Text|Tech Planet Xi Rui.The owners of tea shops in the county town have had a "fat year".
During the Spring Festival, young people returning to their hometowns crowded cinemas and tea shops. In the county seat, tea shops are one of the few places where young people can meet and meet on blind dates.
During the Spring Festival this year, the employees of the tea shop in the county town have to shake thousands of cups of milk tea every day. No matter which brand you join, you can have at least tens of thousands of business turnover a day, and the bosses can earn more than a month's revenue during the Spring Festival holiday.
Exploding orders has become a norm for catering and entertainment consumption in the county. Tea is one of the most prominent industries, which adds a touch of confidence to offline consumption in 2024.
In 2023, tea brands will accelerate their pace to seize the sinking market, and they are all on the road to listing. The county seat is one of the few markets that tea brands can still grab. Whoever can win the county or even the township will be able to win more chips in the finals.
"In normal times, a cup of milk tea delivered to your door only takes 20 minutes at the earliest. During the Spring Festival, you may have to wait up to an hour to drink a cup of milk tea in the county.
Wang Jing's Bawang Chaji store is located in a county town in Yunnan. This is the first time Wang Jing has not spent the New Year with her family. On the day of the Chinese New Year's Eve, Wang Jing also worked in the store, and after having a reunion dinner with her family in the evening, the first day of the new year ushered in real busyness.
In normal times, the staff of the tea shop work in shifts. From the Chinese New Year's Eve to the fourth day of the first lunar month, six employees, including Wang Jing, worked from half past nine in the morning to ten in the evening.
When you arrive at the store at half past nine, you need to start the day's preparations. Wang Jing has the impression that since 11 o'clock at noon, there has been no shortage of customers in the store. All of them are in battle mode, and everyone is in a state of continuous rotation.
Fortunately, the boss gave each employee three times the salary during the Spring Festival. Every night after seeing the countertop being emptied, Wang Jing still has a sense of accomplishment, "I feel that I have done one thing with my friends again." ”
This is Wang Jing's first time working in a tea shop, and the busyness during the Spring Festival is still beyond her imagination. "Every day after work, I feel like my body is going to fall apart," Wang Jing said with a wry smile. I remember that in the past few days of the Chinese New Year, she has been doing the work of making tea, and basically in less than half an hour, a whole bucket of tea will be used up.
When working in the store, Wang Jing was tense all the time and didn't feel tired at all. But when she returned home, Wang Jing felt that her body no longer belonged to her. "I heard from the old employees that they sold 30,000 yuan in the highest day of the Chinese New Year last year, and I didn't dare to think how busy and tired it was. ”
During the Spring Festival, Wang Jing had the impression that the single machine produced a maximum of nearly 200 cups, and "the cup sticker list was higher than me", Wang Jing recalled.
On the eve of the Spring Festival, the store's one-day turnover has reached 8,000 yuan. In the days of the Chinese New Year, the turnover of the store exceeded 10,000, and the highest daily turnover could reach nearly 20,000. In normal times, when there are few people, Wang Jing remembers that there is only two or three thousand turnover a day, and five or six thousand when he is busy.
This means that in 12 hours, 6 employees have to shake out thousands of cups of milk tea.
Not only the milk tea upstart Bawang Tea Ji, but also in the county, no matter which brand of store is full of orders.
After the release of the franchise, Heytea also ushered in a burst of orders in the sinking market this year. The top 10 cities in terms of sales growth during the Spring Festival are all non-first-tier cities. Among them, the sales volume of Heytea stores in Anyang, Huanggang, Fuzhou, Huainan, Guang'an, Handan, Nanping, Lianyungang and other cities increased by more than 200% compared with the pre-holiday period.
Heytea Putian Xiuyu Wanda Store, Tai'an Xintai Wuyue Plaza Store, Ningde Zhouning Shangcheng Plaza Store, and Yueqing Jingshan North Road Store have become the top stores in terms of sales growth during the Spring Festival holiday, with an increase of more than 400%.
The relevant person in charge of the tea brand "7 Fen Sweet" also told Tech Planet that during the Spring Festival, the explosion of orders in county stores was obvious. The sales volume in the population export cities is significantly larger than usual, such as Lianyungang, Yancheng, Huai'an, Nantong, etc. 7 Fentian revealed that the maximum increase in a single store in Jiangsu exceeded 395% year-on-year, and the maximum increase in a single store in Shandong exceeded 196% year-on-year.
I kissed a few times and drank milk tea a few times" However, the tea shop in the big city is not a scene of explosive orders.
In 2023, there will be more than 6,000 stores in Shanghai. During the Spring Festival, in addition to the tea shops near the scenic spots, there are almost no ** in some conventional shopping malls, not to mention tea shops.
Shi Chao, who stayed in Shanghai during the Spring Festival, told Tech Planet that he couldn't find a store in the mall for dinner in the first month. "The tea shop on the first floor is open, but there is no one in the mall. ”
Employees at the Heytea store in Taiyuan, Shanxi Province, told Tech Planet that during the Spring Festival, the store was just a little busier than usual, and there was no explosion of orders. The employees of Bawang Chaji's Hangzhou store said that during the Chinese New Year, their store was not open, and she took a vacation in her hometown.
Whether in a big city or a county town, the same group of young people drink milk tea. Even young people who don't have the habit of drinking milk tea will pay for milk tea during the Spring Festival.
During the Chinese New Year, young people return to their hometowns, and the core business district of the county has become the first choice for families and friends to go shopping.
Wen Feng, the founder of Chayu Fruit Tea, has counted that during the Spring Festival, the top 10 stores in terms of sales volume are basically the business district stores in the county, and they are in the core business district of the prefecture-level city or county. During the Spring Festival, the daily turnover of these stores exceeded 10,000, and some even reached 20,000.
Drinking milk tea, watching movies, visiting parks, and setting off fireworks have become a one-stop family outing in the county during the Spring Festival. And another important consumption scenario is the blind date of young people.
Cao Jinlong told Tech Planet that he usually has no habit of drinking milk tea when he works in Shenzhen, and he will not order a cup for a year. In the 8 days at home during the Chinese New Year, he drank milk tea four times, all because of the need for blind dates.
There are no entertainment activities to choose from in the county, so you can only sit and chat in the bubble tea shop, wait for the movie to start, and then have a meal," Cao Jinlong told Tech Planet.
Obviously, the business of tea shops in the county town has been rising during the Spring Festival, reaching its peak from the first day to the fifth day of the first lunar month. According to Meituan data, during the Spring Festival in 2024 (from the twenty-third day of the lunar calendar on February 2 to the eighth day of the first lunar month on February 17), county-level markets across the country ushered in a peak of homecoming consumption, including Hey Tea, Nai Xue's Tea, Gu Ming, Mixue Bingcheng, Tea Baidao and other leading chain milk tea brands**65% year-on-year (corresponding to the lunar calendar)**65%, and the number of related merchants increased by 34% year-on-year.
With the end of the Spring Festival holiday, young people returning to their hometowns will return to work in first-tier cities, and the excitement of tea shops in the county will also disperse.
Employees of tea shops in many counties told Tech Planet that after the seventh day of the first lunar month, the number of customers in the stores decreased significantly. Wen Feng also told Tech Planet that the performance of the store in Chayu County will decline after the seventh day of the first lunar month.
In addition to the performance of stores in the core business district of the sinking market, Wen Feng also told Tech Planet that there was no obvious performance outbreak of street stores and community stores in the county, and the performance during the Spring Festival was not expected to be high.
Wen Feng and his team have not yet reviewed and analyzed, "There are very few people in the street store, or it may be that everyone goes out to travel, and no one buys near the community, so they concentrate on the snack street for consumption in the New Year." ”
Can the county support the future of tea? Whether it is consumer demand or operation model, counties and first- and second-tier cities are very different.
In the county, the location of the core business district is the key to the competition of major brands. Tea shops in the county occupy the most core stores in the core business district, and set up seats for large-scale stores, while in first- and second-tier cities, there are more streetside stores.
Wen Feng said that this situation does exist. On the one hand, the pace of life in first- and second-tier cities is fast-paced, there is not so much time to sit in the store to consume, more take-out and takeaway, and young people in counties and towns have a slow pace of life, and they like to drink milk tea with three or five friends and chat together. From the perspective of investment, the operating costs of stores with large areas in first- and second-tier cities are higher.
Consumers in the county also have different tastes for milk tea, and 7 points of sweet will adjust the product logic of the menu for the sinking market.
In the past two years, the sinking market behind the county town has been a must for tea brands.
Hey Tea, Nai Xue's Tea, and Lele Tea, which used to be the three giants of tea drinks, have all opened up their franchises in the past one or two years to embrace the sinking market.
Compared with first- and second-tier cities, the sinking market is a place that can still be explored. Wen Feng told Tech Planet that the county stores that performed well during the Chinese New Year can also reach 10-150,000 yuan in normal times.
According to CIC**, the GMV of ready-made tea shops in third-tier cities and below will grow at a compound growth rate of 25 from 2022 to 20274%, far exceeding the entire ready-made tea shop market from 2022 to 20281187% CAGR.
In the core shopping malls or snack streets of the county, tea Baidao, ancient tea, Shanghai aunt, overlord tea and Hey tea are all 10-20 yuan ** players. And Tea Baidao, Gu Ming, and Shanghai Auntie are currently competing for the "second share of tea drinks".
In 2023, all major tea brands will encounter certain difficulties in expanding their stores. The founder of a tea brand told Tech Planet that in the second half of 2023, it is obvious that there is a slack mood for joining, and the speed of store expansion is far less than in the first half of the year. According to its understanding, the speed of store expansion of absolutely most brands in 2023 is not ideal.
In the context of the saturation of the first- and second-tier markets, for the tea brands that have shouted the slogan of 10,000 stores, counties and towns are still the direction that can be forced.
To a certain extent, it is the county seat that supports Gu Ming and Shanghai Auntie. As of the end of 2023, 38% of Gu Ming's stores are located in townships and towns, and the number of stores in second-tier cities and below accounts for 79% of the total number of stores. As of September 30, 2023, about half of Shanghai Auntie's stores are in third-tier cities and below.
As young people return to work, the lively scene of the county's tea shop has returned to its former calm. But the battle for the county seat, which really belongs to tea, has just begun.