Chao News client reporter Lu Jia.
Last year's coffee track was a bit rolly, rolling to 9 yuan and 9 cups, and rolling to Luckin to surpass Starbucks China, not only surpassing Starbucks in revenue in a single quarter, but also becoming the first coffee brand in the Chinese market to break through 10,000 stores.
Recently, the news that many stores of specialty coffee brand Seesaw Coffee (hereinafter referred to as "Seesaw") have closed one after another across the country has aroused widespread attention on social platforms. On the other hand, someone posted in the circle of friends that the milk tea brand Chabaidao recently tested the coffee brand "Coffee Ash", and the first store opened in Chengdu; KFC's kcoffee has also gone from a category on the ** brand to an independent coffee store.
At the end of last year, China became the "No. 1 coffee country", beating the United States, which has occupied the top spot for more than 20 years, with nearly 50,000 branded coffee stores.
Some people say that coffee has also entered the era of cost performance, and in the new year, where will the domestic coffee industry roll?
9. Initiated by LuckinThe 9 yuan "coffee business war" makes the involution of the coffee track more intense. Photo by reporter Lu Jia.
Seesaw stores in many places across the country were closed.
The founder's latest response.
Previously, netizens posted on social platforms that Seesaw's first store in Chongqing, the MixC store, was closed. **It shows that the store will be closed from December 27, 2023, and the official said that new stores are currently being arranged in an orderly manner.
Seesaw's first store in Chongqing, the MixC store, was closed, **from netizens.
Some netizens said that the three Seesaw stores in Wuhan will all cease to operate after December 31, 2023. In the official mini program and store community of "Seesaw Coffee", there is no longer a Wuhan store.
Search for the keyword "seesaw closed" on Xiaohongshu, and you can see posts made by many netizens, such as the Shanghai K11 Art Shopping Center store will be closed on May 30, 2023, the Bailian Century store will be closed on September 22, 2023, and Shanghai Changning International, Beijing Oriental Plaza and other stores are no longer open, and notices of "store adjustment and temporary closure" have been posted.
*From netizens.
At present, there are 10 stores in Hangzhou, including Hangzhou Hubin Pedestrian Street Store and Hangzhou Xizi United Building Store, which are open normally, while the Binjiang Longhu Tianjie store is marked as temporarily closed, and the latest evaluation is on August 26, 2023.
It is understood that Seesaw, which started in Shanghai in 2012, is one of the earliest brands in China to operate specialty coffee. Wu Xiaomei, the founder of the brand, recently responded to the issue of "closing stores". She said that in the past three years of planning, Seesaw has completed the phased strategic goals and realized the national layout of first-tier cities and new first-tier cities. As the new three-year plan begins, Seesaw wants to make some adjustments.
Therefore, we 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, the company continues to carry out refined management, so that the front, middle and back office systems are more complete and close, and the basic territory of the future expansion road is more solid. In the interview, Wu Xiaomei mentioned the brand's next three-year plan, and Seesaw will continue to maintain a steady pace of expansion, focusing on first-tier and new first-tier cities in East China, and further strengthening the store density in China's core business districts.
Regarding the news of the closure of many Seesaw stores, some netizens said that when they settled in the local area, they were once called the benchmark for creative coffee; However, some netizens believe that now it is in the stage of reshuffling the coffee track, and the seesaw** for nearly 40 yuan a cup is a bit expensive and the taste is more average, and the competitiveness is not enough.
New tea drinks began to cultivate coffee brands.
Fast food coffee also opened its own store.
Recently, the coffee brand "Coffee Ash" under Chabaidao opened its first store in Chengdu, and many netizens went to check in.
It can be seen in the ** of netizens that unlike the fresh wind of the white and blue theme of the tea Baidao store, the hue of "coffee gray" is cold gray. Coffee products are mainly divided into three categories: Italian classic, fresh fruit cold brew and flavored latte, netizens said that butter Australian white, butter dirty, matcha salted milk extract, salty mocha and so on are quite distinctive. In addition to coffee, there are also meals such as burgers, bagels, sandwiches, etc.
The first store of Tea Baidao "Coffee Ash", ** from netizens.
"Coffee Ash" landed in a low-key manner, and there was no official announcement on Tea Baidao, but you can see the introduction of coffee and meals on the *** of "Coffee Ash", and the brand also opened official accounts of Xiaohongshu and Douyin. Although there is no official explanation as to why the milk tea brand goes for coffee, the opening of the store itself is a signal: optimistic about the coffee track and expanding new business growth.
In addition to tea Baidao, Heytea has also opened a new brand of tea and coffee "Magpie Coffee" in Shenzhen. In April this year, the sub-brand "Shanghai Coffee Fresh Fruit Coffee" opened 20 stores in 6 cities including Shanghai and Chengdu, with a single cup of ** at about 9-18 yuan. In addition, Yuanyang Coffee, a sub-brand of Chayan Yuese, also opened 5 stores in August 2022, and Ruu Coffee, a sub-brand of Ningji, opened its first store in Changsha, Hunan Province as early as May 2022.
Industry insiders believe that in contrast, coffee has a higher degree of standardization, and the requirements for the transportation and preservation of raw materials are relatively simple, and the first-chain capacity of tea can be fully covered. According to Zhu Danpeng, an analyst in China's food industry, the combination of coffee and new tea drinks is very compatible, and the success rate of cross-border is relatively high. ”
In addition, coffee in fast-food restaurants is also developing from in-store menus to independent stores. A few days ago, Yum China announced that the number of kcoffee stores has exceeded 200 and plans to expand to 300 by the end of 2024. Previously, Yum China revealed in the second quarter of 2023 earnings conference that KCOFFEE's turnover increased by 50% year-on-year.
KFC's KCach has been opened in Hangzhou and other places. Photo by reporter Lu Jia.
It's not that you can't afford to drink thirty or forty glasses.
It's 9 pieces of 9 that are more cost-effective.
The 9-9 war in the coffee industry has been going on for the past year and has been going on. If you want to talk about the source, it may be that Cudi launched a 9 yuan 9 coffee to start a war against Luckin, and Luckin quickly counterattacked and issued 9 yuan 9 coupons to consumers who had nearby Cudi stores.
On June 5 last year, Luckin Coffee opened the country's 10,000th store on Zhongshan Road in Xiamen, and at the same time launched a weekly coupon campaign of 9 yuan 9 in all stores. At the same time, at the performance communication meeting in the second quarter, Luckin CEO Guo Jinyi made a decision, and the ** activity of 9 blocks and 9 lasted for at least two years.
Starbucks, the big brother, had to passively get involved in the war, opening 326 new stores in the last fiscal quarter, an average of 4 new stores per day, which is the fastest average daily store opening speed for Starbucks since entering China. In addition, although Starbucks has not directly reduced prices, it has also begun to issue coupons on its own APP, such as a 75% discount on two cups of delivery, etc., although the number of consumers has increased, but the unit price of customers is decreasing.
This 9-9 cost-effective battle is difficult to see the end in a short period of time. In the sinking market, the competitive environment is more fierce and the opponents are more ruthless. On the first working day of 2024, it has 3With 60,000 stores, Mixue Bingcheng submitted a prospectus to the Hong Kong Stock Exchange, of which nearly 3,000 stores belong to its coffee brand "Lucky Coffee". It is worth noting that the ** of the core product of "Lucky Coffee" is 5-10 yuan.
In addition, it is reported that after signing a strategic cooperation agreement with Yijie Coffee in 2022, Tims will jointly launch a shop-in-store Tims Express (Lingfeng store), which has opened 100 stores so far, and has bought 2 cups of strawberry bear pendants and filled up 200 yuan of gasoline 9$9 redemption and other activities.
According to iiMedia Research**, China's coffee industry is expected to remain at 27With a growth rate of 2%, the size of China's coffee market will reach 1 trillion yuan by 2025.
However, it is a fact that the industry is becoming more and more volatile, and consumers are more concerned about the cost-effectiveness of coffee than before. From low-price competition to endless creative marketing, coffee brands are pulling out all the stops.
*Please indicate the source".