VietNamNet Bridge – The market has cooled after a long hot development period. The owners of rotary hotpot shops now have to get by on vouchers, while trying to sell their lines.

Trying every possible way to exist

Most of the rotary hotpot shops have scaled down their business, offered price reductions and sold vouchers on groupon websites such as muachung, nhommua, hotdeal or cungmua.

BKK, Cooki-Cooki, Genki and Muru prove to be the rotary hotpot brands which have most appeared on the deals of the websites. Especially, a hotpot chain may sell vouchers on different websites at the same time. In general, the chains launch a new voucher sale once every several months to attract more customers.

With the discount campaigns, rotary hotpots have become more attractive in prices. In general, a serving is now priced at VND150,000 instead of VND200,000, an “acceptable” price level for many people.

Le Hang, an office worker from a media firm, said though she does not like rotary hotpot like she did some years ago, she would still go to the shops as the price is really “reasonable.”

Hang’s thoughts have been shared by many customers, especially office workers. A shop has reportedly sold 3,000 vouchers on only one groupon website, a dream for any food restaurant.

Not only attracting customers with vouchers, hotpot shops also offer price discounts on the spot. Kichi-Kichi brand rarely appears on groupon websites, but it still has been well known for impressive price discount campaigns.

Though the official quoted prices remain relatively high at VND185,000 per serving, not including the 10 percent VAT, customers of Kitchi-Kitchi in HCM City now have to pay VND145,000 per serving only under a promotion program applying to the customers who come there from Monday to Friday.

As such, the price levels offered by Kitchi-Kitchi are no less attractive than that by other supply chains. Especially, customers can enjoy the price discounts right at the shops, while no need to buy vouchers.

F1 chain, after shutting down two shops and closing the website, has also reduced the sale prices to attract more customers.

Hotpot lines put on sale

While some hotpot chains still can live well by slashing the sale prices or selling vouchers, other owners have decided to “give up the games,” trying to bargain away the hotpot lines. Some investors offer to sell their whole food shops, while others only want to sell hotpot lines.

On vatgia website, a person named Loc has posted an ad piece: “I am seeking the buyer for my rotary hotpot line. The product is nearly brand new, an import one.”

On muare, a new member promised to sell its hotpot line at the “most reasonable price.” The seller wrote that it is an Asimex’s line, which has been put into operation for four months, nearly brand new, can serve 90 seats.

The common reason behind the decisions to sell hotpot lines is that the business cannot bring big profits as the investors initially expected.

However, it’s very difficult to look for the buyers at this moment, when people all prove to be very cautious when making investment decisions. Huong, who post an ad on selling her hotpot line nine months, still cannot sell the line.

VTC