Crab market cools, prompting production and sales transformation, industry tests the waters of full-network marketing
Yellow River Estuary
Going online, prices look promising; testing the waters of full-network marketing
Fine packaging, online ordering, express delivery…… Just after the Mid-Autumn Festival, at the Yellow River Estuary hairy crab standardized breeding base in Yongan Town, Kenli County, Shandong Province, watching boxes of Yellow River Estuary hairy crabs being shipped in all directions, Li Yufeng, general manager of Shandong Yellow River Estuary Aquatic Products Co., Ltd., said: “In the past half month, 30,000 jin have gone out, and most were ordered by major clients in Beijing, Tianjin, Qingdao and other places.” This year, the volume he sold online accounted for about 20 percent of the total, and the price was 5 to 10 yuan per jin higher. “I have raised crabs for 22 years, and now I have made some ‘internet money’ too.”
In recent years, brand marketing has injected vitality into Dongying Yellow River Estuary hairy crabs. At present, through the internet and mobile terminals, sales models are constantly upgrading, and Yellow River Estuary hairy crabs are “walking sideways” across the national market.
Listed early, prices rose slightly
The Yellow River Estuary hairy crab is a unique aquatic product of the Yellow River Delta region. Its meat is delicious, rich in nutrition, full of roe and fat, rich in a variety of vitamins and minerals, and it has extremely high nutritional, health-care and medicinal value. Since 2007, through consecutive years of publicity and promotion activities, the brand awareness and market competitiveness of Yellow River Estuary hairy crabs have continued to rise. They have successively obtained China agricultural product geographical indication registration, entered the “Top Ten Fishery Brands of Shandong Province”, and repeatedly won the title of “China’s Top Ten Famous Crabs”. The sales market has expanded from Shandong to Zhejiang, Jiangsu and many other provinces and cities.
According to Zhang Qi, a staff member of the Kenli County Ocean and Fishery Bureau, because the Mid-Autumn Festival was earlier this year, the fatness of Yellow River Estuary hairy crabs was not as good as the same period last year, but because they are listed about 20 days earlier than southern river crabs, and because the Yellow River Estuary hairy crab brand has risen to fame in recent years, prices rose slightly, by about 5 yuan per jin. At present, 2-liang female crabs and 3-liang male crabs are priced at 55 yuan/jin, while 2.5-liang female crabs and 3.5-liang male crabs are priced at 75 yuan/jin. The Yellow River Estuary hairy crab is a typical representative of northern hairy crabs. Its price is lower than Yangcheng Lake hairy crabs but much higher than ordinary river crabs.
Marketing “dragon head” drives production and sales to a new level
To increase brand awareness, Dongying City has continuously held the Yellow River Estuary Hairy Crab Food Festival, carried out activities such as sales exhibitions of Yellow River Estuary specialty agricultural and sideline products and tastings of Yellow River Estuary specialty foods, and also organized and established Shandong Yellow River Estuary Hairy Crab Co., Ltd., focusing on building a marketing “dragon head”.
According to Gao Jicun, general manager of Shandong Yellow River Estuary Hairy Crab Co., Ltd., the company has built 5 of its own breeding and planting bases, signed stable order purchase agreements with more than 30 professional cooperatives and large planting and breeding households, built 5 chain stores in the city, set up 4 branch companies plus direct-sale stores in Dongying, Jinan, Shijiazhuang and Beijing, established 3 logistics distribution centers nationwide, and also carried out strategic cooperation with SF Express fresh delivery.
Li Yufeng is a direct beneficiary of brand marketing. With the matchmaking of Yellow River Estuary Hairy Crab Co., Ltd., he signed a delivery contract this year with SF Express for 10,000 boxes. He also plans to go to Beijing soon to attend the founding conference of the Northern Hairy Crab Alliance. “The experience of the past two years tells me that only by building a brand and gaining customer recognition will your crabs be worth more. We must use this opportunity to promote our hairy crabs, and at the same time learn good practices from other places and broaden our horizons.”
Zhang Qi said that as the awareness and price of Yellow River Estuary hairy crabs have risen year by year, local farmers’ enthusiasm and confidence in breeding have also increased substantially. As of now, ecological breeding of Yellow River Estuary hairy crabs has grown to 1 million mu, with an annual output value of 1.7 billion yuan.
Sales models break through tradition
“In previous years, around the Mid-Autumn Festival, many big bosses from Beijing, Tianjin and Jinan would drive over to buy crabs, specifically large ones, and buy a whole pile at a time. This year, that situation has basically disappeared. Instead, small crabs have become hot items, so we have to think about changing our sales methods.” Yang Chuanyi, chairman of the Kenli County Shunda River Crab Breeding Agricultural Professional Cooperative, said the cooperative adopted a three-dimensional ecological breeding method, which reduced breeding costs. This year, the cost of raising crabs was about 35 yuan/jin. With ordinary sales strategies, the price was about 45 yuan per jin. Through online sales, however, the price was about 55 yuan per jin. “Previously, one mu of water surface raised six or seven hundred jin of crabs, with gross profit of about 6,000 yuan, but selling online can bring income above 10,000.”
Gao Jicun was even busier. To promote the company’s transformation toward full marketization and upgrade to a full-network marketing model combining traditional marketing, internet marketing and mobile internet marketing, not long ago the company signed an agreement with Shanghai Weiqidong Management Consulting Co., Ltd. to jointly launch the Yellow River Estuary hairy crab micro-marketing network construction and the “Hundred Cities, Thousand Stores” project strategic cooperation. The two sides plan to spend about 1 year establishing 100 city-level micro-business agents and 1,000 ordinary micro-business agents nationwide in the form of WeChat, Weibo and micro-e-commerce, achieving sales of more than 100 million yuan, and use 3 to 5 years to basically complete the national micro-marketing network construction for Yellow River Estuary hairy crabs.
Hongze Lake
Turning to household consumption, prices becoming more reasonable
Starting half a month before the Mid-Autumn Festival, Hongze Lake hairy crabs from Sihong County, Jiangsu Province, entered this year’s sales peak season. The reporter learned that because there was little high-temperature weather this year and rainfall was sufficient, conditions were very suitable for hairy crab growth. Compared with previous years, Hongze Lake hairy crabs “climbed” onto consumers’ dining tables more than half a month early.
Hongze Lake is the largest hairy crab production and supply base in the country. Among this, Sihong County accounts for 40 percent of the Hongze Lake breeding area. The reporter learned from the county’s fishery department that Sihong river crab breeding area is 265,100 mu, of which more than 40 percent is large-size crabs. In 2013, the county’s river crab output was 25,000 tons, and the output value of river crab products was 2.172 billion yuan, accounting for 65.17 percent of the total fishery output value. Compared with previous years, this year’s market for Hongze Lake hairy crabs has changed, shifting from a gift market focused on “high-end, big-brand and upscale” products to household consumption, and prices are gradually returning to rationality.
In the Sihong aquatic products market, the specialty store run by the Cheng Laosi Aquaculture Professional Cooperative has been a strong seller for many years. The store mainly sells “Yipin Crab” brand Sihong hairy crabs, hairy crab gift vouchers and hairy crab gift boxes, while also selling crab products such as the “Eight Crab Tools” and crab-related peripheral products. “Yipin Crab” is the brand with the highest local market share and the best market recognition.
“The gift market is generally cold this year. Has your store’s sales not been affected?” In response to the reporter’s question, person in charge Cheng Zhi said that their store has many old customers and has always mainly relied on corporate group purchases and ordinary citizens’ purchases, so the impact was not great. The price was only slightly lower than in previous years, but the profit was still considerable. Before the Mid-Autumn Festival, hairy crabs sold especially well. In just a few days, more than 2,000 jin were sold, earning a full 180,000 yuan. At present, orders from all directions are still numerous. He is busy taking orders and shipping goods, and has not closed his eyes for two consecutive days and nights.
Compared with Cheng Zhi, Sun Yongjun, general manager of Sihong County Lvkang Hongze Lake Hairy Crab Co., Ltd., said that this year’s profits are not very optimistic. The company has 5,000 mu of enclosure breeding in Linhuai Town, the “Home of Chinese Crabs”, and exports more than 200 tons of crabs each year to South Korea, Japan and other Southeast Asian countries and regions. Sun Yongjun said that this year, orders for crabs purchased with public funds have completely disappeared, and they have been continuously expanding new markets. Although sales channels are still fairly smooth at present, in previous years 4-liang male crabs could sell for as high as 260 yuan/kg, but this year the price has dropped to 140 yuan.
According to sales staff of Hongze Lake hairy crabs at the Sihong aquatic products city, not many people bought gift-box crabs in the whole market this year, and sales were mainly household purchases. Merchants therefore generally adjusted their sales thinking, and crab prices became more reasonable.
⟧ Wang Jiuyang, director of the Sihong County Fishery Bureau, said that the county government has been working hard to expand the ecological brand influence of Sihong Hongze Lake hairy crabs, which has played a positive role in boosting the county’s crab sales to “rise against the trend” at present. “Since 1996, the county has attracted a large number of merchants and turned Sihong into their own crab supply base by regularly holding a crab festival. In addition, the county finance department also allocates special funds every year to guide and encourage the county’s crab brokers to set up direct-sale stores in major and medium-sized cities across the country. At present, the county has formed a sales team of 3,060 people, specifically engaged in the promotion and sales of Sihong Hongze Lake hairy crabs in various places.” Wang Jiuyang said.
Sales are not limited to the domestic market as a single “plank bridge”. Getting crabs onto foreigners’ dining tables is also one of the reasons why Sihong Hongze Lake hairy crabs do not worry about sales channels. It is understood that 9 enterprises in Sihong County with crab export qualifications have long been expanding sales markets in dozens of countries such as South Korea, Japan and Malaysia. In 2013, the county exported 502 tons of crabs, and its export volume ranked first among the province’s crab breeding counties (cities and districts) for 8 consecutive years.
Fluctuations in the crab market directly affect crab farmers’ income and breeding confidence. In Linhuai Residents’ Committee, Linhuai Town, Pian Qiyun, who has nearly 30 years of crab-raising experience, said that nowadays many people raise large crabs, and this year large crabs are hard to sell, so income will be lower than last year, but overall, crabs are still worth raising. Du Kaiguang, who has already raised 100 mu of hairy crabs, is preparing to continue expanding his breeding scale. “Now more and more ordinary people eat crabs. Our Hongze Lake hairy crabs are so ecological. I believe that as long as we raise them, we need not worry about not being able to sell them!” Du Kaiguang said.