Why is the survival rate of take-away fast food entrepreneurship so low?

Reprinted from: professional catering network, original title: Look at how those take-away fast food entrepreneurs died.

This article is slightly abridged.

Wuhan Fruit Brother drives a Mercedes-Benz to deliver takeout with a monthly income of one million, college students use WeChat to sell takeout with a monthly income of 65,438+10,000, and the daily turnover of fast food restaurants to deliver lunch boxes exceeds 10,000 ... We can see countless such news every day. In everyone's imagination, food and beverage take-out is a brilliant business in Qiancheng, but many people have failed. Let's see how they died, and maybe entrepreneurs can get some inspiration from it.

Small restaurants can't bear the heavy cost.

For catering, taste is the premise of everything. No matter how good your marketing is, your service is unique. If it tastes bad, everything will be useless.

The threshold of food and beverage take-out is very low, everyone has many choices, and consumers are relatively fixed. Under normal circumstances, it is impossible for consumers to eat a takeaway for a long time, so it is almost impossible for this industry to form a monopoly. However, with so many takeaways, the consumers are those people. Taste and weight have become the key to the success of food and beverage takeout.

There used to be a lot of takeout downstairs in my company, and everyone generally complained that it was not delicious. Now those takeaways are gone. Although take-out has been coming in, it has not been done for a long time. It is undeniable that there are other factors, but the taste is not good and consumers don't buy it.

Takeaway is a "civilian" restaurant, so it is impossible to sell it at a high price, and it can only make small profits but quick turnover. But good taste requires good chefs and good ingredients, which will definitely increase the cost of food and beverage takeout. If there is a problem, it is a matter of life and death.

Companies "waiting to die" by the elevator

Additional income can be generated without occupying seats. It stands to reason that take-away food delivery should be widely welcomed by catering enterprises. However, except for some restaurants specializing in take-away business, many restaurants have quite contradictory attitudes towards take-away food delivery, which can almost be called love-hate relationship.

At present, the catering industry is generally difficult to recruit workers, and all stores are short of staff. "difficulty in recruiting workers" and "labor shortage" have become the norm.

The peak of a day is only a few hours. In the store, a waiter may have to serve dozens or even hundreds of customers in an hour, but if you bring takeout, it takes about 30 minutes for a single round trip, and the meal time is the peak of people. It seems inevitable that driving roads are blocked and elevators are blocked, but the user experience is very bad. I once had a personal experience:

One day, I received a beautifully made takeaway leaflet on the road, and the food on it was also very attractive. So I decided to try it, called them and agreed to deliver the food at noon 12. As a result, it hasn't arrived at noon 12, and I haven't called to explain it. I called to ask, and the other side explained, "I have already started. There is only one deliveryman on the way, so we need to use it door to door. This may take a while. Finally, after more than half an hour of hungry waiting, I received a cold box lunch, which made me feel uncomfortable instantly and decided not to eat their food.

I believe many people have similar experiences with me. When there are multiple choices now, "time is money". Once it is delayed, the company may "delay" forever.

Rush is the rhythm of death.

This is the story of Lao Jia, a grassroots entrepreneur in Beipiao. Lao Jia, a native of Shandong, has no family background. He started his own business in Beijing. He has experienced failures and joys. Now he is back in the sales industry, doing his favorite job. He said that he wanted to reflect on his entrepreneurial experience at the same time.

Came to Beijing on May 17, 2009. The idea of coming to Beijing began with an accidental trip in 2007, when I stood on Chang 'an Avenue and saw Xidan Tiananmen Square and Wangfujing crowded with people. So I thought, how hot it would be for so many people to open restaurants in Beijing. At that time, I had the idea of starting a business in Beijing. It can be said that a small idea at that time was deeply planted in my heart like a seed that has not yet germinated.

I made a serious analysis for myself, and finally felt that I still had the strength to go to a city like Beijing. In this way, when I was unfamiliar with Beijing, I took a map of Beijing and a hand-delivered newspaper and began to run around Beijing looking for a place to open a restaurant. My long-hidden dream was lit again. At that time, I had little money from selling cars, so I had to go to the store according to my own ideas.

So it's hard and frustrating to find it all the way. However, I am a very strong executive. I won't give up until I reach my goal. I will soon find a shop to sell, and then I will start to apply for a license, decorate, buy tableware and find a chef to serve. I have been in Beijing for more than two months, and my shop has finally opened. At the same time, I invested all my savings and my brother's support. When I got my business license, I had mixed feelings and finally started my own business in Beijing.

But my first so-called venture was not so brilliant, so it ended quietly.

Later, I decided to open a restaurant. The business model is fast food and take-away, and I position myself as a small shop of about 30 square meters. The principle of site selection is based on the principle of secondary roads in the first-class business circle. Specifically, in a large-scale core business district, I choose a place with a poor location, which is mainly for dining, and the rent can't exceed 15000 per month, and then the meals I cook are mainly sold outside.

After thinking about the business model and details in detail, I started all the preparations for opening a shop, such as naming, verifying the name, registering the company, registering the trademark, selecting the site, VI design, recruitment, training and so on. At that time, I also learned the initial experience and lessons. I even made a very detailed plan, once the sales are not good, how to reverse the sales. I think it must be foolproof this time. And everything is really what I expected.

Because of the accurate business model and positioning, my store made a profit in the first month of opening. I think the reason for doing well this time is that we are well prepared, all kinds of plans are ready, and publicity is in place. In addition, it is also very successful in site selection. We chose a cheap place near Dahongmen. At the same time, we choose to do business on the edge of the wholesale market, but they are busy with business. We can just provide food delivery service, and there are not many other catering giants around me. We are just filling the gap in the market.

The catering business is gradually on the right track, so I started to leave the building materials industry and concentrate on fast food restaurants. I suddenly had a different idea in my heart. I decided to make this booming restaurant a chain and a well-known brand.

The tragedy of failure also began to be buried here.

Because I want to be a big chain and a well-known brand, I began to learn from big brands and standardize products. We are accurate about every customer's favorite dishes, the ratio of main ingredients and auxiliary materials, the ratio of seasonings and the production time. Steamed rice is also accurate to how much water and how many grams of oil are put in one kilogram of rice, and operating standards are set up and posted on the wall, so that every employee can do it according to the above, so that people who have never done the catering industry before can get started in an hour. We also made a process in the kitchen lobby, stipulated that various service specifications have reached the standard, and made various forms, such as sales, inventory, customer information and so on. To be standardized, reproducible, ready to lay a solid foundation and open the first store.

At that time, I opened a second store, and it was doing well. The small achievements that followed made my self-confidence extremely inflated. At this time, I began to make an unexpected mistake. I think copying this model will definitely make me bigger. I think at least one flagship store can be recognized by others, so I came up with the idea of making a big store into a model, and then I waited for the trademark to come down for others to join. By then, I can easily open my own fast food restaurants all over the country.

When I didn't examine my own strength, the tragedy of failure repeated itself. I raised funds to open a big store as a model, and then almost all the funds of other stores were drawn out to be the biggest store, which was completely divorced from my original goal and my market positioning in terms of area and positioning, and then I tried my best to be the biggest, that is, I hoped that I would join as soon as the trademark came down and make my fast food restaurant all over China, but tragedy happened, and my big store could not make ends meet and could not recover the cost at all.

I started losing money in succession. Even though I took all measures and all the money to save this store, this utopian flagship store failed in my sense of powerlessness. Struggled for seven months and failed again. I was involved in other small shops and was unable to operate, so I transferred it to others. My adventure failed again.

Reflection: cash flow, team, mentality

This failure didn't make me miserable, but made me recognize myself. I think the biggest problem at the time of resumption is my mentality. Whether an entrepreneurial project will succeed or not is because of my inner ambition and impetuousness, which makes me lose my way. When you achieve a little success, you secretly feel smug and don't understand that an enterprise may die forever within 24 hours. The second factor is that I don't have an accurate assessment of my ability at all. I think I must have overestimated my ability to make a small shop into a big one. I feel that I can make it quickly, but I don't know that brand management, operation and team are deep knowledge. After making some money, I began to misjudge my ability. The third is that I am too eager to succeed. I just want to join this industry after I open two small shops. I don't know that the operation mode of managing two small shops and managing a brand export company is different, and the employment is different. The fourth is my sense of purpose and direction. Constantly changing many directions, not knowing your goals. Fifth: Entrepreneurship does not have its own good team. It has been doing business for so long and has no core partners and partners. All ventures are solo. Sixth, there is no clear understanding of the control of finance and capital chain, and it is finally dragged down and destroyed by cash flow.

Bottleneck of online ordering

Founded in 2003 in Fantong. Com provides customers with discount services for ordering food and coupons through the call center. As far as the way is concerned, Fan Tong. Com, similar to Ctrip, belongs to the way of call center and internet, and provides services for catering businesses.

Shortly after the establishment of Fan Tong. Through advertising and promotion, com has achieved a balance of payments. In July 2008, Fan Tong. Com gained $4 million in venture capital and developed more rapidly. In 2009, Fantong.com had more than 500,000 merchants' resources, accumulated more than 3.5 million orders and served more than 6.5438+million people.

Fan Tong. Com is all the rage, forming a "standardized" pattern. Com in the north and the small secretary for ordering food in the south. " Zhang Tao, CEO of Dianping.com, clearly remembers that when Dianping.com first came to Beijing to do business, many people opened Dianping.com to read introduction and comment information, decided which merchant to eat, and then immediately called Fantong.com to order food. Public comments are also frustrated by this.

After 20 10, Fantong.com, which has a deep merchant base, did not deploy on the mobile side and continued to nibble at the "capital" in the call center era. Until 20 12, norm. Com has launched an APP product that can realize reservation and location search. At that time, the number of users of Tintin discount products had exceeded100000.

Fan Tong. Com is also called center, and defeat is also called center. At first, the call center method was adopted because it was closer to users' habits, but it was defeated by the call center method because it could not effectively accumulate and precipitate users. In other words, users call to book a hotel if they want to eat. If Fantong.com directly calls the user to recommend a hotel, the user will definitely not accept it.

In addition, the call center is not sticky to users, so make an appointment by phone today and place an order directly on the mobile phone tomorrow. Fan Tong. Com can only watch users come and go, unable to change. Ctrip also encountered the same dilemma, but due to Ctrip's monopoly position in the tourism industry for many years and the active layout of mobile Internet products in the later period. Even so, new products such as Qunar have gained a lot of market share.

Enlightenment of take-away fast food entrepreneurship

Generally, office buildings go to work on time, and the food delivery truck must arrive on time, so as not to make customers feel too hungry after eating.

Secondly, the quality and variety of food are getting better and better every day, and the weight and quality must be sufficient. White-collar workers in office buildings usually patronize restaurants with high frequency, so the choice of taste may be tricky.

The food delivery staff must dress neatly and use civilized language. All requests made by customers, whether reasonable or not, should be carefully recorded and promptly fed back.

The kitchen is best on the first floor. If anything happens, everyone can try to evacuate.

The mobility of the kitchen is relatively large, and it is necessary to find and arrange staff in time. The leaders of fast food enterprises must have at least a chef's certificate and can act as front-line candidates in an emergency.

Purchasing must be done by yourself, and the main channel of kitchen corruption is purchasing.