Life is not easy: Doing business in a small place depends on word of mouth

Doing business in a small place faces the challenges of limited market and fierce competition, and every step seems particularly difficult. However, it is precisely this kind of environment that makes word of mouth the key to the survival of businesses. Small places have a strong sense of human touch, and word of mouth among customers can often determine the rise and fall of a store. Therefore, merchants are well aware that providing high-quality services, ensuring product quality, and maintaining a good reputation are the only way to win the favor of customers and accumulate word of mouth. In this process, the concept of honest management and people-oriented is particularly important. It is not easy to live, but it is this difficulty that makes merchants in small places cherish every word of mouth even more and strive to gain a foothold in the competition.

It’s good all year round. “In the summer, I go to his store to wholesale ice cream. In the winter, this store mainly sells dried fruits. Many of the melon seeds, peanuts, etc. are freshly fried. In the winter, I basically buy dried fruits from him.” Wang Yun told "Spirit Beast".

Wang Yun's hometown is located in a county town of a fourth-tier city in Shandong Province. When she returned to her hometown some time ago, she found that the dried fruit shop she used to go to often had opened a new store.

Wang Yun said that this store is actually an old store and has been open for nearly ten years. After the new urban area of ​​the county was developed, two new stores were opened in the new urban area.

"They have a wide range of products. For example, the ice cream they sell in the summer is all at wholesale prices. In the 140-square-meter store, except for a row of snack shelves against the wall, the rest are freezers for ice cream. They have a wide variety of brands, and the prices are indeed much cheaper than those in supermarkets or convenience stores." Wang Yun said.

The third new store is opened next to a local supermarket. It usually has a large flow of people and does good business. "The biggest feature of their store in summer is that they have a wide variety of ice creams at affordable prices. After consumers make their purchases, the merchants will proactively give receipts. All expenses are clear and you can buy with confidence," said Wang Yun.

"I have children at home, so the refrigerator consumes a lot of ice cream in the summer. Although there are other ice cream wholesale stores in the county, the variety is not as complete as this store, and there is no discount if you buy too much, so families basically buy wholesale ice cream from this store." said a consumer who was buying ice cream with his children in the store.

"I go to the supermarket frequently and know the prices of various ice cream brands in the supermarket. After comparing the prices, I come to this store to buy some ice cream to take home after shopping in the supermarket." Another consumer who was choosing ice cream in the store told "Spirit Beast".

Wang Yun said that the store sells ice cream like hot cakes in the summer, and the dried fruit and roasted nuts business is also good in the winter.

"The melon seeds and peanuts are freshly fried in the store. I can smell the fragrance every time I pass by. You can also bring your own melon seeds, peanuts, etc. and ask them to fry them for you. In addition to these, there are freshly baked sweet potatoes and old-fashioned popcorn, which can also be made on the spot. The prices are also more affordable than supermarkets or similar stores." Wang Yun said.

According to her, when winter comes, dried fruits account for 80% of the store's items, and the rest are some snacks that sell well locally, such as baby squid, squid shreds, sorghum sugar, milk dates, etc.

"During the Chinese New Year and other holidays, I will come to this store to stock up on the dried fruits needed for my family. Since we are all old customers, the boss will give us more favorable prices or give us some holiday gifts. The boss is very kind and knows how to do business. He will not let customers suffer any loss, so I decide to buy things from him." Wang Yun said.

"There are several dried fruit stores in the county, but they sell dried fruits all year round. Business is slow in the summer and there are basically no customers. This store is different from this one, which changes its product categories in winter and summer and has good business all year round," said Wang Yun.

This shop has been around for more than a decade. It has attracted most of the local consumers in this small county. Everyone knows this shop. In such a small place, the better the business, the better. A shop without a good reputation will have no room to survive.

Compared to this store which has good business all year round, dried fruit stores in first- and second-tier cities are struggling.

Wang Hong's dried fruit shop is located in a community near Beijing's Xihongmen. "Business is pretty good in the winter, but I'm afraid that in the summer, business will be very bad."

Wang Hong's store is about 60 square meters. In addition to the shelves for dried fruits, there is also a machine for frying dried fruits. According to her, because business is poor in summer, this year they also placed some seasonal fruits and vegetables at the door to attract customers, just like other stores on the street. For example, Panggezhuang small watermelons, peaches, tomatoes, etc.

"The competition for fresh produce on the whole street is quite fierce. We don't have a good supply channel, so we don't have a price advantage. At that time, we bought a small cart of watermelons, which was not cheaper than the community fresh produce store next door, so we couldn't sell them at all. Because they are fresh produce, they can't be kept for too long. In the end, we sold them at a price lower than the purchase price." Wang Hong said helplessly, "Now there is more and more competition. In addition to competition from peers, discount stores are constantly appearing around us, snatching away many customers, and now there are also new brands of dried fruits and fried nuts in supermarkets."

In fact, in addition to the competition brought to dried fruit stores by discounted snacks, the accelerated opening of stores by new nut and roasted snack brands in recent years has also made the industry more inward-looking.

Looking at the current new snack brands, they have focused their main audience on young consumer groups. Whether it is product innovation or store layout, they are moving towards a younger direction.

In addition, the capital market is optimistic about new types of roasted nuts. For example, some investors believe that new types of roasted nuts are innovative, unique, and sustainable, and have great investment value and development potential.

The most intuitive feeling of the new-style fried food stores is the change in location. Different from the traditional fried food stores located in the streets and alleys, the new-style fried food brands target shopping malls, office buildings and other places where young people gather. Even Xueji Fried Food, which opened stores around the community in the early days, has begun to enter shopping malls. Xueji explained that the business district is the best location for brand exposure, which will bring in customer traffic and the brand can also gain wider popularity.

With the change of location, the decoration style of the store is completely different from that of traditional snack stores. But it is worth noting that with the chain and branding, the new snack stores have increased costs compared to traditional snack stores, which has also led to an increase in product prices.

Although rents vary in different cities, it is certain that the change in store location will result in higher costs for opening a store, which has also led to the issue of "expensive" prices for new-style fried nuts becoming a hot topic.

For example, a consumer bought four products at Qiwang Peanut Store, spending a total of 187 yuan: chestnuts 29.9 yuan/catties, milk-flavored strawberry balls 59.8 yuan/catties, and spicy peanuts 19.8 yuan/catties.

On the Internet, some consumers have also discussed the price of Xueji fried nuts. Its signature product, milk dates, is priced at 79.6 yuan per catty, and yogurt citrus slices are priced at 118 yuan per catty. Dianping shows that the average customer unit price of Xueji fried nuts and Qiwang peanuts is about 60 yuan, far exceeding the 10 to 30 yuan of husband-and-wife stores. 3 New-style fried nuts are accelerating the opening of stores, and price is the fatal point

New-style nut and roasted snack shops are available in almost every shopping mall. In one shopping mall, there are even three similar shops. The types of goods sold are basically the same, and the competition is very fierce.

"I used to buy there often, and each purchase would cost me more than 100 yuan." A consumer who used to buy snacks at new-style snack shops said that she used to be very willing to buy snacks at such shops. Cleanliness and fashion were important factors for her to shop there, but the reason she stopped buying there was the price.

She once bought a small cup of dried fruit, which cost more than 50 yuan after being weighed. "I knew it was expensive, but I didn't expect it to be this expensive. I found the dried fruit online, and the price was about half of what it was in the store, and I felt the quality was not much different."

In fact, in addition to the above consumers, there are also many debates about "roasted nuts assassins" on the Internet. Qi Wang Peanuts and Xue Ji Roasted Nuts are often mentioned.

For example, the unit price of Qi Wang Peanut's preserved fruits and nuts is almost all above 100 yuan/kg, while popular products such as milk-flavored strawberry balls and mango almond milk cakes are more than 150 yuan/kg.

A consumer once posted his shopping record of Qi Wang Peanuts on Xiaohongshu. The total price of 12 products exceeded 1,000 yuan, among which 0.8kg of freshly roasted peeled large cashews cost 245 yuan, and less than 0.5kg of dried apricots cost more than 163 yuan.

As for Xueji Chaohuo, 2020 is the first year of transformation for Xueji Chaohuo, with 113 stores in operation; 736 stores in 2022, an increase of 67%; and 920 stores by 2023. At present, Xueji Chaohuo has more than 1,000 stores in operation.

In 2022, Xue Ji Chaohuo won a RMB 600 million Series A financing from Meituan Dragon Ball Capital and Qicheng Capital. The brand expansion accelerated and it became known to more consumers. The price upgrade along with the strategic positioning also made Xue Ji known as the "Xue Ji Jewelry Store" among consumers.

There are more than 2,500 notes on Xiaohongshu with the keyword "Xue Ji Jewelry" and nearly 1,800 notes with the keyword "Xue Ji Fried Nuts Price". Consumers are showing off Xue Ji's products while showing off their invoices and lamenting the high prices.

In addition to the high prices that consumers lament, it is worth mentioning that behind Xueji Fried Nuts’ expansion into 1,000 stores, the density of stores has affected the sales of each store. “Although the prices of Xueji Fried Nuts are high, it is not easy for stores to make a profit.

According to Poster News, in October 2023, at the gate of a community in northern Jinan, Li Ming (pseudonym), the manager of a Xueji fried nuts store, told reporters that the store covers an area of ​​more than 150 square meters and has been open for more than 5 years. It has a monthly turnover of about 100,000 yuan. It takes about 1 million yuan to invest in a store of this size. In the first few years after the store opened, because the gate of the community where the store was located was not repaired, the owners would go in and out through the small door near the store, and the customer flow has been high. As the community construction improves, more businesses have settled in the nearby commercial street, and the customer flow is getting lower and lower. Li Ming predicted at the time that "it will be difficult for the store to break even this year."

In addition, Xue Xingzhu, the founder of Xueji Fried Nuts, admitted that he had already felt the continuous decline in performance in February this year. Xueji Fried Nuts is not in a period of rapid development, but is "facing tests and challenges". Similarly, in the current period of consumption downgrade, the goal of many companies has changed from "living well" to "surviving".