"Consumption will not work this year" has simply become a common saying in 2022. Everyone can say it and everyone is saying it. People who say "no" have two main reasons: first, the capital market is cold, and second, the epidemic has caused the consumer market to shrink. ——At the end of 2022, when the epidemic is beginning to show signs of light, Qingliu Capital has to stand up and sing the opposite tune: Who said consumption can no longer work? !

It is true that 2022 will not be an easy year for most new consumer brands, especially for Shanghai companies, this year will be even more difficult. We have prepared this special series for Shanghai’s consumer brands to record their stories of how they have persevered and are still shining today!

The fourth series: "I want to be strong", the first article is with pidan founder and CEO Ma Wenfei.

pidan founder and CEO Ma Wenfei

I think the development of pidan this year actually exceeded my expectations.

First point, we are In the second quarter, because the company is headquartered in Shanghai, it was truly unprepared to experience the epidemic lockdown.

The second point is that in the second phase of 618, in July, August and September, we really suffered losses. Li Jiaqi, a very high-traffic live broadcast portal.

The third point is that we encountered the lockdown in Shanghai during the biggest publicity period in April, which was so difficult that we couldn’t control it. , even in the face of huge problems that were unpredictable and impossible to predict, we still maintained an annual performance growth of about 20%!

I think there are two reasons for this growth.

The first one is that it does establish some feelings of trust in us in consumers’ hearts to a certain extent. Even in this case, he still did not choose to buy cheaper products than ours, but chose to buy us. We do have a little "brand" imprint, because the bottom layer of the brand is trust. The more unexpected the incident, the more consumers are willing to spend money on trustworthy categories.

The second point is that we ourselves feel that the business cycle is relatively good. From our entire chain of procurement, production, sales, delivery, and after-sales, in such a difficult epidemic environment, delivery is relatively smooth and problems are solved in a timely manner. Our own operating efficiency is still guaranteed.

One is that consumers trust us, and the other is that our operating efficiency can also accept this trust, so the results are OK.

The biggest problem we faced at that time was that Shanghai accounted for 15% of our pure online orders, and orders from Shanghai could not be delivered at all. In mid-April, we spent very, very high prices to ship goods from outside to consumers in Shanghai. This process took us two weeks to respond, and the goods were shipped to Shanghai in the third week, and sales started in the fourth week. Although the sales volume was a drop in the bucket, it proved that we were successful. We have the ability to solve problems. Because no one can do business offline during the lockdown, and we are not a guarantee company. I think solving this problem is more important than how much we sell.

During the process, we found that as a result of the extremely extreme personnel control in the first two years, every colleague was relatively good, there were no resignations, no instability, and everyone was doing well. They behave normally in abnormal circumstances. (There should be applause here)

We have always wanted to be a company that makes money. It is very obvious that the size of the pet industry is not enough for you to lose four to five billion. We If the scale of this industry is around 700-800 million, IPO can be considered. If you go from a company with around 400 million to 700-800 million, business logic determines that a company like ours will suffer short-term or long-term losses. , can't even lose a barrier-type scale, so why lose it? This is the underlying business logic that cannot be changed no matter whether the environment is good or bad.

Why are we still making money this year? Because my traffic cost is only 10%. However, if we can reduce traffic costs and still ensure sales, we cannot do without brand building. I think no matter when the brand is in, no matter how difficult it is to track the results or ROI, it is necessary to do brand building. It is just a matter of making it big or small. On the contrary, when business is difficult, consumers will only choose you because you have a barrier-level gap in your products. Consumers will only choose you because they like you and believe in you.

At a time when the process costs of the entire company are extremely variable and high, raising prices or compressing service costs to counteract risks is the easiest way for the company to survive. If consumers continue to buy you at this time, you will It came alive. But why do consumers continue to buy from you after the price increases? For me, it depends on the quality and brand of the product itself. Whether the product is good or not depends on the brand. There are so many people who do reviews on the Internet, and only one in a million people are professional reviewers, while the rest are ordinary consumers. From when he thinks you are good, to when he is really willing to spend more money to buy for your good impression. You, these are two different things.

This year’s market is very bad. All categories with rigid needs have risen, while all categories with non-rigid needs have fallen. (Fortunately, we just need cat litter). But I don’t think the consumer industry is cool, it’s the companies that are cool, and it has nothing to do with consumption. Everything is consumed, and all technologies must be productized and commercialized in order to make money.

Personally, I am pessimistic about the market and optimistic about the company's development. Pessimism is because consumers are not in a happy mood. Everyone has a kind of psychological pain, a kind of tension, and some anxiety. Therefore, when consumers get information, they can only get strong, exaggerated, and funny information. , painful or distorted objects, atmospheric, beautiful, and light things will not be spread. This is caused by the crowd atmosphere and environment. More importantly, there is no one-stop traffic methodology. Everything becomes a matter of day and night. What determines whether you will be good next year is not this year, but whether you have done well in the past few years. If you didn't do well in the past, it will be useless if you do it next year.

I really want to say that now is actually the best time to spend money! Because no one will compete with you with money you can't imagine. Everyone is really the same. The stupid skill of pawns, if you really want to win the pawn, you will definitely win if you keep raising it, because if everyone bows, it is not money or external force that determines whether the pawn is good or not. It’s purely about how serious, how dedicated, and how happy you are. I think it will be the happiest thing for all companies that really love consumption to be completely real.

Next year. Pidan’s goal is to continue to grow by 35%. In 3-5 years, I hope we can sell to the United States and Japan. I want to communicate with all consumers on a truly international stage, because China, Japan and the United States are the three largest cat markets. country, I want to sell products to all families with cats.