Korean Wave attacks Korean Coffee China challenges Starbucks

With the continuous growth of coffee consumption in China, the number of cafes has also increased. In recent years, as the Korean local coffee market is close to saturation, Korean coffee has turned to the fast-growing Chinese market. For a while, Chinese cafes have set off a "Korean wave", and Korean coffee is becoming more and more popular.

However, before the rookie Korean coffee entered the Chinese market, a number of coffee factions had taken root in China. However, in essence, most of these factions, including Korean coffee, have not been able to jump out of the "third space culture" advocated by coffee giant Starbucks.

Although Korean coffee is trying to inject more functional elements into cafes beyond the third space through trendy practices such as celebrity endorsements, cross-border finance and O2O, Korean coffee does not seem to be as handy in China as it is in its home market in surpassing European and American coffee such as Starbucks.

Do enough "cosmetic writing"

At present, there are mainly the following "factions" of the common cafes on the market: European cafes represented by French and Italian coffee, with special emphasis on the quality and taste of coffee beans; American cafes represented by Starbucks, mainly emphasizing professionalism, speed and strong business atmosphere, gradually evolved into the second office of urbanites, and now it is moving closer to a wider range of consumers. The desktop coffee represented by the above island coffee, old tree coffee and real pot coffee, which combines the situation of Chinese mainland, is the preacher of Chinese mainland coffee culture, and successfully combines the coffee culture with the unique leisure culture of Chinese mainland. However, with the changes of the market, desktop coffee is more like a place to eat, and the consumer population is aging.

Korean cafes, on the other hand, are trying to distinguish coffee from other factions through a series of obvious logos. From the appearance, the biggest difference of Korean coffee lies in its decoration and star endorsement. The two-story cafe with large floor-to-ceiling windows is decorated in the original ecological style such as pastoral and forest, and pays attention to multi-woody and retro objects. And the mainstream Korean coffee will be endorsed by Korean stars, which is the first of its kind in major cafe factions. It can be seen that such decoration and endorsements of Korean TV stars are deeply loved by young women. in fact, the positioning of Korean coffee consumers is basically young women. "first Business Daily" reporter through the interview coffee accompany you, Homestead Coffee and other Korean coffee brands, almost without exception, the positioning is mainly aimed at young women.

In order to cater to young women, Korean coffee can be said to be "cosmetic".

Korean coffee space is generally more spacious than Starbucks, Costa and so on. Whether it is coffee to accompany you, or zoo coffee, you will often choose the shops on the ground floor along the street, the upper and lower floors of the Loft structure, through the wide floor-to-ceiling windows, you can see the exquisite decoration inside, as well as specially divided smoking rooms. Korean coffee shop has added a lot of decoration as a highlight, and the log color is widely used.

"although Starbucks also uses a lot of wood, the wood of Starbucks is particularly bright, close to metal, giving people a sense of cleanliness, and the Korean version of the cafe adds a little idyllic style, which instantly increases the affinity." Li Qiang, chief planner of Zhitong Liuyi International Food and Beverage Management Co., Ltd. There are subtle differences between different Korean cafes. Hollys uses a lot of red brick walls to highlight the forest style, while zoo coffee places animal decorations everywhere to strengthen the theme. But Korean coffee generally likes to use textured logs, solid wood chairs, rattan chairs, cotton linen sofas and so on, in sharp contrast to Europe and the United States.

Li Qiang said Starbucks would never do such a storefront. European and American coffee shops usually focus on business, the decoration style is masculine, and the customers are mainly male. In South Korea, coffee accompanies you to find that this market is snubbed by women, so you consciously move closer to the women's market and do a designed business sense, with both Korean style, pastoral style and a bit of post-modern style.

In recent years, however, Starbucks has also moved closer to a wider range of consumers, shrugging off its image of relying too heavily on business people. The relevant person in charge of Starbucks stressed to the reporter that two or three years ago, Starbucks decoration style and other aspects may be biased towards business people. In recent years, Starbucks has opened its stores in shopping malls, communities and other places. Many stores are oriented to customers for leisure purposes, and the decoration design is also more diversified. Professional designers will be invited to design store decoration styles according to local neighborhood style, cultural environment, and consumer groups.

In addition, when it comes to celebrity endorsements, Korean coffee spares no expense. Take coffee as an example. South Korean TV series stars such as SSH, Han Yisue and Jang Genshuo have been hired to endorse Korean TV series "you from the Star". Coffee accompanies you and invites Kim Soo-Hyun, the star who is popular with young women in China, to speak for you. In order to make full use of star marketing, in April 2014, Coffee accompanied you to arrange for star spokesman Zhang Genshuo to go to Chinese stores to interact with fans. Two years ago, when coffee first entered the Beijing market, South Korean TV stars Han Yisue and Jang Hyuk, who were popular at the same time, were signed as spokesmen and came to Beijing for a fan autograph meeting. In addition, the place where the heroine works in the South Korean drama "inheritors", which has attracted 400 million people around the world, is the cafe. In line with the hit effect of the show, the Mango Six Cafe in the show also entered China in 2014.

Open up and join in wantonly

In addition, in terms of product structure, Korean coffee is more concise than desktop coffee such as Shangdao, and it does not make food with strong flavor such as pizza, porridge, rice, steak, etc., but it is also richer than that of Europe and the United States, when coffee accompanies you to find that women's acceptance of caffeine products is not so strong. Created a special latte series.

In addition to a variety of fancy coffee, but also increased the supply of waffles and other desserts and simple meals, and in contrast to Starbucks unified distribution of food, the coffee shop has a kitchen, fresh, fresh, so to meet the meal needs.

In addition to attracting specific people through these "superficial articles", the expansion of Korean coffee shops is also quite different from that of European and American cafes. In order to expand at a high speed, Korean coffee has generally chosen to join, which is difficult to manage in the catering industry. at present, Starbucks and the established British coffee brand Costa are not open to join.

Starbucks officials told China Business Daily that there are only two types of Starbucks stores in China, one is directly operated, and the other is a joint venture with a unified company, mainly in Jiangsu, Zhejiang and Shanghai. Coffee accompany you Korean Coffee has been liberalized on a large scale and has achieved rapid expansion. at present, it has more than 1200 stores in 14 countries, including South Korea, China, the United States, Japan and Singapore, including more than 400 stores in China. It is expected to reach nearly 800 by the end of the year, and plans to expand to 1000 stores by 2015.

It took only two years for coffee to accompany you in China in 2012 to reach the size of more than 400 Starbucks stores in China in 13 years (2011). Of course, Starbucks stores have also been expanding rapidly in the past two years, with more than 1000 stores. It is expected to reach 1500 stores in 2015.

With regard to the rapid expansion of Korean coffee, Wang Zhendong, president of the Coffee Industry Association of Shanghai Food Association, believes that although the rapid expansion of Korean coffee is due to its unique brand positioning and marketing, to a large extent, it also benefits from the rapid development of China's coffee market and the way of joining and expanding.

According to the China Business Information Network industry research report, by the end of 2013, the number of cafes in China was about 28000, including more than 8400 chain cafes. In the past five years, the number of cafes in China has almost doubled, and the coffee industry is growing at a rate of 25%. In addition, although Korean coffee is popular with some young women, many Korean cafes are still concentrated in Korean-populated areas in China, and the market acceptance is not as widespread as Starbucks and other brands. Although the Korean coffee of the rising star has achieved rapid expansion in its early days in China, it seems that it still has a long way to go to surpass its predecessors.

It looks like God, not like Korean coffee, or repeat the mistake of "table coffee".

Although Korean coffee expands rapidly, there are many hidden worries behind it. More importantly, Korean coffee entering China has not passed down the essence of Korean coffee.

The business logic behind a cup of coffee

From the various coffee shop models that have sprung up in the market in recent years, it can be seen that a seemingly simple cup of coffee contains a variety of business models.