How can boutique coffee brands break through the chain dilemma?

The festival is selected from the "2022 China New Consumer Brand Growth Book", with a full text of 7053 words.

The last time the coffee brand is tension, it is in the community group purchase in Shanghai.

Under the impact of a new round of epidemic, for coffee bean purchases, coffee bean roasted processing, and store layout relying on Shanghai's coffee brands, the challenges are all -round. The store was shut down for the first time. Chain coffee brands and independent cafes began to be active in the online community. They directly communicated with hundreds of community heads to make up for the cash flow losses brought by offline closed stores.

Seesaw is one of the earliest chain coffee brands that have opened a group purchase business. It is also one of the most complete brands in the coffee brand that opened the group during the same period. This is derived from the warehouse established in Shanghai and the inventory of the preparation of online retail business. After the online retail two years ago, Seesaw's online business has grown rapidly. According to Jiuqian Zhongtai data, in the third quarter of 2021, SEESAW's sales on the Tmall platform increased by 1536%compared with the same period last year.

The online growth is fierce, and Seesaw has not stopped the pace of offline expansion. At the end of last year, when 20022 was opened in 2022, Seesaw has operated for 9 years at an average of 3 new stores per year. Even in the epidemic, Seesaw did not change the "long -term plan" of the store. The founder Wu Xiaomei told the First Financial Business Data Center (CBNDATA) that the current opening speed of SEESAW in outside Shanghai has not slowed down. After unblocking, Seesaw will continue to open a store opening plan in Shanghai.

This is not only a story of a boutique coffee brand transforming retail from offline and exploring the second growth curve. It is also a situation where consumer companies have increased in uncertainty in the times and the market environment is extremely complicated. What a possibilities.

The second growth curve of the epidemic

Wu Xiaomei has divided Seesaw's past 10 years into two segments: before 2020, the main offline market, after 2020, support half of the sky online. A set of data available for reference is that as of May 2022, online orders from small programs and third -party platforms accounted for 40%of the overall revenue of Seesaw, while three years ago, this number was only 15%.

The turning point is the new crown epidemic in early 2020. For many consecutive months of epidemic, the offline brands have suffered heavy losses, and Seesaw's store operations have also been affected. The company was forced to dig new sources of income outside the store, and takeaway and online retail were officially valued. In the summer of the year, Seesaw recruited and established a professional team to operate online business.

The biggest challenge is the supply chain. SEESAW offline stores are concentrated in Shanghai, and 75%of the retail businesses come from non -Shanghai regions, which has brought great challenges to warehousing and distribution nationwide. Coupled with the sales of e -commerce platform sales relies on large -scale promotion nodes such as 618 and Double 11, unlike offline sales of offline annual sales, the digestion and inventory backlog of orders in the off -peak season make the original supplier system of Seesaw unable to meet the needs.

There are two paths in front of the team: supply chain outsourcing and self -built supply chain team, Seesaw chose the latter. As of May this year, Seesaw has set up a 30 -person supply chain team. A digital supply chain system covering procurement, production, demand plan and inventory control, warehousing logistics, food safety and quality management is also quickly built. After the upstream and downstream, the delivery time of Seesaw has been reduced from the past 28 days to 7 days, and the production capacity has doubled.

One system and three logic of the store

For a long time, the brand tone and store scale are two sides of coins that are difficult to choose for boutique coffee brands. Early boutique coffee chose to make concessions in scale for brand tone. But after entering 2021, the situation has changed dramatically. In 2022, Manner announced that within 3 days of 10 provinces and 10 cities and 10 new stores at the same time, Seesaw also proposed that 20022 will be opened in 2022, and the slogan of 500-1000 stores sprints in 5 years.

Wu Xiaomei told CBNDATA that the current tide of the coffee brand's shop is due to the market that needs more cafes, on the other hand, to occupy the consumer's mind. For boutique coffee brands that do not love to invest in advertisements, and there are no celebrity spokespersons, stores are the core channel for building consumer minds.

But in front of Seesaw is the chain of the boutique coffee brand. According to the narrow door meal eye data, as of May 2022, there were 18 chain tea brands with a size of more than 1,000 Chinese stores, while the coffee track was only Starbucks, Ruixing, and the Norva of 1,500 stores at the end of last year. coffee.

The concentrated layout of the chain coffee brand is in the front line and new first -tier cities, especially the fine coffee. Deloitte's "White Book of China's Modeling Coffee Industry (2021)" shows that as of the end of 2020, among the 108,000 cafes in China, 75%of the second and above cities, and the proportion of boutique cafes in the third and below cities is insufficient. 1%.

To open thousands of stores in a system, there are high requirements for store operation management and cross -regional expansion capabilities. This is also the current part of Seesaw's strong part. In recent years, SEESAW stores have accelerated significantly, thanks to the establishment of a digital system.

Based on the past store opening experience, Seesaw has refined a store opening system. In this system, the location, area, employees, equipment, raw materials, and selection of selection of stores are statistics, and are linked to revenue and profitability. Behind the logic of this set of store opening, there are also Seesaw considerations of different store types. At present, there are three types of MINI stores, standard stores, and concept stores in the store structure of Seesaw. The location logic of different store types is completely different. Because the brand's potential energy is good, Seesaw can enter the target shopping center at a suitable rent for most of the time. But at some point, in order to settle in the advantage point, Seesaw will also propose creative store solutions for the owners, that is, to launch a concept store. Taking Seesaw's stores in Tongren 88 as an example, Tongren 88 is located in Nanjing West Road Business District, which has the highest traffic in Shanghai. Last year, it was upgraded to a neighborhood -type business industry, which attracted many emerging consumer brands to settle in. When the mall was investment promotion in June, many coffee brands including Seesaw bid at the same time. In order to successfully settle in, Seesaw proposed three store plans to the operator URF Yingzhan Group. In the end, the latter selected "Sunframe and Night Wine", which was the concept store of the later "Sunca Night Wine".

Seesaw is located in Tongren 88's "Sun Coffee Night Wine" theme store

"For many very innovative owners, we are a very high -quality cooperation partner." In Wu Xiaomei's view, the laying of concept stores is a win -win situation for brands and commercial real estate. Seesaw needs high -quality commercial real estate to enhance the brand image and build consumer minds, attract new customers and promote repurchase; and commercial real estate also requires SEESAW to cooperate with real estate from all directions such as space, products, and marketing for creative development The brand party has settled in to improve the tone of commercial real estate and attract passenger flow. Because of this, commercial real estate is usually willing to attract SEESAW to open concept stores at a lower rent.

Wu Xiaomei said that in Seesaw's store system, concept stores only account for 5%. For MINI stores that occupy a larger number of stores, Seesaw has different business logic. The launch of the MINI store is after Seesaw proposed a large-scale expansion plan. This kind of stores have a average area of ​​less than 60 square meters, only 4-5 barista, and only a classic SKU. Put up online, and take the take -out take -out mode. This solves the demand for Seesaw shops, and also guarantees the high -ping effect.

Since the first MINI store in March 2021, the MINI store has become the main force of the growth of Seesaw stores. As of May 2022, MINI stores accounted for nearly 60%of the SEESAW store, or even surpassed the standard store.

In this regard, Seesaw expresses a cautious attitude. The compromise made by the MINI store in terms of efficiency has made consumers lack awareness of SEESAW's social attributes and brand image. The standard store is obviously more meaningful than the mission of establishing consumers' minds to establish consumer minds. "We will appropriately increase the store type of standard stores in the future, and balance the standard store and the MINI store at a considerable proportion." Yin Yan, the operating director of Seesaw, told CBNDATA.

The boundary of the new coffee

Compared with only 5 years ago, the definition of chain brands has changed dramatically in the matter of coffee. In the past, when I entered a store, consumers made choices in latte, American, Mocha, and Kabchino. Even in recent years, more and more consumers have chosen the latter, and new coffee drinks have become the main model of the coffee brand.

In the income structure of Seesaw, the proportion of semi -coffee and semi -drink -type creative coffee has increased year by year, and in 2021, it has been flattened with traditional coffee. "China's coffee audience does not accept too much bitterness. We understand the coffee coffee is coffee is Fruit. The taste is richer and fresh, which is more in line with the consumption trend of young consumers." Wu Xiaomei said. Weaken the bitterness of coffee, add fruits for coffee drinks, add dairy products for milk coffee, and gradually become a common practice of boutique coffee.

However, the explosive models that rely on adding flowers and dairy products are easily imitated, which has also led to the increasingly frequent push rhythm of the coffee track. The earliest seasons were pushed for new cycles. Later, the new coffee brands were not in the month. According to Ruixing's financial report, in the first quarter of this year, Ruixing took a total of 34 existing drinks, and a new product was available in less than 3 days. Seesaw is currently launching new products in the rhythm of the first year and fourth. For the limited models of different concept stores, the new cycle of Seesaw is also shortened.

In this process, the tea brand is also entering the coffee track. Lele Tea launched a specialized coffee brand "Doudou Le", and Mixue Bingcheng launched the "lucky coffee" focusing on the sinking market. Interestingly, the tea brand did not launch coffee products under the original brand.

Wu Xiaomei believes that the business logic of tea and coffee is not the same. Coffee is stronger than that of tea, which can accommodate more categories. "(Consumers) Drinking a drink that is not a coffee in a coffee shop, it will not feel strange, but the probability of ordering coffee in the tea shop will be much less." In her opinion, the products, services, space, and culture are built together. The threshold of the coffee brand also brings more possibilities. Starbucks from selling coffee beans to selling traditional coffee, to launching special coffee such as Xingbingle, and also tells the story of the third space, which is the best example of coffee brand tolerance. Such a judgment made her look optimistic about the competition of tea and coffee brands, which may also be why Seesaw won the investment in the good tea a year ago.

In March of this year, Seesaw completed a new round of financing after Huancha's shares, with a scale of hundreds of millions of yuan. SEESAW with sufficient ammunition is about to enter the new battlefield of the coffee track.

Reference materials:

Liangliang Company "Chain Cafe, Sales Sale Online", October 2021

Small food "Seesaw Coffee introduced the new shareholder Xixi tea 5 years after piercing thousands of shops! We talked to the founder "" In July 2021, 2021

"First Financial" magazine "Sinicization of Coffee", in March 2022

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