Chinese online BBQ seller's Colonel Sanders dream

INTERNET DARLING

"Now many Chinese people care more about having fun than having food. Some people living busy lives in metropolises like Shanghai love outdoor activities, so online barbecue stores are a sunrise industry, and e-commerce fever will help make it into a future darling," he said.

Total transactions on China's online retail market jumped 42.8 percent in 2013 from the previous year to 1.89 trillion yuan, figures from the China E-Commerce Research Center (CECRC) revealed. The Zhejiang-based CECRC last week predicted the market would expand to 2.79 trillion yuan this year.

Li values the potential of restaurant franchising, and Yesbbq now has branches in six other Chinese cities, including Beijing and Shenzhen.

He aims at building Yesbbq into a one-stop barbecue shop where customers can not only order skewers of meat and vegetables, but also buy charcoal, rent barbecue grills or even hire barbecue chefs for different events.

"Online customers have diverse needs. If a company can meet the needs of one in every 10,000 customers, it can be hugely successful," said Liang Chunxiao, an expert with the China Information Economics Society, a Beijing-based research institution.

"We strive to provide customers with whatever food and service they need for outdoor barbecue parties," said Li.

In November of last year, 13 of Yesbbq's barbecue chefs catered to 810 guests at a large outdoor party organized by a foreign company in Shanghai. Yesbbq now charges at least 100 yuan per hour for each barbecue chef, a new profit driver for the burgeoning business.

"With more and more foreigners coming to China, the barbecue market will further balloon," said the savvy businessman, who dreams of becoming China's Colonel Harland Sanders, founder of the global fast food chain KFC.

He is already well on his way to achieving the lofty goal by standardizing the company's barbecued food, using skewers carrying the company logo, hiring a third-party food provider based in Shanghai to ensure timely food delivery during peak business season, and seeking strategic investors.

"No industry is better or worse than others. There is no role model in the online barbecue industry in China, and I have to rely on perseverance and creativity to blaze my own path," said the businessman.