
Since its establishment in 1997, Michelle Ice City has a history of nearly 24 years, and it has not been frequently seen by the public until recent years.
In addition to the popular theme song, when it comes to Michelle Ice City, "low price and affordable" is its biggest feature.
3 yuan ice cream, 4 yuan lemonade, 8 yuan average price of milk tea, Michelle Ice City in the sinking market to occupy a huge market share, data shows that in June 2020, Michelle Ice City became the country's first A tea brand with more than 10,000 stores.
Michelle Ice City Development Way
In 2007, Michelle Ice City opened 26 franchise stores;
In 2008, this number increased nearly 7 times, reaching more than 180;
In June 2020, Michelle Ice City became the country's first tea brand with more than 10,000 stores.
Way of expansion:
Relying on "walking volume" joining
In 1998, Zhang Hongchao, the brother of Zhang Hongfu, the founder of Michelle Ice City, opened a "Cold Current Shaved Ice" cold drink shop in Zhengzhou, Henan Province, which was also the predecessor of Michelle Ice City.
At that time, Zhang Hongchao was still studying at Henan University of Finance and Economics (now Henan University of Economics and Law). In order to reduce the burden on his family, he rented a small window specializing in various cold drinks such as shaved ice.
On the official website of Michelle Ice City, Zhang Hongchao’s entrepreneurial history was described in the form of comics.
From 1999 to 2003, Zhang Hongchao's Michelle Bingcheng store moved four times. In addition to selling cold drinks, Zhang Hongchao also sold apples and candied haws, and even opened a Michelle Bingcheng Chinese and Western restaurant and a Michelle Bingcheng home cooking restaurant.
In 2006, Zhang Hongchao introduced fresh ice cream for 1 yuan, which was very popular.
Since then, Michelle Ice City has found a suitable development path, and "low price" has become its brand gene, which continues to this day.
In 2007, Michelle Ice City opened 26 franchise stores; in 2008, this number doubled nearly seven times to more than 180; in June 2020, Michelle Ice City became the first tea store in the country with a number of over 10,000. Drink brand.
Of course, the scale of more than 10,000 stores is inseparable from the franchise business of Michelle Ice City.
According to industry insiders, Michelle Ice City is more like a "volume" franchise, with low franchise costs and rapid expansion of store scale.
On the official website of Michelle Ice City, the details of the initial fee are public. The initial fees of provincial capital, prefecture-level cities, and county-level cities are 11,000 yuan/year, 9,000 yuan/year, and 7,000 yuan/year respectively.
The franchise fee for the milk tea brand "Little" in the three tier cities is 66,000 yuan, 46,000 yuan, and 26,000 yuan.
Adding in daily management, store equipment, raw materials, decoration and rent, you can open a Michelle Ice City franchise store starting at 350,000 yuan, and opening a "little" investment is about twice that.
Today, Michelle Ice City occupies the surrounding areas of the school, traffic turning points, and street shops with a large flow of people, and "blooms everywhere" in third- and fourth-tier cities.
Ways to make money:
Inseparable from "small profits but quick turnover"
The outside world has always been curious about Michelle Ice City. With 3 yuan ice cream, 4 yuan lemonade, and 8 yuan milk tea at an average price of 8 yuan, can you still make money with such a cheap product?
To sum up the management of Michelle Ice City, it is inseparable from the words "small profits but quick turnover".
The Red Star Capital Bureau found on the Tianyancha APP that the brand is currently operated by three companies.
Among them, Zhengzhou Cross-Strait Enterprise Management Co., Ltd. leads the management and operation, Henan Daka Food Co., Ltd. leads R&D and production, and Zhengzhou Baodao Trading Co., Ltd. provides warehousing and logistics services.
With the scale of tens of thousands of stores, Michelle Ice City has more say in purchasing raw materials, has bargaining power in the purchase of upstream milk, tea, fruit, coffee, and sugar, and can purchase raw materials at low cost.
In addition, Henan Dajia Food's self-built factory under Michelle Ice City produces core tea raw materials and directly supplies production materials to franchisees.
At the same time, it relies on its own logistics company Zhengzhou Baodao Trading to be responsible for logistics transportation.
Currently, Michelle Ice City has set up a general warehouse in Henan, and four major warehouses covering the whole country.
It can be said that Michelle Ice City relies on a huge volume to support a complete supply chain from R&D and production to warehousing and logistics.
In other words, as long as the franchise stores continue to expand, Michelle Ice City will continue to sell raw materials to the franchise stores. Compared with the franchise fee, this is Michelle Ice City's long-lasting success.
problem
Quick copy of stores
Increase management difficulty
Michelle Ice City stated that it is a single-store franchise model, and the company does not participate in store sharing, so that it can also achieve rapid replication of stores.
But this model also brings management difficulty to Michelle Ice City.
In May of this year, according to China Quality News, Michelle’s Zhengzhou Yong’an Street Store, Jinan Daguanyuan Store, and Wuhan Mahu Commercial Street Store had a series of hygienic chaos, including tampering with the expiration date of unsealed ingredients and using overnight tea soup milk syrup. Food safety issues of semi-finished products.
After being exposed, the topic "Michelle Ice City was exposed to tampering with the date of ingredients" immediately appeared in the hot search on Weibo, with more than 300 million views on this topic.
On May 15th, Michelle Ice City’s official Weibo issued a statement of apology, investigating and rectifying serious violations in the store.
It can be seen that low profits and rapid expansion of stores make it difficult for Michelle Ice City to avoid management loopholes.
However, the expansion of Michelle Ice City has not stopped.
At the beginning of this year, some media reported that Michelle Ice City completed its first round of financing, with a valuation of more than 20 billion yuan. In addition, Michelle Ice City also plans to list on the A-share market, and preparations for the listing have reached the final stage.
Chengdu Commercial Daily-Red Star News reporter Xu Yuanqiang Ya milling