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author|qian duoduo

editor | wilderness

the former "internet celebrity product" tupperware recently announced that it had filed for bankruptcy protection in the united states, but the news does not seem to have an actual impact on its sales in china.

liaoda reference learned from many franchisees that tupperware announced in june this year that it would permanently close its only factory in the united states. however, tupperware has its own factory in china, and both sales and after-sales operations are operating normally. in their view, tupperware was only "forced" to this point by the continuous interest rate hikes in the united states in the past few years and has nothing to do with the product itself.

whether it is a franchisee or a tmall flagship store, this brand is selling normally. according to multiple media reports, after tupperware's "bankruptcy" became a hot topic, tupperware's tmall flagship store was still carrying goods through live broadcasts, and customer service also said that the online store was operating normally. on xiaohongshu, some sellers have launched a "fire sale" under the banner of "tupperware goes bankrupt", but both the selling price and the products remain the same as before, and it seems more like they are trying to attract traffic.

on the consumer side, there are still people who firmly believe that tupperware has no replacement. although it no longer has the status of a "social gift", in the sinking market, the emotional value of its sales, combined with its own product quality, is still supporting a large number of franchise stores.

of course, these good news only look good in the context of "bankruptcy". for tupperware franchisees, the good old days of making big bucks are over.

01 lady’s love

"does a tupperware water bottle that costs 125 yuan need to be replaced?"

liu xue made no secret of her confusion. this woman who lives in a county town in guangdong is a middle-level factory worker with a monthly salary of 12,000. her husband is a small business owner in the local area and her family is well off. she started buying tupperware in 2018. from water cups, thermos cups to sealed boxes, the ones still in the cabinet are worth more than 3,000 yuan.

liu zhuang, who lives in a county in hunan, is also a loyal user of tupperware. just this week, she just spent more than 500 yuan to buy two thermos water bottles. she briefly listed some of her consumption lists in recent years to dianda reference:

water purifier costs 6,000 yuan, and it costs 1,880 yuan to replace a set of filter elements and mineral rods every year;

pressure cooker, more than 2,000;

stainless steel wok, more than 2,000;

stew pot, 198;

as for the various sealed crispers and water cups, liu zhuang himself couldn’t count them all. anyway, tupperware products almost take care of her kitchen. in addition, she will occasionally buy various health-preserving foods from sales outlets, such as ginger-date tea for 68 yuan per pound and probiotics for 228 yuan per box.

safe and reliable is her label for tupperware.the direct reason for her first purchase was that the store clerk showed her the effect of a plastic box being burned. "ordinary plastics smoke and turn black, but their boxes don't." liu zhuang can no longer remember the specific color at that time, but the "fire" completely conquered her.

liu xue also "entered the trap" for similar reasons.

around 2005, when she was still in high school, almost everyone around her classmates had a colorful tupperware water cup. after several other-brand water cups were broken, she finally spent 60 yuan to buy one. the water cup is of very good quality, does not leak, is resistant to falling, and has no smell even after being scalded with hot water. "i once used a tupperware cup to make lemonade for three days, but there was no mold like other cups." after that, she identified this brand.

now, when she hears that someone uses a plastic water cup costing more than 20 yuan as a substitute for tupperware, she still finds it strange. "safety comes first when it comes to entrances."

for these "small town ladies", the news of tupperware's bankruptcy in the united states is too far away. as long as their tupperware sales are still active in their circle of friends and they publish product advertisements normally, everything will have no impact.

dedicated and active salespeople also add emotional value to tupperware's products.

"they can provide door-to-door service," liu zhuang said. the tupperware water purifier at home has been installed for several years. the mineral rod is replaced every six months and the filter element is replaced every year. all are completed through door-to-door sales. in addition, sales often organize various food salons to teach everyone how to use tupperware boxes to better store various food.

due to the trusting relationship established through long-term interactions, liu zhuang has now developed into buying and selling various recommended health care products, such as probiotics, collagen peptides, lutein, etc.

however, compared to the signature sealed boxes, tupperware's health products are obviously more controversial. one user complained about her mother-in-law, "i had an argument with my mother-in-law because of the health products. my mother-in-law complained to the people in the group and often went to tupperware stores." looking for a little sister in the store.”

service is an important way for salespeople to "hook" users. in addition, they will also use various methods to enhance the consumer experience, such as burning plastic cups to prove that the material is good; emphasizing high-end raw materials and technology, a set of abrasive tools costs hundreds of dollars. million dollars. sometimes, salespeople will resort to hungry marketing, saying that some water bottles are imported from abroad and have been sold out.

the core of these tricks is to create a sense of luxury. the emotional value of the small-town lady is at its fullest.

02 franchisees lay flat

the years when tupperware was used as a "social gift" were also the days when business for franchisees was booming.

the franchisee's delivery truck has changed from a large 28-bar to a black mercedes-benz, and the number of shelves has changed from three to eight. for members, a whole floor of the cafe has been reserved for activities, and seven clerks have been hired to take charge of a small store. , the boss worked as a business owner and traveled abroad. after buying himself a house, he renovated the red brick house in his hometown into a villa... the legend of tupperware making wealth spread among brothers and best friends.

tian si, who is also a frequent tupperware customer, recalled that a "circle" existed in her high school 11 years ago. "at that time, good students played with good students, rich students played with rich students, and people in the same circle would give each other tupperware as gifts." tian si herself also received tupperware, and because she was afraid of being isolated, she gave back a more expensive water bottle.

the well-known value is an important reason why tupperware was popular back then. tian si said that the price 11 years ago was about 90 yuan per cup, which was about four times that of ordinary off-brand cups.

today, the plastic cup of tupperware’s classic tea rhyme is still as high as 125 yuan (based on the price in the tupperware mini program store). but after all, most consumers are not middle-class ladies, and few people buy tupperware water cups to give away. thermos, zojirushi, tiger, and stanley have taken over this position.

when tupperware returns to its attribute of "daily necessities", price becomes a more important factor affecting consumption. the reason why many people don't fall in love is the price.take the friendly company lock&lock as an example. the two products overlap greatly in terms of their main product categories, including plastic cups, crisper boxes, and thermos cups. with similar styles of plastic cups, lock & lock costs about one-fifth of tupperware.

locknlock is also good at adapting to online traffic, attracting traffic through head anchor li jiaqi, spokesperson deng lun and the live broadcast room of its own stores, and using coupons and discounts to drive down prices. tupperware links rarely come from top anchors, but more from franchise store owners. a franchise store owner said that he has been doing live broadcasts since 2020. the audience is just the same people coming and going, and the transaction volume is very low. "there was a period of time when i was so anxious that i was even watching my husband during the live broadcast while he was getting an injection in the hospital."

different strategies lead to completely different traffic attracted in the end. lockn&lock's tmall flagship store received more than 5.19 million visits during double 11 in 2020. a newly launched thermos cup occupied the first place in tmall's thermos cup category sales list that day. locknlock's plastic cups have become the "provincial cups" of guangdong province.

the orders were tilted towards friendly merchants, which affected tupperware's franchise business. a county franchisee told lianda reference that the revenue of one of his stores has dropped by more than 40% compared to 2020.

tupperware franchise is a business with high threshold.

in the united states, it sells directly, but in china, it sells through franchising.as an investor, wei da reference learned from qi qin, a tupperware franchisee, that tupperware franchisees have zero franchise fee and no service fee, and the first batch of orders must reach 50,000 yuan. on the surface, the franchise cost is lower than that of a milk tea shop. however, the high cost of obtaining goods determines its high total cost.

according to qi qin, the tupperware franchise price is 52% off. that is, a 125 yuan tea yun plastic water cup is discounted by 52%, and the franchisee’s purchase price is approximately 73 yuan. if you catch up with the official promotion, you can purchase it at 58% of the promotional price.

xu fu, who has been selling tupperware water cups for 13 years, lamented: "our purchase price is very high, and basically only the yazhi water cup can be purchased for 50 yuan."

after deducting 58% of the cost of acquiring goods from the sales revenue, it is still used to pay rent. a franchisee who opened a store in the community revealed that the monthly rent is 13,000 yuan. based on the calculation that one cup can earn 52 yuan, he must sell at least 250 cups every month to achieve "breakeven". if the store is located near a busy shopping mall, the rent will be more expensive.

in order to control rent costs, xu fu closed two community stores in the city, leaving only one store in the county. the last store was sandwiched between a clothing store and a chicken wishbone, and was very small, so xu fu also bought a room on the second floor to live in. the place is sparsely populated, so he needs to spend more energy on online channels and stay active through moments and wechat groups.

"after deducting the annual rent of about 60,000 yuan from the income, there is an annual income of about 100,000 yuan." xu fu calculated,the start-up capital for a tupperware franchise business needs to be more than 300,000 yuan, but now the combined income is only about 10,000 yuan per month. it is not cost-effective to have to integrate customer service, operations, distribution, and maintenance.among the franchisees who have contacted us, there are many who have similar views.

some franchisees just continue to operate based on a "lay back" mentality.

"i've been working for so long, and i don't know what other business is suitable for me." xu fu is now nearly 50 years old. he joined tupperware in 2011 and raised his children through this business. now he doesn't make much money. money motivated me.

tupperware's business strategy is indeed very suitable for xu fu to "lie down". we learned from sidianda that the monthly purchase threshold for franchisees is only 2,000 yuan, so there is not much pressure on payment. xu fu was previously in the clothing business, and the amount of goods he sold was once so large that it was scary. however, tupperware cup styles are not updated very much, so there is no obsolescence problem.

03 flooding flagship stores

offline ladies have insufficient resources and don’t want to lie flat. some tupperware franchisees are moving the battlefield online.

from 10 pm to 1 am, zhang zhang has been live broadcasting for several days. every time he goes off the broadcast, he yawns continuously and is so sleepy that he can't open his eyes. on weekends, he will add an additional hour or two of live broadcast.

offline, franchisees can also improve their competitiveness through meticulous services. online, the only thing they can compete with is price power. ——most franchisees are not familiar with the online traffic business.

for tupperware franchisees, lowering prices is a risky business.

according to qi qin, tupperware has set requirements for franchisees’ online prices. the price of product links that are not gifts or flash sales must be the same as the company's price. franchisees do not have the right to give discounts on regular priced products. but in practice, these regulations have been transformed.

zhang zhang priced a water cup originally priced at 125 yuan at 86 yuan.

he had to lower his prices.

on the one hand, there are too many fakes online and the prices are cheaper.

according to information from several franchisees, there are only two online stores on the entire network that are officially authorized by tupperware, namely taobao's tupperware flagship store and jd.com's self-operated flagship store. franchisees do not have an online store operating license, and some stores on the douyin platform are also located in specialty stores for pickup.

behind these online stores may be real offline franchisees, but without official authorization and endorsement, there is also a lack of consumer protection.take taobao's tupperware tableware flagship store as an example. customer service said that this store is an officially authorized flagship store. but according to qi qin, the store has been targeted by the company's legal affairs and is going through the process.

there are already people profiting from fake tupperware. according to the true story research laboratory, a top seller of tupperware successfully bought a house and a luxury car in two years by selling fake goods in six online stores around 2016.

in some online stores that are not officially authorized, most products are cheaper than those in offline stores of franchisees. for example, the price of a 99 yuan classic tea rhyme plastic cup has reached a 79 discount from the mini program’s price. in addition, eco bottles for 9.9 yuan and salad bowls for 9.9 yuan can also be found everywhere.

the low price and “flagship store” gimmick directly makes it more difficult for franchise stores to sell goods online.

on the e-commerce platform, zhang zhang's survival pressure also comes from stronger stores, or stores operated by the platform itself.

for reference, we noticed that tmall international’s self-operated global super stores are also selling tupperware classic tea rhyme plastic cups, priced at 94.98 yuan. if you take into account the 30% off activity for purchases over 300 yuan, you can get a water bottle with an original price of 125 yuan for only about 86 yuan, which is a 69% discount on the original price.

"if you don't lower the price, some people will lower the price." zhang zhang finally priced the same water cup at 86 yuan. attracted by the low price, more than 800 of this water cup were sold, making it the highest-selling product in zhang zhang’s xiaohongshu store.

however, more tupperware franchisees in lower-tier markets still focus on their traditional customer base. in order to compete with online customers, they even need to discredit online products and strengthen the view to customers that "only offline physical stores are genuine, and all online products are mixed with genuine and fake products."

there are indeed users paying for it.

liu zhuang insisted on continuing to consume from the tupperware offline stores she was familiar with. even if her sister working in beijing told her that the same style she bought on pinduoduo was only 40% off, she was not moved. “i don’t dare to buy it because i’m afraid i won’t be able to tell if i buy a fake product, which will be bad for my health.”

compared to digging around and worrying about buying expensive cattle and horses from beidiao, a lady from a small town would rather spend more money just for peace of mind.

however, judging from the overall data, the scale of tupperware franchise business has been significantly reduced. more consumers are either moving online, switching to other brands, or using old products for a long time. today, tupperware's offline stores have dropped from more than 6,000 in 2020 to more than 4,000.

judging from this trend, there may not be too many days left for franchisees to "lay flat".

the picture comes from the internet and has been deleted.