Specialty coffee is facing a dilemma.
This article was originally published by Red Meal Network (ID: hongcan18), author: Jian Yuhao; Editor: Jing Xue.
"Seesaw has closed a lot of stores, and I really can't bear it?"
In the last two days, news has been circulating about the closure of coffee brand Seesaw.
On social platforms, many netizens broke the news that in recent months, many Seesaw stores in Hangzhou, Shanghai, Suzhou and other regions have been closed one after another.
According to the big data information of Red Meal, at the beginning of January this year, Seesaw still had more than 130 stores, but as of now, there are only more than 90 Seesaw stores nationwide. In other words, in less than half a year, Seesaw's stores have shrunk by nearly one-third.
It is worth noting that in March this year, Seesaw officially announced the opening of franchises, and many industry opinions at that time believed that this may help Seesaw expand the scale of its stores. But judging from the current results, opening up the franchise does not seem to have brought much effect.
defaulting on payments to suppliers and closing a large number of stores,
Seesaw多次陷入舆论风波
According to the revelations of netizens on social platforms, the stores recently closed by Seesaw are mainly located in Hangzhou, Shanghai, Suzhou and other places.
Log in to Dianping, locate Hangzhou and search for Seesaw, you can see that there are currently nearly 10 Seesaw Coffee stores that are "closed", and only 5 stores are in normal operation. In Shanghai, nearly 40 stores are closed. However, as the brand's home base, there are still more than 50 Seesaw stores in the Shanghai area.
According to the big data of Red Meal, there are currently only more than 90 Seesaw stores left, mainly in Shanghai, Beijing, Zhejiang, Guangdong, Jiangsu and other places.
△ Image source: Red meal big data
It is not difficult to see that compared with the more than 130 stores at the beginning of this year, Seesaw's stores have indeed shrunk significantly.
If you go back further, you will find that this is not the first time that Seesaw has been exposed to a large number of store closures.
In January, some netizens posted an announcement on Xiaohongshu about the closure of the Seesaw Chongqing MixC store, and then it was reported that Seesaw stores in Shanghai, Wuhan, Beijing, Chongqing, Hangzhou, Shenzhen and other regions have been suspended one after another.
At that time, Wu Xiaomei, the founder of Seesaw, replied to the red food network that Seesaw had entered a period of adjustment, and closed some of the three "no" stores that did not conform to the regional focus strategy, brand positioning and store model.
At the same time, she also emphasized that Seesaw will continue to focus on first-tier and new first-tier cities in East China in the next three years, and further strengthen the store density in the core business districts in East China.
In March, Seesaw was revealed to be in arrears with suppliers. A netizen on Xiaohongshu who claimed to be a "supplier" posted several screenshots, saying that Seesaw owed him 7-9 months of payment. Although there were negotiations with the brand, Seesaw also paid 115,700 yuan in February and March, but it still failed to fulfill the contract.
Regarding this matter, Seesaw responded to Jiemian News at that time, saying that it was just a normal business dispute.
Open to join for nearly 3 months,
Only a small number of special stores are opened
The frequent fall into public opinion turmoil may have brought a lot of pressure to Seesaw, and the brand itself began to think about changes.
Shortly after it was revealed in March that it was in arrears with suppliers, Seesaw officially announced that it was open to joining.
Throughout the specialty coffee track, there are very few brands open to joining. After all, specialty coffee shops place great emphasis on the barista's hand-poured technology and coffee bean roasting skills, and pursue fine decoration and create a good dining environment.
But Seesaw eventually opted to join. At that time, in the eyes of many industry insiders, Seesaw may have reached the bottleneck period of development, so it hoped to achieve scale expansion through franchise and share the operating pressure of the brand.
According to Seesaw's public information at that time, Seesaw's franchise stores are divided into two types, one is a standard store type equivalent to a directly operated store, which is mostly a shopping mall store; The other is a special store type that cooperates with art museums, airports, and high-speed rail stations.
△ Image source: Seesaw's official public account
But in fact, in the past three months, Seesaw's new franchise stores are basically special store types. For example, Seesaw partnered with Dongyi Art Museum to open an art store at One Bund in Shanghai. In addition, two new store types have been opened in cooperation with Huazhu Hotel and Pudong Airport.
These special store types have strict requirements in terms of location, scene and other aspects, and it is almost impossible to spread out on a large scale.
And the standard shopping mall store does not seem to be very attractive to franchisees. According to the brand's official information, standard store-type franchise stores will be launched in Guiyang, Luoyang, Cixi, Xuzhou, Yiwu, Qingdao and other second- and third-tier cities, but Seesaw stores are not yet searchable in these cities.
Under the price war,
Specialty coffee is in a dilemma
In fact, Seesaw is not the only specialty coffee brand facing development challenges. Just when Seesaw was exposed to a large-scale closure of stores, another specialty coffee brand, Manner, was still mired in the public opinion storm of "squeezing employees".
On June 21, employees at two different Manner stores clashed with customers. Subsequently, information about Manner's exploitation employees leaked out one after another. Among them, a barista told the media: "Manner barista has a monthly salary of 5,000, but he has to keep one store by himself, and he has to pinch the meter when he goes to the toilet." ”
Although Manner's problems are not the same as those of Seesaw, they essentially point to the dilemma of survival faced by specialty coffee in the face of the coffee price war.
The owner of a boutique coffee shop told Red Meal that as Luckin and Cudi entered various cities across the country and lowered the price of coffee, the survival pressure faced by boutique cafes is also increasing. "The domestic specialty coffee market is already immature, and under the price war, consumers are not so concerned about quality. Fewer people are willing to pay for quality coffee, and many specialty coffee shops have disappeared silently in the price war. ”
In such a situation, even specialty coffee chain brands will face a dilemma. Either stick to the high-priced boutique route, regardless of the impact of repurchase rate and customer acquisition efficiency; Or "self-depreciation" and sell affordable coffee. But both will directly lead to lower revenues.
How to balance the cost of expenditure, whether it is to squeeze labor, or directly reduce the quality, may be another bigger problem for specialty coffee.