■ Half a month before the Mid-Autumn Festival, the "Moutai Mooncake" launched by Moutai International Hotel has already been sold out, and it has even been fired at an "astronomical price" on the Internet platform.
■ Red Star Capital Bureau found that in the second-hand market, the Maotai Liuxin mooncake gift box with a price of 318 yuan/box, some scalpers sell for a maximum of 700 yuan/box.
The price of the slightly lower Yuhu Mooncake Gift Box has also doubled.
There are also sellers who told the Red Star Capital Bureau that there are still more than ten days before the Mid-Autumn Festival, and the price of Maotai moon cakes may increase.
■ "As long as the word Maotai is stained, there is room to be hyped," some consumers commented.
Why is the Maotai mooncake, which has been launched since 2017, suddenly "exploded" this year?
Who is hyping Moutai moon cakes?
■ In the interview, Red Star Capital Bureau found that there were many family members of employees of Moutai International Hotel, and some sellers claimed to be Moutai liquor distributors.
In this regard, on August 25, the Red Star Capital Bureau called the public phone number on the official website of Kweichow Moutai (600519.SH), but as of press time, no contact has been made.
■ On the evening of August 24, Maotai International Hotel issued a statement in response to the phenomenon that some merchants are selling Maotai mooncakes at a higher price.
Moutai Hotel said that since 2017, the hotel has started to launch moon cakes before the Mid-Autumn Festival.
This year, a total of about 100,000 boxes of two types were launched, and they are all sold out.
In response to the current market price increase of some merchants selling moon cake gift boxes of Moutai Hotel, we firmly resist and ask consumers to consume rationally.
be fried
"Hermes in moon cakes"? Will the price go up?
On June 30, two months before the Mid-Autumn Festival this year, Moutai International Hotel announced the launch of two moon cake gift boxes, each with 8 moon cakes, and the Maotai International Hotel logo on the gift box.
Among them, the "Liu Xin Mooncake Gift Box" is priced at 318 yuan per box, and the "Jade Tiger Mooncake Gift Box" is priced at 188 yuan per box.
On sale from July 1st.
However, the Red Star Capital Bureau noticed that as the Mid-Autumn Festival approached, these two "Moutai mooncakes" were hyped up on the Internet platform, and the price more than doubled.
On August 25, the Red Star Capital Bureau searched on Xianyu, Xiaohongshu and other platforms and found that many accounts were selling Maotai mooncakes, and the title also contained the words "Hermes in mooncakes".
A Xianyu seller told the Red Star Capital Bureau that Maotai mooncakes are in short supply, and the Liuxin mooncake gift box was sold out two days ago.
If calculated according to the price of a box of 658 yuan, a moon cake is as high as 80 yuan.
The lower-priced Yuhu Mooncake Gift Box is currently selling for 368 yuan per box.
Just when the Red Star Capital Bureau inquired about the price, the seller said that the last Yuhu Mooncake gift box was also sold out, and then the Xianyu link was quickly removed.
On the Xiaohongshu platform, the Red Star Capital Bureau found that there are also many high-priced Maotai mooncakes being sold.
The seller, Ms. Yu (pseudonym) quoted, "Liu Xin moon cake is 618 yuan, Yuhu moon cake is 308 yuan", and emphasized that "it is in stock, shipped from Maotai Town, Renhuai, and can be shipped on the same day." According to the seller, It has sold thousands of boxes.
Another seller of Xiaohongshu told the Red Star Capital Bureau that if you want to buy it, you have to buy it as soon as possible, and the closer you are to the Mid-Autumn Festival, the more expensive it will be.
Can consumers still buy Maotai mooncakes at the original price if they do not want to increase the price?
On August 25, the Red Star Capital Bureau called the Maotai International Hotel, and its staff said that Maotai moon cakes will be on sale from July 1, offline can be purchased at the Maotai International Hotel, and online is pre-sale on the official WeChat and official website. .
Immediately afterwards, the staff member said: "The pre-sale has been sold out in mid-July."
It is worth mentioning that the Red Star Capital Bureau learned from the above-mentioned sellers that these two kinds of Maotai mooncakes that were "scrambled" did not contain any ingredients of Maotai wine in the ingredient list.
"There are still more than ten days before the Mid-Autumn Festival, and the price of Maotai moon cakes may increase," a seller told the Red Star Capital Bureau.
Who is frying?
There are family members of hotel employees and people who claim to be Maotai distributors
Some consumers commented: "As long as the word Maotai is stained, there is room for hype."
So the sky-high price of 80 yuan moon cakes without Moutai wine, who is hyping it?
On August 25, Ms. Lu (pseudonym), a seller of Maotai mooncakes, told the Red Star Capital Bureau that she was a native of Maotai Town. She had family members working in the Maotai International Hotel and could get the goods from the hotel.
Ms. Lu mentioned that in previous years, the moon cakes of Moutai International Hotel were sold to employees, and employees could get a commission of more than ten yuan when they sold it.
Ms. Lu told the Red Star Capital Bureau that this year's original price of 188 yuan for the Yuhu moon cake gift box will sell for 338 yuan here, while the Liuxin moon cake can be sold for 400-500 yuan depending on the situation, but it has already been sold out.
During the conversation, Ms. Lu regretted not stocking up. Before, she sold it to others at the original price. She did not expect Maotai mooncakes to be so popular now.
"(The hotel) has been selling mooncakes since 2017, and we have been selling them for several years. We didn't expect it to be so popular this year," Ms. Lu said.
The seller, Ms. Yu, made it clear to the Red Star Capital Bureau that she was a distributor of Moutai liquor and had sold 3,000 boxes so far, and emphasized fidelity: "We are a distributor of Moutai liquor, how could we have ruined our jobs." Red Star The Capital Bureau found that Ms. Yu’s social network account was marked: selling Maotai series wine, Sanjiu, base wine, etc.
Another seller said that he got the goods from a local trading company in Renhuai.
Regarding what Ms. Lu and Ms. Yu said, on August 25, the Red Star Capital Bureau called the public phone number on the official website of Kweichow Moutai (600519.SH), but as of press time, no contact has been made.
The staff of Moutai International Hotel responded that the Maotai moon cakes sold by the hotel have always been a full-staff marketing model, even if the hotel sweeper can sell them, but the hotel does not allow hype moon cakes, and cannot be sold at an increased price, only the original price. sell.
It is worth mentioning that under the huge profit margin, there is also a phenomenon of "cross-selling" in the industry chain of reselling Moutai mooncakes.
In the interview, the Red Star Capital Bureau found that the Maotai mooncakes sold by some sellers were shipped from Beijing, Hangzhou and other places. When the Red Star Capital Bureau asked why the delivery place was not Maotai Town, the other party said "from the warehouse".
Ms. Lu also told the Red Star Capital Bureau that other sellers claimed to have received 2,000 boxes of mooncakes and came to her to resell them, but she refused because she was worried that they were fakes.
Why was it suddenly fired up?
The explosion of Moutai ice cream drives the popularity of Moutai's peripheral products
Why did Maotai mooncakes, which have been launched since 2017, suddenly be "fired up" this year?
Ms. Lu told the Red Star Capital Bureau that it may be related to the previous launch of Maotai ice cream by Maotai.
In May of this year, Moutai ice cream was launched and attracted much attention because it contained 53° Moutai.
Once it was launched, it was also hyped up. At the peak, the purchasing price tripled or quadrupled. A box of ice cream of 66 yuan was once smashed to more than 200 yuan.
The explosion of Moutai ice cream has driven the popularity of Moutai's peripheral products, and prices will naturally rise.
The Red Star Capital Bureau noticed that on Xiaohongshu, a blogger posted a video evaluating Maotai mooncakes, which mentioned that Maotai ice cream had been evaluated.
However, there are also bloggers of Xiaohongshu who expressed disappointment after learning that Maotai mooncakes did not contain Maotai wine: "I thought it was bought by Maotai sandwiches, but I really stepped on the thunder."
Observed
key supervision
The unit price is more than 500 yuan
Boxed Mooncakes
It is worth mentioning that this year's mooncake market has undergone new changes.
In June, the National Development and Reform Commission, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, the Ministry of Commerce, and the State Administration for Market Regulation jointly issued the Announcement on Curbing "Sky-Priced" Mooncakes and Promoting the Healthy Development of the Industry", requiring the implementation of boxed mooncakes with a unit price of more than 500 yuan. Supervision.
Under the new regulations, the "high-priced mooncakes" above 500 yuan have disappeared, and the most expensive mooncake gift box on the e-commerce platform is 499 yuan.
Although the price of Maotai mooncakes at Maotai International Hotel is not more than 500 yuan, in the second-hand market, Maotai Liuxin mooncakes sold for more than 700 yuan per box at the highest, far exceeding the scope of the new regulations.
Industry insiders said that for this kind of "sit on the ground" behavior, should Maotai International Hotel be responsible for the market price?
It only talks about "resolutely resisting", but how to resist, and what measures should be explained to the market?
The Red Star Capital Bureau also found that in addition to scalpers, Maotai International Hotel may also rely on Maotai moon cakes for a lot of revenue.
According to the Beijing News, the relevant person in charge of Maotai introduced that Yuhu Yingyue launched a total of 69,500 boxes and Liuxin mooncakes launched a total of 30,000 boxes.
According to the list price, Maotai International Hotel's income from selling moon cakes exceeds 22 million yuan.
Not only that, the gross profit margin of the mooncake category has been high.
Listed companies Guangzhou Restaurant (603043.SH) and Yuanzu Co., Ltd. (603886.SH) have gross profit margins of more than 50% in moon cakes, Chinese and Western pastry gift box products.
Based on this calculation, the gross profit of moon cake sales of Moutai International Hotel may exceed 10 million yuan.
Chengdu Commercial Daily-Red Star News reporter Qiang Yaxian