Editor's note: This article is from WeChat public number "Matrix Partners" (ID: matrixpartnerschina), the author of Matrix Home Page.
The queuing trend for Chinese milk tea has traveled across the Pacific Ocean and caught fire in Europe and the United States.
Four years ago, on the first day of the first CoCo Milk Tea store in Southern California, all the milk tea ingredients were sold out in 30 minutes. At that time, most of the people lining up were Asian students. But now, open Google Maps, just the Manhattan district of New York can be searched for eight CoCo milk tea store, just walk into which, there are always people in line to order, day and night.
The audience of CoCo in North America is not only Chinese students, but also young American students, fashion girls, and even Justin Bieber's mentor, Usher, are fans of CoCo. Young people abroad are not only willing to wait in long lines, but also happy to buy a cup of CoCo milk tea and post ins for likes.
In recent years, the tea drink market has become the hottest favorite in the catering industry. With the upgrading of consumer attitudes and the improvement of people's health requirements, the first generation of milk tea brewed with powder is gradually eliminated by the market. From CoCo, Happy Lemon, Gongcha and other street milk tea, to the overnight popularity of the Hei Cha, the creation of a "tea + soft omelette" dual-category model of Naixue No Tea, as well as emphasize the oriental aesthetics of the Cooking Leaf ...... a variety of tea drinks brand fire in the streets, many people will be Tea store as a new gold mine.
China is the world's largest producer, consumer and trader of tea.In 2018, China's tea production is expected to reach 47% of the world's total production, and its consumption will reach 36% of the world's total production.The new tea drink market has huge potential, with good raw materials, high-end location, and design-oriented packaging.......These new tea drink brands are springing up and stirring up the Chinese tea drink market, which has always been warm. brands are growing like bamboo shoots, stirring up the Chinese tea drink market, which has always been lukewarm. Ai Media Consulting data show that in 2018, the number of ready-made beverage stores in China has exceeded 450,000, at the same time, the new Chinese tea drink market demand is further expanding, and in 2018, the market size of China's new Chinese tea drink market exceeded 90 billion yuan.
So, what is the current state of the tea store market?
We visited 9 of the hottest milk tea in the market, and from the dimensions of name, Logo, product composition, location, store design, queuing time, number of stores, etc., we counted some patterns of the Netflix Milk Tea stores and found some interesting phenomena.
For example, the new tea drink stores, like to open in shopping malls, rather than street ends; the same brand store style is not uniform, but each has its own style; the new tea drink also like to engage in cross-border co-branding with other brands, and continue to create a sense of freshness to consumers.
For those of you who love milk tea, this article will give you a different perspective and something to talk about. And for those of you who wish to spot opportunities in the new-style tea industry, we've summarized some of the trends. Below, Enjoy:
1
First Impressions of Brands: The Science of Naming
In the food industry, a catchy brand name often becomes an intangible asset for a company, and the tea beverage industry is no exception.
Tea drinks industry is mainly divided into two categories of names: one is the combination of brand characteristics and the main categories, the other is the choice of words with good meaning.
▌Brand characteristics appear in combination with the main category
Brand characteristics appear in combination with the main category, which characterizes the naming of a category of milk tea.
For example, Happy Lemon. Look at the name to know the meaning, its brand main idea is to convey happiness, lemon is the main raw material of its drinks. Summer is the golden period of milk tea market, lemon has rich nutritional value, but also will bring a cool feeling.
The same name is also four clouds milk cover tribute tea, milk cover + tribute tea is their main feature. Four clouds of milk cover tribute tea predecessor is Taiwan's Yang Yang good tribute tea, stationed in mainland China is very hot, attracting a lot of copycat and imitation, resulting in a large number of customers lost. Therefore, the name was changed to Four Clouds Milk Cover Tribute Tea, with more prominent and obvious "four clouds" to identify themselves.
The name "Boiled Leaf" comes from the tea manufacturing process, founder Liu Fang said, Chinese people drink tea from the Tang Dynasty, the Tang Dynasty is the way to boil tea, you need to boil the water to throw tea, need time and temperature, "Boiled" represents the respect for the traditional tea. The character "葉" represents tea, plants and nature, as well as the relationship between people and tea, people and people, people and things, and space.
▌Beautiful symbolism
A beautiful symbolism is another appeal of milk tea brand name.
Nie Yunchen, the founder of Xicha, chose the character "Xi" for its name because it is a character that everyone can find beautiful and add their own associations.
Nai Xue No Tea is a Shenzhen tea drink brand, founded by a couple. The founder, Peng Xin, is a person who loves life and pursues sophistication and enjoyment. Naixue was her favorite screen name before and she was born on a snowy day, so the reason why she used the name Naixue is that she hopes the name can give a sense of a beautiful scene.
The originator of stocking milk tea in Hong Kong, Lan Fong Yuen, has a history of 67 years, but anyone who has been to Hong Kong naturally knows the weight of Lan Fong Yuen in the Hong Kong milk tea industry.
The name of Hong Kong-style tea drink Michelin comes from the Cantonese language, "Michelin" means Michelin, Michelin is the world's top restaurant guide, the name means that we hope Michelin can be the first Hong Kong-style milk tea.
2
The Art of Logo: Cartoon Style, Hong Kong Style or Design Style?
According to incomplete statistics, milk tea Logo is mainly divided into three major factions: cartoon style, Hong Kong style and design style.
▌Cartoon Style
Cartoon, is one of the early tea drink store design Logo logo. CoCo and Happy Lemon as a representative of the cartoon style Logo look friendly and cute, in line with the milk tea as a fat happy water, want to pass the message to the majority of fat people.
▌Harbor Style
Hong Kong-style milk tea Michelin and Lanfang Yuan retain the classic Hong Kong style, with traditional prints, red and green matching colors, and a style that can be recognized at a glance from the Logo.
▌Design Style
New-style milk tea represented by Hi-tea, Lele Tea, Boiled Leaf, Nai Xue No Tea, the product is characterized by advanced extraction process, fresh fruits, fresh milk, Logo design is more and more inclined to the minimalist design style, especially Hi-tea and Lele Tea, although it is still cartoon pattern, but the design is more inclined to simplicity, do not go to the cute style.
The logo of Xi Cha is a side face: a small man holding a cup of Xi Cha, tilting his head, closing his eyes and enjoying it contentedly. Nie Yunchen, the founder of Hi-Tea, was asked whether the Hi-Tea Logo is a man or a woman. He replied that it was neither. Ta has no skin color, no bangs, no parted hair, just a common image of human beings. This is because he wants Xi Cha to be suitable for everyone, and wants Xi Cha to win everyone.
LELETTE's brand image has gone through three major revisions, and now version 3.0 officially applies LELETTE Jun as the brand spokesperson on the Logo, LELETTE Jun is the small head on the current LELETTE Logo. However, the logos of LELETTE and Xicha are so similar that some consumers think Xicha and LELETTE are one family.
Among the newer tea drinks, both Nai Xue and Boiled Leaf also have their brand names as logos.
When Liu Fang, the founder of Boiled Leaf, was planning for the brand design, she flew to Japan several times to ask Kenya Hara, a national treasure design master, who was impressed by the conception of Boiled Leaf and Liu Fang's persistence, and made a whole set of brand design for Boiled Leaf. The traditional writing style in the logo of "Boiled Leaf" was suggested by Kenya Hara. Kenya Hara deliberately wrote the character "叶" in traditional Chinese for the sake of the beauty of the balance between the two fonts.
3
Product Composition: Cheese Tea Fruit Tea Bobo Tea, Milk Tea Innovation Frequent
Traditional street-side milk tea stores are characterized by creamer, tea bags and canned fruits, but with the increasing concept of healthy consumption, consumers are pursuing higher and higher quality products.
The new style of tea drinks with more quality tea base and healthier ingredients, the use of hot brewing, cold brewing, vacuum high-pressure extraction revolutionized tea brewing process, adding fresh fruit, cheese, mixed with high-quality tea, loved by consumers.
Milk teas originating from different places of production have different processes and main products.
▌Taiwanese Milk Tea
CoCo and Happy Lemon's milk tea is traditional Taiwanese milk tea, mainly black tea and green tea, milk tea, fruit juice, chocolate, coffee are involved in a wide range of varieties, and the price of the main drinks is usually around 10-15 yuan.
CoCo's most popular milk teas are Pearl Milk Tea, Milk Tea Trio and CoCo Milk Tea. These are creative terms that will definitely confuse you if you are not a milk tea fan. All three products seem to have the same name, but in reality they are each different. CoCo Milk Tea only has milk tea, no toppings; Pearl Milk Tea adds pearls to CoCo Milk Tea; Milk Tea Three Brothers has the most abundant toppings, with three toppings of pearls, sencha and pudding at the same time, so it can be said to be a deluxe enhanced version of CoCo Milk Tea.
With the upgrading of consumption, CoCo began to focus on brand image building, pay attention to do experience space, product categories are also becoming more and more rich, from tea to expand to the "tea + coffee + muffin" mode of operation.CoCo coffee products priced at 12 to 18 yuan, the price of ground coffee series to reach 40 yuan to 50 yuan. The price of muffins is about 12 yuan, and CoCo tries to expand its store area by enriching its product line, so as to increase consumers' stay time and consumption.
Image from CoCo's website
In Happy Lemon, lemon tea is not the consumer's favorite; their most popular milk teas are Rock Salt Cheese Green Tea, Pearl Milk Tea, and Oreo Cookies Milk Tea, with price points ranging from 6 to 19 yuan. After all, people who are addicted to milk tea mostly miss the sweet flavor, and sour lemon tea is hard to provoke dopamine.
Four Clouds Milk Covered Tribute Tea, specializing in milk cover tea, popular tea drinks are milk cover tea, panda milk cover, golden diamond milk cover tea, the overall product price ranges from 15-28 yuan.
▌New Tea Drinks
One of the main features of new-style tea drinks is adding cheese to natural tea. Hi-tea pioneered this precedent, adding salted cheese to tea drinks, subverting the outside world's perception of traditional milk tea, and pushing tea drinks to younger groups, triggering a new style of tea drink craze.
In 2012, Nie Yunchen, the founder of Xicha, opened his first tea store in Jiangmen, Guangdong Province, and introduced a new type of milk tea with "cheese + tea base", thus starting the continuous innovation of tea.
Currently, Xi Cha's products are categorized into six main categories: Cheese Ming Tea, Chi Chi Fruit Tea, Seasonal Limited Fruit Tea, Bobo Family, Full Cup of Fruit, and Pure Tea. In addition, Xi Cha launched ice cream and ice cream cups last year. From time to time, Xi Cha Labs launches products such as oyster buns and yogurt cups. The main price point of Xi Tea's products is 13-33 yuan, and products above 30 yuan account for 21%.
In terms of product development, Xi Cha is also always ahead of the curve. We found from the inquiry of Xi Cha's WeChat public number that in 2018 alone, Xi Cha launched 48 new products, an average of two new products per month, so that consumers can always find new surprises in Xi Cha, and always keep the freshness and attraction of Xi Cha. For example, the chi chi berry berry in spring, the succulent grape in summer, the cup full of red diamonds (pomegranate) in fall, and the taro mud bobo tea in winter.
Image from the official website of Xi Cha
Nai Xue No Tea and Le Le Tea sell both tea and soft omelette, and the combination of the two is expected to achieve the effect of "1+1>2".
Nachelle's Tea's main tea drinks are all named "Baoqi" series, including signature drinks Baoqi Cheese Strawberry, Baoqi Yangmei, and Baoqi Alishan Hatsumomo, and so on. Among the ready-made tea brands, Nai Xue No Tea has the largest proportion of high-priced beverages, with products above 30 RMB accounting for as much as 25%.
Founded in 2015, Naixue No Tea has selected the "tea + soft omelet" matching route from the very beginning. 2016, LELO Tea opened its first store in Shanghai, also choosing the "tea + soft omelet" product model, this 1+1>2 model has a very high market heat at that time. This 1+1>2 model had a high market heat at that time. Soon after, Nachet raised more than 100 million dollars with this model.
There are more than hundreds of types of Nachelle's Tea Soft Omelette, and it is still innovating. Its selling point is mainly low-fat and low-sugar, which is healthier for women.
Bakery area of Nesquik Tea (Shanghai Zhonghai Huanyu Hui Store)
In comparison, Leloucha offers a wider variety of soft omelettes than Nesquik.
Lelouch Tea's most famous products are Dirty Tea and Dirty Buns, priced at $22 and $19 respectively.
Although LELO's brand name is still "Tea", its main revenue comes from bakery. It is reported that LELO's bakery/tea ratio is about 7:3, and in the summer, when tea is popular, LELO's bread sales can reach 50-60%, while in the winter, bread sales can reach about 70% of total sales.
In product innovation, as with the tea, LELO tea is also very "hardworking", soft European bag has 20 SKUs, cheese fresh fruit tea a total of 24 SKUs. monthly new products, quarterly out of the explosive, the end of the month will also be on the product "performance rating", failed to be eliminated. The unqualified ones will be eliminated.
Happy Tea
Also as a member of the new style of tea drinks, Boiled Leaf's drinks are more oriented towards tea than milk tea, including traditional bubble tea, flower and fruit tea, and original tea flavored with milk, flowers and fruits, and so on. Compared to other milk tea brands, they are healthier and have a more oriental flavor.
Starbucks work experience has influenced Liu Fang, founder of Boiling Leaf, in the product positioning of Boiling Leaf, Liu Fang on the standard Starbucks, Boiling Leaf price is even slightly higher than Starbucks, between 35-40 yuan. Liu Fang said: "Starbucks coffee can not be refilled, boiled leaves of a pot of tea can be refilled, and drinking tea was originally longer than drinking coffee, so this pricing will make customers feel reasonable."
In addition, it is worth mentioning that the milk tea store in the continuous innovation and creation of new products at the same time, but also gave birth to a lot of "new words", so much so that it was flirted with "in addition to the innovation of milk tea, or word creation agencies.
For example, "Bully Alishan First Dew", "Kagamaru Pouli", "Yakult Green", "Northern Lights" ...... Just by looking at the names, who can tell what they're drinking? Then there are the toppings that make you never know what you're adding. "Black Bobo" refers to Black Pearl, "Crisp Bobo" refers to Emerald Fresh Milk, and "Jumbo Coconut" refers to Pearl Coconut Boba Trio.
Some media even said that because of its creative invention of these words, the milk tea store should be awarded the title of "contemporary Cangjie".
4
Store location: new-style milk tea in high-end shopping malls, distancing itself from traditional milk tea
The tea and beverage industry is ultimately a restaurant industry, and the key to the restaurant business is the number of stores and the profitability of a single store. Each store is a separate profit center, and the key to the focus of the business is the key to site selection. Site selection determines the store's customer traffic, and customer traffic largely determines the store's ability to generate revenue. There is a saying in the restaurant industry, choose the right site, open the store is also half successful.
New-style milk tea and traditional milk tea, in the store location is also very different.
▌Street Milk Tea
In 1995, with CoCo, Happy Lemon, Gongcha and other Taiwan milk tea, as well as Mizilian, Lanfang Yuan and other Hong Kong-style milk tea into the mainland and the rapid development of the tea industry has entered the "street era".
The term "street era" comes from the characteristics of their location, most of these stores are opened at the end of the street, subway entrances or bus stops, or in the shopping district by the side of the road, or near the residential area, you can meet around the corner. Even in shopping centers, they are usually on the first floor, adjacent to the snack food and beverage.
Street stores are suitable to become a century-old store, but due to the first-tier cities, house prices and rents are too high, to have a great consumer density to support the survival of a great pressure. In contrast, a relatively upscale shopping district can at least ensure the basic flow of people, the price is relatively not too expensive, the mall brings the flow of people can ensure the basic revenue.
▌New Style Milk Tea
Milk tea market "upgrade" an important key is the location. New-style tea stores want to get away from the "student gas" and "urbanization" of the low-end street store image, to enter more first-tier cities such as Beijing, Guangzhou and Shenzhen, as well as Jiangsu, Zhejiang and other areas, the location of high-end shopping malls, or office buildings in dense business districts.
These areas have a high degree of economic development, high consumption level of the population, office areas are concentrated in a large number of white-collar workers, the ability to accept new things, but also willing to try new things.
According to statistics, since 2017 the tea beverage industry in the shopping center industry accounted for a sustained increase, the number of brands in the tea beverage industry in the 50,000 square meters of shopping centers in first- and second-tier cities across the country in the leisure food and beverage industry accounted for 25%, and the number of stores opened accounted for 31%. 2018 the number of stores increased by 19% year-on-year, and the sales increased by 22% year-on-year.
In terms of location, the new-style milk tea represented by Xi-tea, Nexue No Tea, Lele Tea, and Boiled Leaf are coincidentally located in large shopping districts or shopping malls.
Most of the sites chosen by Nai Xue No Tea are in the core of first-class business districts - street-level stores.
Nacho Tea (Shanghai Zhonghai Huanyu Hui Store)
Hi-Tea locations are mostly on the first floor of shopping centers in first-class business districts, but the specific locations are mostly on corners, as these locations attract traffic and reduce costs.
Joy Tea (Shanghai Ren Guang Raffles)
All of Lele Tea's locations are also in shopping centers, and similar to Hi-Tea, the locations are mostly on the corner of the first floor or basement level.
Although there are not many stores, the only ones that are open are in shopping malls like Beijing apm and Yutang.
In addition to the previously mentioned, these milk tea stores also have some unexpected location. coCo opened to the United States, fire out of the country; hi tea opened to the capital airport and shenzhen baoan airport, aiming at the security check before boarding the waiting time of the demand for beverages; hi tea stationed in Disney, "daydream plan" theme to take the town C seat. With the expansion of the tea drink market, the new tea drink brands are also more bold in their choice of location.
5
Store design: changing theme stores, unchanging freshness
Milk tea on the street sells a cup of pearl milk tea with a defined flavor, or a drink to kill time while getting off the subway and waiting for the bus. But for newer tea drinks such as Xi Cha, Nai Xue, Le Le Cha, and Boiled Leaf, they sell unchanging freshness, which is reflected in store design theme stores, and cross-border co-branding.
▌Store design
CoCo, Happy Lemon and Gong Cha are mostly small street-side stores, with a store area of about 15-20 square meters, and the store usually does not have a queuing area, with customers concentrating on waiting at the door. The target audience of the street milk tea store is mainly passers-by, so the street milk tea store chooses to transfer the queuing area to the roadside, which is also such a consideration.
Customers can enter the store when ordering, and if it rains, they can take shelter from the wind and rain, and also enjoy the air conditioning in the store. The bar is arranged in a zigzag pattern, with all the tools and equipment in one line. This design shortens the time it takes for the staff to make the drinks, thus reducing the waiting time for customers.
CoCo Shanghai Jianguo East Road Store
Most Hi-Tea stores are over 100 square meters in size and are located in shopping centers or office buildings. Shanghai's first Hi-Tea store was opened on the first floor of Raffles City in People's Square, with white as the main color, white walls and white logos, together with iron chandeliers and metallic ordering counters. Even on the first floor where luxury counters are piled up, Hi-Tea's store decorations are very high-class and unobtrusive.
Joy Tea (Shanghai Ren Guang Raffles)
The ordering area is in the style of an L-shaped bar, and the bar is divided into three areas: ordering, order taking and packing. Each working area is well laid out without interfering with each other, ensuring the smooth and efficient milk tea making process.
The store has a lobby lounge area where customers can wait after ordering, but most of the time, Hi-Tea pulls up a queue area at the door, and the lines are always especially long on weekends and holidays.
Hi-Tea (Shanghai Ren Guang Raffles), the store's lounge area was full of people
The impression of a "queue all the time" is also related to the design of the store, which is cleverly decorated and staffed to create a "crowded" look. With a large bar, minimal dine-in seating, and a busy staff with a clear division of labor, passersby are attracted by the store's "popularity".
Opened more than 100 square meters of large stores, Xi-Tea also began to layout 20 square meters of small stores. 2018 June, Xi-Tea in Shenzhen, an office building opened the first "HEYTEA GO", into the wisdom of the store, there is no cashier, there is no ordering station, only support for cell phone app "Xi-Tea GO" order. "Ordering.
The layout of small stores is to expand user coverage, good brand sinking, large-scale, but also for customers to bring convenience, novelty consumption experience. Xicha CTO Chen Jilin said, Xicha GO next to access the "social" function, trying to optimize the user experience, deepen the interaction between users.
Xiao Shuqin, public relations director of Xi Cha, pointed out, "We won't open like a typical milk tea store, the kind of feeling on the street, we may be adjacent to office buildings, targeting the white-collar afternoon tea scene."
The target audience of Nai Xue No Tea is "white-collar women aged 20-35", in order to conform to this positioning, the store design pursues fashionable simplicity, creating a female space, and even in the details are also meticulous, for example, in order to facilitate the girls' hands to take selfies with their tea drinks, a slimmer teacup is designed, and a layer of frosting is plated on the outside to prevent it from slipping off during movement. For example, in order to make it easier for girls to take selfies with their tea cups in their hands, a slimmer tea cup is specially designed, and a layer of frosting plated on the outside does not slip off in the process of moving; in order to prevent girls' lipstick from sticking to the cup, the groove at the mouth of the cup is also carefully adjusted.
Boiled Leaf in Beijing Yutang Shopping Center is the largest store. Designed by Japanese architect and MUJI art director Kenya Hara, the store has a Japanese minimalist style. The most special thing is that the bar where the tea is made is fully transparent, so customers can see the whole process of tea making while drinking tea.
▌Theme Shop
In the new tea drink brands, the launch of theme stores has been a standard action. Tea drink brands launch theme stores, mainly to enhance the brand value by shaping different space visual and concept, to inject freshness into the brand.
When the public's impression of Xi Cha is still stuck in the high-class design tea store with white color as the main color, they have long started to make various new store style attempts, including the black gold store, PINK store, LAB concept store and so on.
For example, the PINK store, the decoration style has changed from the previous black, white and gray tone, the store with pink balloons, dolls, as well as pink tables and chairs and pink walls, a large number of pink elements, the sense of young girls is full of, the use of a strong sense of vision of a large area of pink, hi tea can be more directly with female consumers to communicate, upgraded to become another network red card mecca.
Joy Tea (Xintiandi PINK)
In addition, Hi-Tea has also been experimenting with flash mobs to better cater to youth culture and make Hi-Tea younger and more fashionable. Xi-Tea has opened flash mobs at various events, including the OCT-LOFT International Jazz Festival, Jungle Music Festival, Maybelline Party and Shanghai Fashion Week, Xi-Tea's footprints have been spread across a wide range of "trendy" events.
The purpose of Nesco store design is more "poetic", according to the four seasons of "spring, summer, fall and winter", and "mirror, flower, water, moon" and other carriers, launched a Based on the evolution of the four seasons and the carriers of "mirror, flower, water and moon", we have launched four types of stores, including "Spring-Mirror", "Summer-Flower", "Autumn-Moon" and "Winter-Snow".
LELETTE's "dirty store", pink strawberry store, super collection store - [JILE] Tasty and Tea Athletic Hall, and the first BlueTea intergalactic theme store recently opened in Henderson Celebrity Center on Nanjing Road in Shanghai, also reflect LELETTE's various attempts to explore the style of the stores. It also reflects LELO's various attempts to explore the style of its stores.
In addition to the theme store, LELO tea also plans to open a thousands of square meters of "LELO tea brand baking factory" in Shanghai Wujiao Fresh Food Exchange, in the store to open the dirty bag making courses.
▌Cross-border co-branding
In addition to a variety of theme stores, "new-style tea drink" brands are often co-branded with other brands, through cooperation with other brands to strengthen their own image, to achieve user graft, broaden the user base, cross-border cooperation into the new tea drink industry in the face of fierce competition in the new breakthrough.
Hi-Tea can be called "the hip brand of the tea industry", and their partners include NIKE, Bird of Prey, Bird of Prey, cosmetic brand Mary Degree, and even the British Museum, especially highlighting the culture of young people, and gradually building itself into a "hip brand", making it a trendy, cool lifestyle. It has gradually turned itself into a "trendy brand", making it a trendy and cool lifestyle.
Nachee No Tea's partner brands are full of culture and art, including TeamLab, Diamond Family, Hammer Technology, Healthy People, Flower Plus, and other lifestyle brands, with cooperation covering limited products, themed events, and involving curation, art, technology, fitness, and floriculture.
Lele Tea has had product or marketing cooperation with GAP, Snowflake, Le Pure, and Shen Dacheng, and when they choose brands to work with, they require that no matter what the brand is, what is ultimately conveyed to the consumer must be a relaxed and free lifestyle. To show the real side, can not let the consumer produce a sense of distance.
On the way to becoming a "net red milk tea", the new-style milk tea to make all the tricks, and constantly provide consumers with a sense of freshness.
6
Waiting time: the new milk tea "queuing wind" disappears, waiting time is more reasonable
Data from Dianping user reviews & homepage visits
Street milk tea stores like CoCo and Happy Lemon, in China, the queue time is usually around 10-20 minutes. Because street milk tea is characterized by convenience, if the queue time is too long, it will reduce the customer's purchase demand. These milk teas are too homogenized, and no one product is irreplaceable.
The tolerance of "not even a minute wait" for the street milk tea, in front of the new style of milk tea, the public has become very tolerant.
In the public's impression, the biggest label of the new tea drinks is "Netflix". The beginning of becoming a net red, there is always a pop story: the "cheese milk cover tea", Lele tea's "dirty tea", Nai Xue No Tea's "domineering series", this paragraph "Netflix tea", to help the new tea drinks to open the popularity.
But then came the "queuing hype" for people to spit, in early 2017, hi tea in Shanghai opened the first store in the people's square raffles store, people in the shopping mall lined up into a giant "greedy snake", creating a queue of 7 hours, 20 yuan drink by scalpers speculation to 80 yuan! The myth. At the end of the same year, Nachel's Tea opened its first store in Shanghai's No.1 Department Store, and long lines formed in front of the store.
In order to alleviate the complaining voice of customers queuing up, Xi Cha once adopted the purchase form of takeaway and pick-up number, but the effect is not optimistic. Xi-Tea's PR director said, "Priority must be given to consumers queuing on-site. The demand of the store has covered all the capacity, if we open the takeaway channel again, it will be unfair to the people in line." Takeaway this road does not work, hi tea began to focus on the layout of the layout of the map expansion, in the city has been stationed to continue to expand, in the non-exploitation of the city to step up the layout, plans to add 100 stores this year.
On the other hand, in the area where the stores have reached a certain density, to increase multiple purchasing channels, Xi-cha online "Xi-cha GO" WeChat small program, this collection of dine-in, reservation, takeaway in one of the small program to reduce the queuing time of the Xi-cha, the waiting time down to 40-50 minutes, in addition to this, the small program has greatly increased the Xi-tea orders.
The number of stores has increased, and a variety of ordering methods are online, and the previous queuing craze is bound to fade. The investment in a single store of the new style tea drink is relatively high, whether it is the site rent, design and decoration, or the store staff overmatch. Under the premise of such a high cost investment, sufficient traffic is the key to the profitability of the existing model. Therefore, the challenge of the new style of tea drinks from the time when the queue disappeared, only really began.
7
Number of stores: huge number of street milk teas, dramatic expansion of new-style milk teas
Data from each brand's official website & applet & public news
Data from AiMedia Consulting shows that the number of ready-made beverage stores in China has exceeded 450,000 in 2018, and the market size of the new Chinese tea drink market has exceeded 90 billion yuan. The latest report of the Meituan Dianping report shows that in 2018, China's tea drink market exploded in full force, and the number of stores increased steeply by 74% in one year.
Tea drink market this piece of cake to attract a lot of shareholders, but the head of the power of tea, Nai Xue, etc. only open direct, do not take the route of franchise, products and positioning of high-end. CoCo, happy lemon and other mid-range chain of tea drinks, the number of stores tends to be saturated.
Compared to other forms of food and beverage, opening a milk tea store is a relatively easy task. The start-up capital for a milk tea store is usually as little as 350,000 to 400,000 yuan (600,000 to 700,000 yuan may be required for prime locations in first-tier cities). Because of the low threshold, the milk tea store is easy to copy and expand, most brands will be open to join at the beginning, including CoCo, Happy Lemon, Gongcha, Mizilian and other brands, the requirements for franchisees as low as "do not need to catering experience can also be opened".
However, with the upgrading of consumption, the milk tea market has become refined, vertical, tea drink types are also more segmented and refined, the early franchise-based tea drink chain form is no longer adapted to market demand. Therefore, LELO tea, Nexue No Tea, tea, cooking leaves and other "new-style tea drinks" generally only open directly-managed stores, no franchise.
CoCo has the most offline stores, has reached more than 2,200, the product cost-effective, open to join the CoCo to expand rapidly. The same as the street milk tea happy lemon, compared to CoCo's scale is much smaller, mainland offline stores only more than 500.
Four Clouds Milk Covered Tribute Tea has more than 900 stores offline, and Hong Kong-style milk tea Michelin has more than 500. And all over the streets and alleys of Lanfang Yuan, only three stores in Hong Kong. Some media reports, recently, Hong Kong Lanfang Yuan stores posted on the "solemn statement": Lanfang Yuan only opened three stores in Hong Kong, in addition to no other outlets. Hong Kong Lanfang Yuan firmly denied to the mainland institutions or individuals authorized to open physical stores and sales of Lanfang Yuan food, not to mention the franchise matters.
The new-style milk tea market is expanding rapidly, Xi tea offline stores have reached 220, Naixue's tea offline stores 192, Lele Tea stores are fewer in number, only 28, Boiled Leaf currently has only 9 stores, 6 in Beijing, Xi'an 3.
Nowadays, the tea market has a variety of brands, store types and decoration styles are also different, but it can not be ignored is that the tea industry competition situation is grim. Boiled down to the product, the milk tea is very similar, how to form their own uniqueness and difference is actually very important.
Tea drink formula is difficult to form a patent, a pop-up launched after the whole industry will have to follow suit. New tea drinks in the formula to dilute the flavor of tea, add other ingredients processing mix, ordinary customers can not taste a big difference, relying on the product is difficult to form a long-term competitiveness.
For example, shortly after the launch of "Cheese Berry", CoCo followed with "Strawberry Fruit Tea with French Cream" on the menu.
More and more like the milk tea, reflecting the new style of tea drink brand product homogenization is serious, the more intense competition.
With the rapid expansion of capital-supported net red tea drinks, the market practitioners will face more severe competition and elimination, how to gain a foothold in this market, it is necessary to brand themselves to show their skills.
References:
In addition to limited edition AJ, only CoCo milk tea can make young people in Europe and the United States line up》BY Highway Shop (ID: zailushangzazhi)
"New Style Tea Drink Industry Market Size and Future Development Trend Forecast" BY China Business Intelligence (ID: askci_com)
Dismantling the New Tea Drinks by Sima Shenduo, BY LINGSHOUKE (ID: lingshouke)
Boiled Leaf to Create "Third Space" Brand with Oriental Aesthetics by Kenya Hara, BY 36Krypton (ID: wow36kr)
"This year's plan to add 100 new stores, what is the logic of Xi Cha's site selection and store expansion? Author/Chen Jianwei, BY Winshang (ID: winshang)
A Critical Moment for the Hi-Tea Guys" by Wu Qiannan, BY huxiu_com
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Brand Perception and Consumer Group Portrait Analysis Report of Chinese Milk Tea Industry 2018-2019 BY Ai Media Report Center (ID: iiMediaResearch)
The "Authorization" Mist of Peopeo's Net Red Milk Tea by Zhang Rui, BY Economic Observer (ID: eeo-com-cn)
Guo Nan, Founder of Leloucha: Keeping Up with the Hot Spots, It Breaks Through with 2 "Dirty" Products" by Carmen, BY Interfaces News (ID: wowjiemian)
A Conversation with Xi Cha, Discover the Other Side of Xi Cha from Design! BY ant soldier (ID:wx91ant)
New Tea Drinks that are Exploding in Popularity: Homogeneous Competition or Product Innovation? By Ning Fujie Wang Lingxiao Zhou Jie, BY Retail Think+ (ID: gh_3a6ea9c56ea6)
