Sharing Cafe appears in Beijing: is this new game breaking the game or spoiling it?

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Recently, this year's popular "sharing mode" has found the coffee industry-a kind of cafe transformed into a "shared living room" in Beijing.

When the projects of "sharing bicycles", "sharing portable battery" and "sharing hotels" are hotly debated, how much profit can such a play bring to a cafe? For the coffee industry, is this a mess or a mess?

Carmen | West Asia, from Beijing

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When a private cafe turns into a "shared" living room

When the "shared bike" collects the rainbow colors:

After Mercedes-Benz, BMW joined the overall situation of "car sharing":

Even portable battery wants to share:

The red-to-purple "sharing economy" model has finally extended its hand to the coffee industry.

In March, Unbounded Space, a co-office startup, took three months to create a batch of "W-Studio"-shared living rooms / studios.

Yes, some of these spaces are in cafes.

Specifically, it is through cooperation, funded by unbounded space and provided by cafes, to transform the cafe, or to carry out simple space partition and soft decoration, or simply leave it as is, equipped with only some necessary equipment for meetings, such as projectors, whiteboards and so on.

In this way, a simple living room is built.

▲ A space that can be used for brief visits, offices, meetings, etc.

Such a shared living room is generally charged by the hour, priced at 60-200 yuan per hour. If customers successfully book to a suitable living room through the APP of unbounded space, the cooperative cafe can also get a share of the revenue.

In addition, customers' food and beverage consumption in the cafe is naturally owned by the cafe.

It sounds like a new profit channel for cafes. Some cafes that have already participated in this kind of cooperation said, "reservations through this channel basically have one show every two or three days, sometimes two a day."

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A transformed "coffee salon"?

In fact, although the concept of sharing the living room is new, it is not a new way to play-"this is the salon area of the cafe!"

According to their positioning, or as long as the area permits, many cafes will consider setting up an area to invite a writer to do a reading sharing meeting and hold a small salon. This kind of "routine" practice is simply not too much.

For example, a cafe in Shenzhen with the theme of 3D printing made clear arrangements at the beginning of the planning. In order to let more customers know the latest 3D printing technology and applications, it planned a special activity to share the salon area.

Isn't that the mode of ▲ 's original coffee salon?

At present, the cafe holds about 20 events a month in the salon district, accounting for 30% of the total traffic, accounting for 40% of the total traffic, which is a very beautiful number.

"the profit model of coffee shops can be diversified, and the income from drinks and meals is only part of it. As a coffee shop in the retail industry, if customers have such a demand, why can't they try it?" The head of 3D Coffee said.

It's a good idea for a planned cafe, but if it's a caf é that's already positioned, will such "sharing" disrupt the normal rhythm?

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Analysis: AB side of shared coffee shop model

In addition, after careful analysis, it is found that although this method of play has certain advantages, it also has some limitations.

Advantages: supplementary functions to increase drainage opportunities

Today, every time you go to a city, you can open an APP search and find dozens of cafes. And what are the characteristics of each family? Adding a "shared living room" is a good way to increase highlights and expand channels.

"there are more salons in the salon area of my cafe. Slowly, some nearby enterprises and institutions have also moved their activities here, thus driving the flow of people. Through the channels of these activities, the customers attracted to the store have gradually changed into long-term customers, so they no longer have to wait for customers to come to their door. " The director of 3D Cafe said.

The holding of group activities leads to an increase in passenger flow, which in turn leads to an increase in turnover, which has also been confirmed by another cafe-group customers who reserve space by sharing the living room will not just have meetings. they usually order coffee and meals. Moreover, many customers will come to the door of their own initiative for the second time after they have a good experience in the coffee shop.

Disadvantages: strong limitations and high requirements for cafes

However, increase passenger flow and improve the utilization rate of private rooms. These all sound very attractive things, not every cafe can.

This not only puts forward high requirements for the hardware facilities of the coffee shop itself, but also for the geographical location of the coffee shop: the space of the coffee shop should be large enough, there should be private rooms or relatively private spaces, and public transportation should be very convenient.

A few simple conditions keep a large number of cafes out of the door. it can be seen that there are hard wounds in the promotion of this model.

▲, so you can't just try it in a caf é.

In addition, the "positioning" of cafes also limits the mode of sharing. For example, according to he Dandan, a cafe in Qunqing, there should be a lot of space and better customer experience in the shared living room in Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou. However, the positioning of community stores of Gunqing coffee, the space is not large, the utilization rate of private rooms is very high and the period of time is not fixed, it is more convenient for consumers to book in advance, such as Wechat.

In this regard, Khamen also consulted Li Qiang, a senior planning expert in the coffee industry, who believes that:

At present, there is a lot of idle space in many cafes, and the shared living room can make use of this part of the idle space.

At the same time, the low turnaround rate is also a headache for many cafe owners, and sharing the living room of cafes with time constraints and venue usage fees will also solve part of the problem.

However, as a coffee shop, the shared living room can only do a small part of the drainage, especially the coffee shop in trouble can not use the shared living room as a lifesaver, but should work hard to find a suitable model.

What do you think of this "shared living room"? can it make a difference to the cafe?