Author/Chen Yan Editor/Da Feng This summer, high-priced ice cream could not sell. In the past few years, high-priced ice cream represented by Zhong Xuegao was once the top stream in the ice cream industry, tearing a crack in the high-end of China's ice cream industry. Many brands began to follow Zhong Xuegao, and various high-priced ice creams such as a box of 59 yuan starting Maotai ice cream sprang up like mushrooms after rain. However, since October last year, Zhong Xuegao has been in a series of crises such as salary arrears, layoffs, and arrears of supplier payments. Recently, Zhong Xuegao added a new execution target information of more than 5.42 million yuan. So far, the company has five executed persons records with a total amount of more than 18.4 million yuan. Zhong Xuegao moved away from the mainstream market and the public's sight. Correspondingly, the ice cream in the convenience store refrigerator of the small grocery store returned to the 5 yuan era, and the high-priced ice cream under excessive marketing became a thing of the past. In essence, this is the result of the market and consumers voting with their feet. Over the years, consumers have lost interest in the stories made up by Zhong Xuegao and tend to choose ice cream brands with good taste and moderate prices.

Editor: Da Feng

Sell high-priced ice cream is not popular this year's November 11 shopping festival-related.

Represented by Zhong Xuegao, high-priced ice cream was once the leader in the ice cream industry, and tore a gap in the high-end of China's ice cream industry. Many brands began to follow Zhong Xuegao, and various high-priced ice creams such as a box of 59 yuan starting Maotai ice cream sprang up like mushrooms after rain.

However, since October last year, Zhong Xuegao has been in a series of crises such as salary arrears, layoffs, and arrears of supplier payments. Recently, Zhong Xuegao added a new execution target information of more than 5.42 million yuan. So far, the company has five executed persons records with a total amount of more than 18.4 million yuan.

High-priced ice cream has become a thing of the past.

In essence, this is the result of the market and consumers voting with their feet. Over the years, consumers have lost interest in the stories made up by Zhong Xuegao and tend to choose ice cream brands with good taste and moderate prices.

The ice cream market has returned to a healthy and rational state.

High-priced ice cream, grand virtual fire.

Looking back, the disappearance of high-priced ice cream is not surprising.

Take Zhong Xuegao as an example. It only took six years from its former "national light industrial products" to its current bottomless situation. However, its decline from the altar is not wrong, and it can even be said that the success of Zhong Xuegao itself has hidden dangers. In a deformed and prosperous business model, bursting the bubble may be a matter of time.

The rise of Zhong Xuegao is inseparable from the large-scale financing boom in the new consumption field.

At that time, it was the time of consumption upgrading, and consumption structure had shifted from survival-oriented consumption to development-oriented and enjoyment-oriented consumption. Post-90s and post-00s have become the main consumer army, and they have a higher pursuit of high-quality, personalized and differentiated products and services. This hierarchical consumption trend has provided a big environment for the explosive growth of various new consumer brands.

Reflected in the capital side, the capital markets have also given high attention and support to new consumer brands. Various investment institutions and investors have a lot of hot money in their hands, and they are troubled that they cannot find suitable projects.

At that time, tea drink track has had Heytea, Naixuecha, beauty track had perfect diary, but the ice cream track had not jumped out of a typical case. The emergence of Zhong Xuegao really made investors brighten up.

Zhong Xuegao's founder Lin Sheng, who was born in marketing, has operated two major ice cream brands in the northeast, Mader and Zhongjie, and summarized a set of methods for creating online celebrity brands-high-end, brand upgrading and online celebrity promotion. He copied these tricks to Zhong Xuegao and told a story of "high-priced, high-looks, and highly formulaic".

So capital rushed in. According to Tianyancha, from 2018 to 2021, Zhong Xuegao completed a total of four financings, including True Fund and Matrix Partners, among which are institutional investors. The last financing in 2021 was as high as 200 million yuan.

In those years, Zhong Xuegao was flourishing.

In 2018's November 11 shopping festival-related, a 66-yuan "Ecuadorian Pink Diamond" appeared, and sold 0.02 million in 15 hours, becoming an online celebrity explosion. According to reports, from May 2021 to May 2022, Zhong Xuegao sold 0.152 billion ice creams, a year-on-year increase of 176%, and revenue also reached 800 million.

However, it is not difficult to find that the logic that supports Zhong Xuegao’s popularity is high-priced strategy, unique marketing method, and continuous blood transfusion from capital.

In other words, the story of Zhong Xuegao only aroused the market, and whether its products are good or not, and what they are, is not important. 'Ecuador' can be ice cream, chocolate, or anything else.

Marketing without channels, unstable moat.

After becoming popular through marketing, high-priced ice cream brands represented by Zhong Xuegao also did not do well in channel management.

Unlike other new consumer brands, the ice cream track has natural limitations and is destined to be a harder road to travel. Online sales of ice cream require strong cold chain ability, which severely tests the brand's logistics capability. Zhong Xuegao once revealed that the cost of its cold chain accounted for 46%, which is much higher than the industry average of 32%.

Compared with ordinary logistics, the transportation cost of cold chain is 40% to 60% higher. These expenses will eventually be shared among Zhong Xuegao's end retail customers.

More importantly, ice cream consumption has strong immediacy and relies heavily on offline channels. Compared to major e-commerce platforms, supermarkets, convenience stores, and small shops scattered throughout the streets and alleys are like capillaries, constantly providing fresh capital to ice cream brands.

As an online brand, Zhong Xuegao launched a strong marketing campaign online, but was practically invisible in offline stores. It was not until 2020 that Zhong Xuegao first entered the offline market, and within two years, it squeezed into nearly 400,000 end freezers in more than 200 cities such as Shanghai, Shenzhen, and Hangzhou.

The problem is that Zhong Xuegao's offline channels are not like Haagen-Dazs, which has its own dedicated freezers, but rather are sold alongside 3-yuan and 5-yuan ice creams. The price of many store ice cream freezers is unclear, and unfamiliar consumers who do not recognize Zhong Xuegao can easily become victims of buying high-priced ice cream, which has led to online criticism of the 'ice cream assassins'.

Helplessly, Zhong Xuegao spent a lot of time, energy, and money promoting tens of thousands of proprietary freezers.

However, even so, Zhong Xuegao's offline layout is far behind traditional ice cream brands such as Yili and Mengniu. According to the 'China Ice Cream Industry Trends Report (2022 Edition)', the offline market share of the ice cream brands Yili, Herunxue, Mengniu, and Nestle is 19%, 15%, 9%, and 8%, respectively, already occupying half of the market.

When Zhong Xuegao had nearly 400,000 freezers, Yili had already reached more than 6 million end points.

High-priced ice cream is a lower frequency consumption product, and offline channels are the main sales method for ice cream. The lack of Zhong Xuegao's offline layout also limits its development.

High-priced ice cream is no longer selling well.

Pursuing parity, consumers don't want to be taken advantage of.

Furthermore, Zhong Xuegao cannot match its high price.

For most consumers, ice cream is a product with little technical content, and is just for refreshing and leisure. At this time, Zhong Xuegao tried to teach consumers that ice cream should be expensive, fundamentally creating demand and letting consumers pay the bill.

Consumers who had not seen this posture before were indeed frightened by Zhong Xuegao's fierce marketing at first. However, after a few years, consumers became desensitized to various high-priced ice creams. The strategy of 'marketing for sales volume' is no longer effective. What consumers care more about now is the quality of ice cream itself.

Data from iMedia Research shows that in the '2023 China Consumer Survey of Acceptable Prices for Purchasing a Single Ice Cream or Ice Cream Product,' nearly 80% of consumers have a unit price acceptance range of 3 to 15 yuan. In other words, cheap ice cream is still the preferred choice for most consumers.

It can be seen that this summer, ice cream with high cost performance is more popular, and the pricing of major brands is generally concentrated in the middle range of 5 to 10 yuan. High-priced ice cream is rarely seen. A wholesaler of ice cream said to the media: 'This year, ice cream with a mass taste and moderate price is the best seller, and when we have more stock, we can sell thousands of units a day. The expensive ones don't sell well, and we rarely order them.'

The downward trend in ice cream prices is a reflection of the market returning to rationality and adapting to consumer demand.

The disappearance of the 'Ice Cream Assassin' is not surprising either.