Photo/Chen Qing (NBD)

After having opened over 20,000 stores in China, Honey Snow City is gradually pouring more resources to its overseas push. According to the official data, as of the middle of last year, the number of overseas stores of Honey Snow City has exceeded 1,000.

Just two days ago, Honey Snow City opened its first store in Australia, and this is the beverage chain's first store outside Asia. The turnover of the new store exceeded 240,000 yuan for the first day of trial operation.  

Located at the World Square in the CBD area of Sydney, Australia, the new store, compared with most of its stores in China, has a larger area and a panoramic floor-to-ceiling window with a red steel frame, giving it an international flavor.

Before the opening of the first store in Australia, Honey Snow City has entered the Japanese and Korean markets in the past six months.

In terms of products, menus of the chain's first stores overseas leaked from social platforms show that most of the products sold there are consistent with those in China. At present, the raw materials abroad are exported from China, and the taste is the same as that in China. Honey Snow City's consumer groups are mainly overseas students and local university students.  

However, at present, Honey Snow City may still be unable to make a profit in the Japanese, Korean and Australian markets. According to its prospectus, as of March 2022, Honey Snow City has cumulatively opened 249 stores in Vietnam, achieving total revenue of 9.2904 million yuan and reporting net loss of 322,000 yuan; in Indonesia, Honey Snow City has 317 stores, achieving total revenue of 25.41 million yuan and a net profit of only 2.2355 million yuan.

However, there are still many challenges in going abroad. Every time a company goes to a country or region, it needs to adapt to different business environment and consumer demand and localize as much as possible. It also should have the ability to deal with local people.

For Honey Snow City, the first challenge is extending its supply chain to overseas markets.

Secondly, it is the cost. Honey Snow City still insists on the low price strategy overseas, given the relatively high operating cost, Honey Snow City has to give more rights to franchisees.

Thirdly, it is the management of overseas franchisees. Effectively carrying out quality control has become a challenge.

In addition, the high degree of standardization of Honey Snow City's products determined by the supply chain is somewhat contradictory to the "localization" required by the overseas market.