Convenience stores continue to "rob" cafes: grab products, customers, and space experiences

For professional baristas, please follow the coffee workshop (Wechat official account cafe_style)

About two months ago, the launch of "guest coffee" in the whole family convenience store caused a heated discussion (Portal: convenience store coffee is hot: competing with cafes has become a reality). Let the coffee shop owner worry: "another competitor"?

Nowadays, convenience stores not only sell coffee, but also set up special coffee seats and areas.

Is this the rhythm of selling coffee seriously?

Jiamen | Xiwu, from Shanghai

one

Convenience store coffee upgrade, this time to sell the environment?

It seems that it was only yesterday when I wrote about the whole family pushing its guest coffee in the last article.

Recently, the convenience store brand has made a new move by quietly launching its own fourth-generation store in Shanghai, with a lot of new tricks.

For example, the freezer where drinks are placed, one of which has a smart screen, is understood to be able to scan consumers' facial features to recommend their own drinks and food; when you approach, the smart screen will automatically become transparent.

▲ launches smart screen

The most important change that can't be ignored is coffee.

This fourth-generation store has set up a "luxury" coffee experience area--

Special coffee area of ▲

More spacious tables and chairs are placed; log-colored floors with simple matching seats; the walls in the area are painted in the current popular gray; the lighting is also adjusted to distinguish it from the bright shopping area, using warm yellow and softer lighting.

▲ has a lot of cafe-style details.

As if to convey to you: this is a cafe!

Thinking of the last time, the whole family highlighted the use of Panchoy Valley coffee beans in Guatemala, which is 1500 meters above sea level, and even created a well-made H5 promotional page for the beans, hoping to be affirmed by their taste.

And this time, the store iteration is like proving that when it comes to environmental experience, you also have "space" to do something about it.

Space for ▲ exclusive coffee

Not only the whole family, but also local convenience stores are rubbing their hands, such as Suguo "good" convenience store, which is all over the streets of Nanjing. Recently, its third-generation upgraded store opened on Mochou Road in Nanjing. A significant change is that the dining area has been upgraded to a miniature version of the cafe.

two

What are the advantages of "convenience store cafe"?

It is hard to imagine that one day convenience store coffee will be upgraded to convenience store coffee "restaurant".

"first, the coffee market is growing well and is becoming a social, leisure and lifestyle for young people; second, it strengthens the social value of stores and can produce stickiness to young users; and third, the gross margins of coffee and fresh foods are very good, which can drive the performance of stores." Chen Bing, general manager of Su Guo, said in an interview.

Once you accept this setting, you will find that planting a coffee shop in a convenience store has a unique advantage.

First of all, there is a wide range of customer contacts.

One of the attributes of convenience stores is that they can compete with most retail formats. Although it seems to be a small "small business super", but the scope of business coverage, ordinary business super difficult to its right, not only snacks, daily necessities, but also can sell fresh, ready-to-eat, can provide convenient services.

▲ is full of variety and variety.

This means that the area of the customer group that can be reached is enlarged, which provides a larger base for coffee consumption.

Of course, the conversion rate should also be considered, and the effect seems to be not bad at present. Earlier, news showed that the whole family sold about 10 million cups of coffee in 2016, an increase of 140% over the same period last year, with some stores selling more than 300 cups of coffee a day-a figure that many cafes envy.

Turning to the service experience, this is not only about the convenience of recharging fees, but also providing a kind of "precise and considerate"--

Convenience stores are not only good at this, they are simply gifted.

24 hours, all year round, the familiar music of the automatic door, five meals a day can be solved, something new can always be found, there is no over-enthusiastic shopping guide, and there is even no need to communicate with people before checkout. Nowadays, installing a miniature cafe is more like sending a message--

You can stay here for a long time, and the tiredness and sudden loneliness of the day can be relieved.

It may not be difficult to understand why some people have a dependence on convenience stores. They have read a related article and even mentioned the entry "convenience store addiction", "keep going to convenience stores to buy things they don't really need."

When ▲ goes shopping in convenience stores, it is really easy to become dependent.

Looking back on myself, I walked into the convenience store several times, as if I bought bread, magazines, lipstick and so on unwittingly in the air. At that time, I was not in urgent need, or even carrying laborious things. Is he already a "patient"?

What is even more "scary" is that even if you miss it once in hesitation, you don't have to be too sorry. You may meet another one at the next street corner.

three

Is it a crisis in cafes or an opportunity for the coffee industry?

There is still a long way to go for convenience stores to join the competition in the coffee market, especially in space.

With the current mass of convenience stores, if you want to set up a large-scale coffee area, just increasing the area will cost a lot of money. Even if the environment aside, the popularity of convenience store coffee also depends on the improvement of its own network density.

Convenience stores will not easily give up their strong perceptions of "cost-effective", "convenient" and "efficient" for the simple pursuit of coffee space.

▲ is still a fast-paced retail in nature.

A mature market should be characterized by a hundred flowers blooming and subdivided in order to meet the needs of different consumers or the same consumers at different times.

So for professional cafes, convenience store coffee is not worth paying attention to?

Of course not.

Individual product management, modular operation, consumer insight, overall publicity strategy. From a commercial point of view, convenience store coffee may know better than some of the so-called professional cafes on the market how to sell a truly profitable cup of coffee.