A middle-aged and elderly man is pushing a tricycle with a sign saying "recover old wine at a high price" - this is the epitome of old wine folk trading.
Behind this seemingly simple transaction lies a huge market.
Relevant data show that the scale of my country's old wine market has exceeded 100 billion. Old wine collectors, specialized operating organizations and many auction platforms have become the main force in the circulation of old wine. At the same time, many wine companies are laying out the old wine track, trying to extend the concept of old wine to empower their own brand marketing, and then achieve product premiums to achieve the purpose of brand promotion.
However, the opacity of the old wine market, the lack of top-level design and the drive of huge profits have kept the old wine track in a brutal growth stage. How to regulate, guide and expand the 100 billion market pie still requires the participation of all sectors of society. From the perspective of the operator, whoever can seize a position will be able to get closer to this market.
Obviously, this is an extremely challenging but highly rewarding move.
Who is in the wine business?
Every time he saw the middle-aged man sitting on a tricycle fiddling with his mobile phone at the gate of the unit, and there was a sign of "recycling old wine" next to him, Fang Chao would imagine the drama of "a commercial spy staying on site to collect evidence". As an IT male who has just worked for 2 years, he can't understand how this business, which is rarely approached by people, allows the middle-aged man to support his family.
In fact, what Fang Chao didn't know was the earning power contained in this kind of private old wine acquisition and the old wine market behind it.
The "China Old Wine Market Index" released by the Famous Wine Collection Committee of the China Alcohol Industry Association shows that in 2018, 10.68 million people bought old wine, 3 million more than in 2017. It is estimated that the old wine market will reach 100 billion yuan by 2021.
In addition, from 2013 to 2018, the market price of old wine was in a period of rapid rise, with an average annual price increase of 32.86%, an increase of more than three times in five years. By 2020 and 2021, although the old wine market has been adjusted, the growth rate is still not small.
Behind the middle-aged man at the door of Fangchao's unit represents the main body of the private trade of old wine. Most of them exist in the form of roadside stalls and tobacco shops. There are also specialized e-commerce platforms such as Goethe Yingxiang and Huazhi Liquor in the market, as well as many auction platforms including Ali, which together constitute the circulation link of traditional old wine. And with the improvement of commercialization, the old wine market is becoming more and more lively.
For a long time, old wine appeared more as a collection. "In 1989, 10 altars of 60-degree Xifeng wine puree, 180,100 yuan" "1 bottle of gold film Xifeng wine in the 1960s, 45,100 yuan"... The old Xifeng wine that appeared on the Ali auction platform was sold Many enthusiasts and investors sought after.
And in the market, the news that a bottle of old wine sold for more than 100,000 yuan or even a million yuan was repeatedly spread.
However, what really makes Laojiu break through the circle and expand rapidly is that this type of product penetrates into the consumer side. The main promoters are various wine companies.
Shede Liquor launched the old wine strategy a long time ago. The company's financial report first mentioned "old wine" in 2015. According to the information disclosed by the company, since 1976, the company has reserved a certain proportion of the best quality base liquor for each batch for strategic storage. The strategic reserve of high-quality old wine has helped the company build the first brand in the old wine category and achieve sales of mid-to-high-end liquor. The foundation has been laid for a multiplied increase. Combined with the performance and brand building of Shede Liquor in recent years, this strategy is successful.
In fact, there is no clear definition and definition of old wine in the market. In the traditional sense, the old wine that everyone talks about is the original bottle of liquor produced by the wine company, which has been on the market for more than 10 years. It also includes vintage wine and replica baijiu.
The industry generally believes that vintage wine is an important starting point for wine companies to rely on the concept of old wine for market-oriented operations. At present, the real vintage wine products that have been certified by the China Alcoholic Drinks Industry Association include Neijian Master Wine, Guotai Wine, Jinsha Huisha Wine and so on.
If it is strictly traced back, the real vintage wine must be the wine that has been certified by the China Alcoholic Drinks Industry Association under the "Baijiu Vintage Wine Group Standard" of the China Alcoholic Drinks Industry Association. However, many wine companies blur the concept of year in their products, and use pure numbers to express the concept of wine body year. Even so, consumers still report great consumption enthusiasm for such products.
It is not difficult to see that this kind of old wine products have stronger consumption attributes and circulation. It is precisely because of this that the concept of old wine has gradually stepped out of the small circle of collections, truly entered the mass market, and gradually commercialized and scaled.
all for marketing
Liquor is an old fragrance-consumers' simple cognition of baijiu products has led many liquor companies to use this as a focus to carry out various marketing activities.
In September this year, Xifeng Wine launched the old wine solicitation campaign of "Looking for the earliest bottle of Xifeng wine", openly collecting Xifeng old wine, old wine labels and old objects from the public.
As one of the four famous wines, Xifeng's move aims to awaken consumers' memory of Xifeng wine and deepen consumers' awareness of the quality, brand and culture of Xifeng wine.
Looking at the entire industry, with the further release of quality charm and collection value, old wine has become a high-end liquor consumption, a representative of industrial value, and an important part of the liquor industry chain and value chain.
The "2020 Chinese Old Wine White Paper" released by the Hurun Research Institute once mentioned that behind the boom in old wine is actually the consumer market's pursuit of the scarcity value of high-quality liquor. While drinking value, it also gives consumers multi-dimensional experiences such as social value, cultural value, health value, and investment value.
From this dimension, emphasizing the concept of its own old wine is of great significance to the overall shaping of the liquor brand and product upgrades.
For this reason, many wine companies began to seek market opportunities in old wine brands and old famous wines. According to incomplete statistics, Shuanggou under Yanghe, Xinghua Village of Fenjiu, and Longnanchun of Jinhui Liquor are all in the stage of restart and integration. Many liquor companies are trying to achieve marketing through a series of marketing and the influence of old liquor brands. revenue growth.
However, not all old wines and famous wines have such strength. Songhe Liquor Industry, one of the old seventeen famous wines, has recently fallen into bankruptcy and reorganization rumors, and its market and influence are declining.
Despite this, many wine companies still spare no effort to tap the potential of old wine, and replicating old wine has almost become a unified action.
Recently, the 60th edition of Luzhou Laojiao Special Song was officially launched during the National Day. Its iconic "workers and peasants image" pattern evokes people's memories of the era of "workers and peasants alliance", which has aroused extensive discussions in the industry. The 60th edition of Luzhou Laojiao Special Song is the glorious testimony of Laojiao Company. This is the special song of Luzhou Laojiao's "Gongnong Brand" in the 1960s. It was awarded the title of "Chinese Famous Liquor" at the National Liquor Appreciation Conference and became a typical representative of Luzhou-flavor liquor.
Wuliangye also launched a classic Wuliangye, which was upgraded and reproduced from the "plum bottle" Wuliangye in the 1960s. The classic "plum bottle" shape of Wuliangye was used for the first time in Wuliangye products from the 1960s to the 1990s.
In addition, the sixth generation of Gujing Gong Liquor is reproduced according to the quality and appearance of the 1963 version of Gujing Gong Liquor. All products are produced in the Gujing Gong Liquor Brewing Site Park. The traditional brewing technique of Laowuzheng has the characteristics of "four olds" of old famous wine, old craft, old cellar and old taste.
It can be seen from the combing that most of the old wine brands that many wine companies have reproduced and restarted have profound brand cultural value and supplement themselves in terms of price.
It is worth noting that many replica products are aimed at the mid-to-high-end market and have a strong premium ability. For example, the price of Wuliangye on JD.com is 2,899 yuan; the reissue version of Tuopai Qujiu is priced at 358 yuan; the benchmark price of the reissue version of Quanxing Daqu "Memory of the Age 60" and the scheduled "Memory of the Age 80" are 718 yuan per bottle and 498 yuan/bottle.
This strategy has a certain theoretical basis. According to the survey and statistics of the "White Paper on Chinese Old Wine", nearly 60% of the high-net-worth people who are willing to buy old wine are willing to buy old wine at a premium of more than 20% compared with ordinary baijiu.
Many marketing actions are mostly the expansion of the new concept of old wine, but it does make old wine an option for many consumers. Old wines in original bottles are small in stock and expensive, with strong financial attributes and weak consumption attributes. The concept of old wine extended by wine companies allows old wine to be used at the consumer level, and old wine gradually has a strong consumption attribute.
The game behind the chaos
For the old wine market, barbaric growth has always been the background color of this track.
On the one hand, many old wine products on the market are shoddy, and under the banner of old wine, they actually sell various short-term products. The other is to use packaging to make old wine. Many old wines marked with a production date of 10, 20 or even 30 years are mostly new products.
This chaos stems from the asymmetry of consumers' cognition of old wine.
At the same time, the price chaos of old wine in the traditional sense is more obvious. To put it simply, the inventory of famous old wine products in the old wine market is not transparent, and there is a lot of randomness in the recovery price and selling price, which also leads to a high degree of price transparency in the entire industry. Moreover, many channel dealers are hoarding goods, and the phenomenon of hype is serious. The same product, purchased at different times, has a huge price difference.
In addition, the monitoring of such products at the technical level is not perfect, and there is great uncertainty in private transactions, etc., which are the main reasons for the price chaos.
From the perspective of the enterprise, raising the price of old wine is conducive to sorting out its own brand power and has a positive effect on the sales of new wine. Therefore, acquiesce or condone the status quo of the traditional old wine market.
As for the newly expanded old wine products, especially the vintage wine market, counterfeiting and side effects are still common.
According to the existing regulations, the production standard of vintage wine is very high. It has clear requirements for production qualifications, production and testing capabilities, and production management, and it can only be launched on the market after being filed with the China Alcohol Industry Association.
However, in the actual operation process, it seems to be another extreme. Some wine companies have been established for less than ten years, but they claim to have twenty or even thirty years old wine. At the same time, some products are only mixed with a small amount of old wine ingredients, but they are shown as the oldest age.
Behind this chaos is the game of interests and risks. The higher the content of old wine and the longer the age of the old wine, the easier it is for consumers to accept a higher premium. More importantly, due to the lack of standards, the management system needs to be improved urgently, and there is no strong restraint method for this kind of chaos in the market. In the balance of benefits and risks, many wine companies choose to "take risks".
As the cake gets bigger and bigger, the market operation gradually considers standardization.
From the perspective of top-level design, the China Alcoholic Drinks Association has established a professional committee for the collection of famous wines, and old wine branches have also been established in various places to rectify the chaos in the industry.
At the enterprise level, Wuliangye held the "Old Wine Home" event, Luzhou Laojiao held an old wine appraisal meeting, and Xifeng Wine held collection value forums and other activities in an attempt to regulate the development of the industry.
Moutai's actions are more obvious. A few days ago, Kweichow Moutai has a clear definition of Moutai old wine, which is "stored for a certain period of time, has a prominent 'old taste' in the taste, more mellow and soft body, balanced and coordinated aroma, and has the typical style of Kweichow Moutai. Product" is defined as Moutai Old Wine.
At the same time, Maotai Laojiu needs to build a "unified three-dimensional" high-quality development system, that is, the unified rules and regulations that Maotai Laojiu needs to follow in the development of Maotai Laojiu, and build a high-quality development support system in three dimensions: quality, culture, and market. And the industrial chain on the product side, channel side, experience side, and consumer side will be gradually established, and the construction of the auction platform will also be promoted to lead the orderly development of the old wine auction market.
Many series of actions are releasing a signal that the future development of the old wine circuit is bound to develop in a standardized, market-oriented, large-scale and more orderly direction.
During this upgrade process, the division of the cake in the old wine circuit market is bound to be reordered.
Who will be out and who will have the last laugh?