Reported by Jiang Zheng, a reporter of this newspaper, in Beijing
Giants and capital are frantically pouring into the coffee track.
A few days ago, the "post office coffee" launched by China Post has attracted attention from the industry. Prior to this, giants such as Sinopec and China Mobile had layouts in this field. At the same time, the trend of capital pouring into this track is obvious, a number of chain coffee brands have obtained huge financing, and the number of mainland café operators is increasing day by day.
Some industry analysts told the "China Business Daily" reporter that the giant cross-border coffee with multiple offline outlets is because of the need to improve value-added services and outlets, and coffee is one of the products of high-frequency consumption, which is easier to increase the stickiness between customers. After being cultivated by the market of brands such as Luckin Coffee, the entire coffee industry has continuously expanded its own capacity, and has shown trends such as brand boutique and channel sinking.
It should be noted that coffee itself is a consumer product, even with the blessing of giants and capital, new and old brands should make sufficient efforts in terms of taste, products, etc., which tests the supply chain, product research and development, marketing and other internal strengths behind the brand.
The wind of giants crossing borders
When you go to the postal office to do business, you can order a cup of post office coffee without leaving the house. This scenario has already been realized in Xiamen.
Recently, China Post officially opened its doors at POST Coffee at the Xiamen International Trade Building on Hubin South Road in Xiamen. It was remodeled from the original International Trade Building Post Office, adding coffee business while retaining postal services. From the product point of view, the post office coffee of the outlet provides coffee, tea and other drinks, priced between 20 and 40 yuan, and can also purchase peripheral products of China Post.
An insider of the postal system told reporters that the postal service has been carrying out a diversified layout, and the post office coffee is based on the operation of existing outlets, which can break through the inherent image of the postal service and is also a means of obtaining customers.
As of 2020, China Post has 54,000 universal service business outlets nationwide, and the coverage rate of township post offices is 100%. "Large-scale replication is not realistic, it can only be carried out on a small scale." The above-mentioned insider of the postal system said.
Post Office Coffee is jointly created by Post and Shanghai Zhongyu Kaye Management Consulting Co., Ltd. The latter is a new company and has no equity relationship with the postal service.
At the same time, some media reported that Judian Coffee Studio is also involved in the above projects. This information was confirmed by the relevant person in charge of the marketing department of Judian Coffee. The studio's main business is coffee-related training, and it is good at coffee processing technology and training and education programs.
This means that the Post Office Coffee Project is operated by the Post office in cooperation with a third party. Some industry insiders told reporters that the cross-border giants layout the coffee field, mostly cooperate with professional teams. The giants export brands and funds, and professionals operate and manage them.
In fact, this is not an isolated case in the industry.
In 2019, Sinopec laid out the coffee field and launched EasyJet Coffee. In 2020, we will cooperate with Lian Coffee to lay out the national market. In contrast, Lian Coffee has more resources and operational experience in this field.
China Mobile laid out this business earlier, launching the first Migu coffee in 2015, and its direction is to explore digital coffee upgrades. Tongrentang set up a "Zhima Health" super experience store in 2019 to sell coffee drinks, boutique herbs and other products. Relevant media reported that Zhima Health will lay out 300 stores in Beijing in 2021.
Another media reported in October last year that Hema officially entered the self-operated coffee business, which was in the local testing stage at that time. On February 23 this year, Hou Yi, the founder of Hema, responded to reporters, saying, "The company has not entered this field. ”
Wen Zhihong, partner of Hejun Consulting and head of chain operations, believes that the use of offline outlets by giants such as postal services and Sinopec to lay out coffee business is actually incremental on the basis of the original, which can be understood as improving the efficiency of offline outlets. This kind of action is part of its own transformation.
"Specific to the action of the postal service, the advantage of the postal layout coffee is that it can shape a unique brand and cultural experience. Coffee operations have a certain degree of professionalism, but this barrier is not high, and its core lies in the supply chain system. For logistics supply, the postal service has an advantage. Wen Zhihong said.
The influx of money has a knock-on effect
Cui Yongqiang (pseudonym), who runs an independent café in Zhengzhou, Henan Province, has long been aware of the heat of the coffee circuit.
According to the data provided by the enterprise investigation, there are 159,200 coffee-related enterprises in the mainland. In the past 5 years, the overall trend of coffee-related enterprises in mainland China has shown an upward trend. In 2021, 26,000 new companies were added, an increase of 14.31% year-on-year.
CCTV Finance reported at the end of 2021 that there are currently 6913 cafes in Shanghai, far exceeding New York, London, Tokyo, etc., and is the city with the most cafes in the world.
"Although the coffee industry is very hot and has a high degree of attention, there is no outbreak in the number of people who actually consume coffee." Cui Yongqiang said.
Wu Zhiwei, the founding partner of Zhandao Capital, also mentioned that many people have a dream of opening a café. He believes that from the perspective of development trends, the opportunity for bagged coffee is not large, and the offline ready-made coffee is the trend. In this field, Luckin is very competitive.
Overall, the domestic coffee market giants are Starbucks and Luckin. At the same time, a number of cutting-edge brands continue to emerge and receive support from capital.
According to the data provided by the enterprise investigation, the financing of domestic coffee projects continues, and 38 coffee brands will be financed in 2021, and the amount of financing will be between tens of millions of yuan and hundreds of millions of yuan.
According to incomplete statistics, the brands that have received multiple rounds of financing at present include the Chinese specialty coffee brand Seesaw, the cutting-edge coffee chain brand M Stand, the convenience coffee brand Santo and a half, Shicui SEA, Yongpu and so on.
Many industry insiders mentioned that combing the dynamics of the coffee industry can be seen that the promotion of specialty coffee products and brands, as well as the affordable coffee brought about by the sinking of the channel, has developed particularly rapidly.
A heavy coffee consumer in Guangzhou told reporters that many coffee chain brands in the market are more reflected in the price and packaging, but in terms of taste and products, there is still a gap between the boutique.
Internet trend observer Yuan Guobao found in his research on the coffee market that many specialty coffee brands are becoming more and more milk tea, and homogenization is more serious. And that has deviated from the positioning of specialty coffee.
"Chain coffee brands attach importance to product quality, but in practice pay more attention to product consistency, they want consumers to experience the same products in any store of the brand." Therefore, the reduction of the standard of the product, the use of a fully automatic coffee machine, the selection of coffee beans with insignificant characteristics and the pursuit of standardization are all characteristics of chain coffee brands. Cui Yongqiang told reporters. At the same time, coffee is gradually penetrating into lower-tier cities, and affordable coffee is also highly sought after.
Luckin pulled down the price of coffee to about 20 yuan, while Manner, a coffee brand that has recently received huge financing, pulled coffee products into the 10 yuan price range. Honey Snow Ice City, which is highly sought after by the young people in the town, has incubated the coffee brand Lucky Coffee internally, and has expanded rapidly in lower-tier cities, and some coffees are even as low as 5 yuan.
Ping An Securities mentioned in the research report that China's coffee market is currently in a high-growth stage, the future market space is vast, and whether it can complete the space breakthrough depends on the mining of the sinking market.
However, there are also many difficulties behind the high growth space. "The lack of consumption base, the comprehensive ability and management ability of the brand side, and the competition with tea are all challenges for coffee brands when they sink." Ping An Securities stated so in the research report.