若要弄明白这家中国的冰激凌店在如何开店数量超过麦当劳，不要看北京和上海。相反，要看在俄亥俄代顿的一元店。过去70年间，这个美国的折扣商开出了21000门店，只用一个万能公式，到沃尔玛不去的地方，卖便宜的订书钉。30年前，张氏兄弟同样看到了低价在中国的机会，他们卖45美分的圆筒和便宜的饮品。如今，蜜雪冰城已经是世界上最大的食品饮料连锁，让我们一起去了解下吧！
单词学习：
Surpass 超越
counter strategy 相反战略
knead dough 揉面团
spartan 精简的 朴素的
后面有中文解读！！
后面有中文解读！！
后面有中文解读！！
To understand how a Chinese ice-cream shop surpassed McDonald’s in-store locations, skip Beijing or Shanghai. Instead, look at a Dollar General in Dayton, Ohio, or Lubbock, Texas. Over seven decades, the American discount chain built a 21,000-store juggernaut on a simple formula: Go where Walmart won’t, keep stores bare-bones and sell cheap staples to people stretching their paychecks.
Halfway across the world, the Zhang brothers independently saw the same opportunity in China’s unglamorous interior. Instead of $1 paper towels, they sold 45-cent soft-serve cones and cheap drinks. Today, Mixue is the world’s biggest food-and-beverage chain, according to research firm Technomic, and the company has added thousands more this year. There have been hurdles along the way. Both Mixue and Dollar General learned that chasing upper-crust customers was a dangerous and often doomed temptation. And competitors are always nipping at their heels—particularly for Mixue, where a sluggish economy has led to cutthroat price wars
Last year, Mixue—pronounced ME-schway—assembled managers and franchisees in Singapore, said people familiar with the gathering. Having expanded across Asia and Australia, its next target was America. Co-chairman Zhang Hongfu told the crowd in Chinese that Mixue was going global. Then for emphasis, he switched to English. “The world is big,” he said, “so we have to give a f—.”
When Walmart grew past 3,000 stores in the 2000s, Dollar General’s then-chief executive, David Perdue, latched onto a counter-strategy: “We went where they ain’t.” Perdue, now the U.S. ambassador to China, saw the opportunity in rural areas 40 miles from the nearest Walmart. The company also flooded cities like Dayton, where drivers can pass three Dollar Generals before reaching a Walmart superstore.
Today, the company says about 75% of Americans live within 5 miles of a Dollar General.
Across the Pacific, Zhang Hongchao ran a similar play. In 1997, he opened a shaved-ice stall in Henan, a Chinese province that might be compared with Ohio. A decade later, his younger brother, Zhang Hongfu, joined the business and eventually became its chief executive.Inheriting a “low-price gene” from poverty, as Hongfu said in a document that detailed the company’s history, they ignored the middle-class customers whom Starbucks and Chinese brands chased in Shanghai. They opened stands in workers’ dormitories, village markets and universities, chasing cheap rent and foot traffic.Today, three-quarters of Mixue’s shops in China are in second- and third-tier cities, where the company says it has fewer competitors.
Instead of buying real estate, Dollar General mostly leases bare-bones, company-operated stores. The company said last year that opening one costs about $500,000, a fraction of a big-box store’s price tag. Inside is minimalism: plain concrete floors, exposed LEDs and little backroom storage. Deliveries go from trucks to shelves, often still in shipping boxes.
Mixue squeezed this blueprint into franchised stalls as small as 45 square feet, the size of a walk-in closet.An early store cost $950 to open: $740 for a secondhand ice-cream machine, $120 for rent and $90 for electrical wiring and decor, Zhang Hongfu wrote. It shared space with a steamed-bun seller jealous of the simplicity. “No need to prepare fillings, no need to knead dough,” Hongfu recalled her saying.
Hongfu kept the menu equally spartan. Every drink, he wrote, relies on five basics: water, sugar, tea, milk and toppings. This streamlines supply chains and simplifies training.
In 2009, he opened an upmarket rival with fresh ingredients and premium decor. Sales dropped as competition arrived. After 2½ years, he closed the store after generating just $900 in profit. Selling pricier products, he reflected, meant that higher-maintenance customers expected better decor and staff. “I should have just stuck to selling at the prices I’m best at,” he said. “Do not put on airs.”
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