Developing offline, Ma Liuji will probably only stay at the level of "pop-up store" or "single creative store".
Author: Li Mengran Editor: Lv Xinyi
出品：零售商业财经 ID：Retail-Finance
Recently, the online celebrity brand "Ma Liuji" in the hot and sour noodle industry opened its first "exclusive convenience store" in the office area of Sanlitun Yingke Center, which is a case of the brand's cross-border layout of the "convenience store" format, and adds a few new highlights to the retail industry.
Picture: An Yong, CEO of Ma Liuji
In fact, this store is not so much a "convenience store" as a "Ma Liuji exhibition space".
The store mainly sells Ma Liuji's own brand, and even the coffee machine is printed with the word "Ma Liuji", and other brand products account for a relatively small proportion. In addition, this shop also offers on-site brewing, cooking, and other services.
From cutting into the subdivision of hot and sour noodles into the fast food category, to expanding offline channels and opening so-called "convenience stores", this is not a cross-border innovation of Ma Liuji. At the beginning of this year, Ma Liuji opened a restaurant called "Ma Liuji Hot and Sour Noodles" on Chunxi Road in Chengdu, which is different from Ma Liuji Restaurant, which focuses on various noodle snacks and about 15 yuan per capita.
From offline to online, and again focused on offline. What is the intention of Ma Liuji, who has repeatedly made strange moves?
01 The scene is refined, and I am afraid that it will be difficult to survive
The location of the Maliuji convenience store near the Sanlitun office building shows that its core customer base is urban white-collar workers, similar to the convenience store chain brands such as Lawson and FamilyMart that open nearby.
However, from the perspective of commodity structure and product strength, it is obviously difficult for the "layman" Ma Liuji to "wrestle" with chain convenience stores.
In the Ma Liu Kee convenience store, the C position is none other than hot and sour noodles, and the rest of the products have the meaning of "auxiliary". However, a bowl of hot and sour noodles can't tie the "stomach" of white-collar workers, and it is difficult to meet the diversified consumption needs of target customers. Secondly, although the store also provides "standard" products such as soy milk and grilled sausages, there are many larger-scale and stronger convenience store chain brands nearby. In contrast, Ma Liuji Convenience Store has the name of "convenience store" and does not have the reality of "convenience store".
It is worth mentioning that in order to attract traffic to offline stores, Ma Liuji has adopted different price strategies in all channels. After the author's inquiry, it was found that the price of Ma Liuji hot and sour noodles in Meiyijia convenience store was 15.5 yuan / barrel, and the average price in the live broadcast room was about 10 yuan / barrel except for gifts, but Ma Liuji convenience store achieved "cheaper than the live broadcast room during the opening period".
In the short term, Ma Liuji convenience stores have the most price advantage, while the rest of the chain convenience stores that sell Ma Liuji products have lost both price power and offline scene advantages.
Source: Screenshot of Xiaohongshu
In fact, Ma Liuji ended up as a "convenience store", which undoubtedly has its own "Internet celebrity effect". The store will be more exposed to the spotlight, but how much "praise" it can withstand will be how much "slander" it can withstand, and consumers will also put forward higher requirements for this brand store.
Compared with other hot and sour noodle brands, the long list of additives even makes consumers call "Ma Liuji's technology and ruthlessness can write papers".
Source: Screenshot of Xiaohongshu
As early as March 15 last year, China Food Safety Network named Ma Liuji Deng hot and sour noodles as the top three of "science and technology and hard work".
Deviating from productism, can Ma Liuji rely on thin store innovation from the live broadcast room all the way to the offline channel?
02 What is the intention of expanding the retail territory?
In 2020, Wang Xiaofei founded the catering company "Ma Liuji", which focuses on Sichuan cuisine, and with the double halo blessing of her famous mother Zhang Lan in the business world and the wife of a big star in the entertainment industry, Ma Liuji has attracted much attention since its birth.
Previously, Wang Xiaofei had been working in South Beauty Company founded by her mother Zhang Lan, and after the failure of South Beauty's A-share and Hong Kong stock listings, and Zhang Lan lost the VAM agreement with CDH, the mother and son lost control of South Beauty. However, the experience and resources of South Beauty also have a certain role in boosting the subsequent rise of Ma Liuji. With mature experience and supply resources, coupled with the "celebrity halo" brought by the family, the brand voice of Ma Liuji has also been rapidly amplified in the market. According to public information, up to now, Ma Liuji Restaurant has 34 stores across the country.
Although all kinds of resources can make a good start for Ma Liuji in the early days, in the catering track where the entry threshold is low, but it is difficult to succeed, Ma Liuji's "moat" is still too weak.
Soon, Ma Liuji found a new story.
With the explosion of the online large item "hot and sour noodles", and even "a box is hard to find" in the live broadcast room, the online sales of more than 100 million yuan have allowed Ma Liuji to find a new idea in the traditional catering industry - Chengdu Ma Liuji Hot and Sour Noodles Restaurant came into being. From offline to online, and online to feed offline, the two-line integration has indeed been "pinched" by Ma Liuji.
Source: Internet
It is true that hot and sour noodle stores are currently booming.
According to Qichacha data, in the past 2023, the number of new hot and sour noodle-related enterprises nationwide has reached 1,435, and as of March 21, 2024, the number of sour and hot noodle-related enterprises nationwide has reached nearly 15,000. Compared with Malatang on the same track, as of March 12, 2024, there are more than 130,000 stores across the country. It can be seen that the track of offline hot and sour noodles is still promising.
In the past, the phenomenon of "having categories but no brands" in the hot and sour noodle market has also been gradually broken. For example, the three brothers of Modu, the king of hot and sour noodles at Hi Eater, and the "Hot and Sour Noodles with Meat Sauce with Soup Noodles" under Lixing Food have all broken through the online boundaries and expanded their physical stores offline.
Source: Internet
But this track is not exactly suitable for Ma Liuji.
The attributes and scene limitations of Ma Liuji fast food often make people unable to equate it with a meal. The hot and sour noodle restaurant opened by Ma Liuji was not created for the popular instant hot and sour noodles, and the suspicion of "selling dog meat on the head of a sheep" made many consumers call the hot and sour noodle restaurant "not delicious".
Therefore, for Ma Liuji, it is more suitable for offline channels with fast food scenes. The convenience store format can meet the consumption scenarios of Ma Liuji instant food products, and further increase the market penetration rate of the products to ensure its leading position in the hot and sour noodle industry.
It is inevitable that Ma Liuji will go down the line and strive to expand a larger retail territory.
However, large-scale expansion means that although the total turnover will increase rapidly, the profits of a single store will be diluted. Will the maturity and stability of the convenience store track leave a disruptive position for Ma Liuji? The answer is self-explanatory.
"Retail Business Finance" believes that Ma Liuji's exploration of "convenience stores" will only stay at the level of "pop-up stores" or "single creative stores". If you want to go deeper, exchange the voice of the brand and store type for the "increment" brought by the franchisee, I am afraid there is more than one say no.