Chief Reporter Yang Menghan Huaxia Wine News
After the liquor with a retail price of 9.9 yuan, the craft beer at 9.9 yuan is here again. At the moment when there are great changes on the consumer side, it seems that the phenomenon of "the consumer side forcing the supply chain, and the supply chain forcing the producer", thus "knocking down the price" in the game of several parties.
Consumption habits have changed, the way manufacturers interact with each other has changed, will the right to speak in the entire chain change?
Redefining "good wine" at a low price?
Since the beginning of this year, low-priced liquor and craft beer, which are mainly sold by chain supermarkets, have become popular one after another, knocking down the prices of alcoholic products that were previously high.
In the first half of the year, Shanghai Aoqile supermarket sold a 9.9 yuan 500 ml liquor on the shelves, which quickly attracted attention and was once out of stock, which shows that the public has great enthusiasm for this low-priced liquor.
On the other hand, the well-known Hema Craft Beer, the two new Chinese craft beers "Mung Bean Fresh Beer" and "Double Grapefruit Lager", which were launched this year, are only priced at 9.9 yuan, and the original price of 19.9 yuan of German-style wheat white beer has also dropped to 13.9 yuan this year.
Whether it is Ozile's liquor or Hema Craft Distillery, they are all cost-effective, and their production standards are not lower than those of traditional liquor companies.
It is understood that Ozile is a cheap supermarket of Germany brand, focusing on affordable prices. The liquor on the shelves of Ozil is a strong aroma liquor produced in accordance with the GB/T 10781.1 standard, which is fermented by the traditional solid-state method, and the ingredients are only five pure grains: sorghum, rice, glutinous rice, wheat and corn in addition to water.
This liquor is made by Aoqile from the Qinyuan Spring Distillery in Dayi County, Chengdu City, Sichuan Province. The industry believes that thanks to Sichuan's profound strength in raw liquor brewing, it once became a national "raw liquor supply base", and in the high standard of quality control and raw liquor supply of Aoqile, the "brand premium" effect has been eliminated, so that the supply of pure grain solid liquor at low prices can be realized.
In terms of Hema craft brewing, it began to lay out the craft brewing track as early as 2017, and in July 2023, Hema and its supplier Tesra cooperated to launch a mung bean refreshing flavor wheat beer, which became the star product of that summer. Among them, in 2024, the sales of mung bean craft brewing in July will increase by 224% year-on-year.
It is reported that the trick of Hema to control the price of craft beer is to continuously integrate the beer supply chain - from the original "small and scattered" distributed model to find a craft beer supplier with large-scale production capacity, so as to control the price and achieve a low-cost supply of craft beer.
Industry insiders believe that what can shock the market is that on the one hand, it is low price, and on the other hand, it is under the premise of low price, which achieves high quality assurance. Consumers have been accustomed to drinking liquid-fermented liquor or industrialized light beer at a low price, and the low price of 9.9 yuan has broken the price floor of "good wine" that was generally recognized in the past to a certain extent.
Under the rationality of consumption, the high-quality ones get the market?
On the one hand, Ozil liquor is sold out, and on the other hand, the sales of Hema craft beer have increased dramatically, what is the reason behind this?
"The key is that it's cheap." Some industry insiders said that whether it is low-cost liquor or low-cost craft brew, the fundamental reason for its popularity is that it provides consumers with the most suitable price after "consumption upgrade".
From the perspective of liquor, the retail price of the lowest-end brand liquor was often between 10 yuan and 20 yuan, but the liquor in this price range is less pure grain solid-state fermentation process, which does not meet the definition of "good liquor" by ordinary consumers.
The Taji products of big brands often use pure grain solid-state technology, but the retail price is also between 40 yuan and 50 yuan. That is to say, consumers cannot find the ideal "good liquor" in the 10 yuan price range - the liquor produced by Aoqile OEM meets this requirement.
In terms of craft beer, after years of development, its concept has been deeply rooted in the hearts of the people, but the price of craft beer was high before, often tens of yuan or even hundreds of yuan, which discouraged ordinary consumers;
On the other hand, traditional industrial beer has long been monopolized, and in recent years, several major brands of beer have all moved towards the direction of "high-end".
"This is affected by consumption upgrades." Industry insiders believe that the core of the concept of consumption upgrading lies in the fact that enterprises provide the market with higher prices and advanced quality products, so as to obtain more profit margins.
Under the influence of this trend, high-end industrial beers are all moving towards retail prices of more than 10 yuan, and craft beer occupies a higher position.
Since 2023, there have been great changes on the consumer side, under the influence of the new market situation and consumption concepts, ordinary consumers have become increasingly conservative, and the alcohol market is facing a situation where the consumption side is not effectively pulled.
"On the one hand, everyone's consumption concept is more rational and conservative; But on the other hand, the demand for higher quality products still exists. Industry insiders believe that under the pull of the two trends, 9.9 yuan of pure solid-state fermented liquor and 9.9 yuan of craft beer have been born.
Traditional supply chain relationships are being put to the test
A noteworthy phenomenon is that the protagonist of the launch of 9.9 yuan low-priced liquor products is not the producer in the traditional sense, nor is it the buyout who has the advantages of traditional channels and has transformed from distributors in the past, but the controller of the new supply chain system with emerging chain channels as the main direction.
From the perspective of the liquor industry, under the trend of "revival of famous liquor", famous liquor manufacturers have strengthened their own products and cut brand buyouts to seek the maximization of brand benefits. As a result, resources are concentrated in the hands of manufacturers, but some marginal strains that have implemented low-price operations in the past have gradually been removed.
"Famous wine companies pay more attention to brand value and have a cautious attitude towards low-end." Industry insiders believe that many local liquor companies do not have advantages in production - many local liquor companies also purchase raw liquor in Sichuan and other places.
The blank left by this low-priced liquor has been acquired by emerging chain channel providers.
The relevant person in charge of ALDI said, "Low prices without cost advantages are unsustainable. ALDI adopts the centralized large-scale procurement of large single products, which uses the scale effect to achieve lower procurement costs, and at the same time, the centralized transportation of large single products can also greatly reduce logistics costs. ”
Industry insiders believe that this model of direct cooperation between chain merchants and raw wine suppliers is an adjustment of the supply chain relationship, and the two sides minus the layers of agents and channel providers, from the production chain to the consumer end, which can naturally compress the redundancy caused by too many layers in the past and minimize the cost.
The same is true for craft beer, Hema selected "Huzhou Tesla Beer Co., Ltd." as the supplier, making full use of the advantages of a short supply chain to reduce costs and transportation time costs, and achieve low prices and "freshness".
It is said that with the hot sales of Hema Craft Brewing and the increase in the size of orders, the overall cost of the product has been reduced by 20%.
Cao Hui, chairman of Huzhou Tesila Beer Co., Ltd., said: "The biggest difficulty in making taste craft brewing is mass production, · ·, · Our in-depth cooperation with Hema can effectively solve the problem of mass production and make the supply chain more stable. ”
Industry insiders believe that whether it is low-cost liquor or low-cost craft brewing, in fact, behind it is the international supply chain platform and the strict selection of raw liquor producers, this unprecedented phenomenon, in the gradual breaking of the traditional liquor sales hierarchy at the same time, will also bring about the overall restructuring of the supply chain relationship.