The impact of the epidemic on the catering industry 23-year-old start-up cafe half-year debt of 300000 now begins the countdown to the closure of the shop

This is a relatively heavy topic. When I first entered the coffee circle, although I knew very well that China's coffee market had just begun and had unlimited potential, it was not strange to see a lot of people squeeze their heads into the coffee track and end up failing.

Today we are going to tell the story of a 23-year-old man who failed to start a business.

When I was looking for material, I saw a note on a red book [30 days countdown to the closing of a cafe]. At first, I thought it was some kind of new publicity stunt. But driven by curiosity, I still couldn't help clicking on the author's personal home page.

The first one is his chatter. At the age of 23, he resigned from a self-media company and started a cafe on his own. Sign the contract in May, decorate in June and try to open in July. Everything seems to be going well here. But six months later, the cafe did not make any profit. He said he had tried almost everything he could, but the results were always unsatisfactory, and reality forced him to press the pause button.

Through the pictures he released, we can see that the overall style of the cafe is very simple and very popular at the moment. On its basis, the elements of wood grain are added to increase the warmth, and the decoration of green plants makes the whole not too cold. The enclosed bar increases the utilization rate of space to a certain extent, and increases the difference in store shape.

When it comes to decoration, there are no achievements and no mistakes.

Time is passing, and the change in the countdown makes me more and more nervous. During the 23-day countdown to shop closure, I couldn't help but trust the blogger. Of course, I communicated with him as an editor of the coffee shop, hoping to write a report about coffee shop entrepreneurship based on his experience.

We exchanged Wechat. His friends will call him just now, so let's call him that, too. The coffee shop that just opened in Changsha is called BELINK CAF É.

With a 30-day countdown to shop closure, more netizens, like me, think it is a marketing tool, but just prefer to call it a self-help guide. He believes that new media can bring phased benefits, but can not solve the fundamental problem. But what is the fundamental problem just now? I don't think he knows it himself, otherwise he wouldn't have closed the shop.

I tried to find a problem with the product from the store. I just said that his drink had a high score on Dianping and I had absolute confidence in the product. I clicked on the orders he sent me Mini Program and Dianping. Indeed, Dianping had no bad reviews. The great luck of opening business on order Mini Program is also very sad.

Coffee is good-looking and priced at about the same price as Starbucks. Just gave each special coffee a very literary name: Qiuyi thick, not for whom the coffee, ginger story written into us …... And the menu will be changed according to the season.

I haven't drunk it, so I can't tell how it tastes.

If we can't find any problems in these places, we'll go in a different direction. Back to the origin, on the seventh day of the countdown to closing the shop, some netizens pointed out the deficiency of the cafe just now (excerpt from the original):

1, the location is very important, there are no office buildings, no housing around, just rely on passing individual passengers will surely fall down.

2, after the location is settled, it is pricing. For the survey of surrounding competitive products, reasonable pricing can bring repeat customers and ensure sufficient profits.

3, decoration problems, see the previous few notes, someone said that your decoration style is partial to ins network celebrities clocking in, but those who really often come to drink coffee, especially the need for a comfortable seat GE Youlie, private corner business conversation, outdoor open smoking umbrella seat, you only meet the office needs of charging sockets.

4, products, beans to choose Arabica on the line, the target group positioning accuracy do not toss too much, American flavor than Starbucks on the line, quick-frozen cake quantitative thawing match.

5, don't expect websites like Little Red Book to pull people, what you really want to do is to increase stickiness such as in-store membership points system, points exchange, one-time coupons buy five get two free and so on.

6, online takeout

I basically agree with the first three points of view of this netizen. But I don't agree with the view that "as long as it's Arabica coffee". You know, today's coffee people have been cultivated by a large number of excellent boutique cafes to develop tricky tastes, and even some consumers have begun to systematically learn coffee-related knowledge, without some special may not be able to enter their eyes. If it is a precise positioning of coffee rookies, then excellent products tend to make consumers more dependent, because at least you can tell as soon as you drink.

As for online takeout, it has just been explained. In fact, when it was opened, it opened a dual takeout platform, but the effect was not ideal, but diverted a lot of passengers who originally wanted to come to offline consumption. Coupled with the high platform deduction fees, sometimes there will be the situation that the income exceeds the expenditure. Simply, I gave up. Of course, I just admitted that most of the reasons are due to my own poor operation.

I looked at the phone screen and felt more or less biased against the 23-year-old who had failed to start a business. Could it be because you are too young to act hard? Without knowing the appropriateness of the local market, you rashly opened a shop just for the moon in your heart?

So I asked him if there was a purposeful visit before opening the store. Why do you still step on mines after summing up the experience of others?

I just said that I want to make money by opening a cafe. The seniors of many boutique cafes mostly have more feelings than the economy, but they are just ordinary people. When their love and feelings are almost diminished, they can't make it. These experiences can do nothing for practice. As for the geographical location and decoration, if the funds are sufficient, you will naturally choose a better one. It's just that in the case of limited funds, you can only choose what you can do.

It may be that you are in a hurry to apply for medical treatment, or you may be "doing what you can" and have just spent too much on marketing expenses and store operation and maintenance expenses. Due to the signing of the confidentiality agreement, I didn't tell me the approximate cost just now. But the advertising effect brought by these Internet celebrities is almost 0. 5%. The falsification of bloggers' data is one reason, and the greater impact comes from the epidemic.

A promotion was sent out on July 30, and Changsha was closed on August 1 because of the epidemic. This is the fatal blow, attractive coffee is no longer attractive.

When I asked that there would be resistance to starting a business in the future, he said, "that's not going to happen, because no matter what kind of business it is, its purpose is to make money." Hope is like relieving his netizens that all bad experiences are nutrients for growth.

In fact, temporary shop closure is also a kind of timely stop-loss, as I just said can greatly reduce labor costs and daily wear and tear investment.

I just thought that it was internal friction that was more terrible than the inner volume, and I sorted out a small note for those who were about to start a business or who were confused about it. The following text is from just now:

Take my personal experience as an example

1. Over-thinking

When an idea comes to my mind, instead of doing it right away, I want to do everything and wait until everything is ready. The result can only be inefficiency, and the degree of completion is not very high.

2. Self-doubt

In the process of starting a business, you will hear many kinds of voices, such as family, friends, peers, customers and so on. Their casual words can make me think over and over for a long time, "is there no bright spot in the poster design?" "is the menu overpriced?"

3. Load work

Set up a lot of work for yourself as soon as you wake up every day, whether it's what you can do right now or what you need to extend the timeline to do, are all on today's list. But people are often like this, want to do too many things, but will choose to escape to do things. 4 worry about the present and worry about the future

The entrepreneurial process of many people, including me, is a state in which they are extremely dissatisfied with the status quo but unable to change it, and are also full of worries about the future. I am afraid of being defeated, and even more afraid of not being recognized by my family and the outside world.

These are all self-problems that have just emerged during the business period, and he has also given the corresponding solutions. If you are the "person who is about to start a business or is confused" mentioned just now, please take a look at it first.

How to get rid of mental internal friction?

1. Action is the good medicine for everything. Reject perfectionism and let yourself act first.

2. Understand that the voices of the outside world are only for reference, and you should know how to identify and screen out valuable suggestions.

3. It is more efficient to focus on one thing than to focus on ten things.

4. If you often feel anxious, read more books. As Mr. Yang Jiang said, "your problem is that you read too little and think too much!"

Just yesterday, I just made a list of the items for sale in the store, and many netizens left messages about their intention to buy. I calculated for him that even if all were sold at the resale price, he would still have a debt of more than 200,000.

Investment is risky, you need to be careful to start a business!

Photo Source: the Little Red Book account: Aries Boy's Cafe.