Lucky coffee, crazy "burn money" to when?

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Luckin Coffee Binjiang Minghao Tower started trial operation in March this year, which is its first store in Hangzhou. As of today, but in three months, its APP shows that there are 35 Hangzhou stores, almost at the pace of an average of one new store every three days.

Faster than its distribution is the speed at which Lucky Blue-backed White Deer's "Little Blue Cup" has shot up in moments, as well as a wave of controversy directly challenging Starbucks.

Is Ruixing the "Didi" or "Letv" of the coffee industry?

Ruixing has 525 cloth stores in half a year.

Did the work of Costa12 for years.

At 10:00 in the morning, when a reporter from the Qianjiang Evening News arrived at the Minghao Building on the Binjiang River, there were four or five customers waiting for coffee in the lounge area in front of the Ruixing coffee shop. This is Rui Xing's first store in Hangzhou. The storefront is very small, occupying only a small corner of the first floor of the building, a coffee making area, three or four baristas and three small round tables.

Because there are not many people, during the coffee break, the barista still has time to ask about his taste preferences and recommend items that he thinks are good. "our business is not good, because without delivery, we can make almost 300 cups a day, mostly from office buildings."

As he said that, two young men dressed in sports said hello to the barista, picked up the packed four cups of coffee and got into the elevator. "in an accident, it's usually only one or two cups, and four is a big order." The barista revealed that the business of the Dun'an Development Building across the road is better, because there is delivery, so the daily order volume can be more than half of their store.

The closer you are to the city center, the better the business. At more than 11:00 in the afternoon, when the reporter came to the Dikai Ginza store in Qianjiang New Town, there were already six or seven people waiting in line. "if it comes after 12:00, the line can go from the front of the counter to the elevator." Although the store here is about the same size as the Minghao Mansion, there are two more baristas, which shows the workload. "We don't give away, we make an average of about 800 cups a day, and there must be more, ever since we opened. The business of Starbucks next door is not as good as ours."

On that day, two quality controls were monitoring the quality of coffee in the store. Seven or eight cups of coffee were arranged in a row. They first measured whether the temperature reached the standard with a thermometer, then took a sip of the cup, then spit it out, gargled, and then drank another cup. To determine whether the coffee tastes up to standard. Customers waiting for coffee watched with interest.

"it would be nice if I could keep driving, but I'm afraid I'll lose it after a few months." Cici's company is upstairs and is used to going downstairs to buy a cup of coffee every day. Starbucks is now lucky because it tastes good and the price is more affordable. "there are a lot of coupons, and we have brought in colleagues who don't drink coffee in the office." The same cup-shaped latte, Starbucks 31 yuan, Costa31 yuan, lucky price 24 yuan, plus various discounts, an average of 12-15 yuan to drink.

When leaving, the reporter turned to Starbucks in the same building and took a look. At the same time, there are two customers eating at Starbucks and three waiting in line to place an order. the store of more than 100 square meters looks a little empty.

Price is really a "sharp weapon" of market promotion. Originally, Starbucks now has more than 3000 stores in China, ranking first, and Costa more than 400, ranking second. It took 19 years for the former and 12 years for the latter to complete these points. According to official data released by Luckin Coffee, it has opened in 13 cities such as Beijing, Shanghai and Hangzhou since January 1 this year, and has completed the layout of 525 stores by the beginning of May. In less than 6 months, Rui finished the work of Costa for 12 years.

Send a lucky order and earn 7 yuan.

The coffee account in the mouth of the delivery guy.

More than 1: 00 p.m., Ruixing Maotai Building in the city center has been waiting for more than 20 customers, which is what baristas call the "peak period." Little brother Zhu of Shunfeng has just returned from delivering an order, waiting at the door to pick up the new order, along with four other couriers.

"(lucky) his family gives you a lot of money. You can earn 7 yuan for one order. I come here at noon now." Xiao Zhu said that the highest delivery order is KFC, with 8 yuan an order, followed by Rui Lucky, whose list is very concentrated and has the highest performance-to-price ratio, so now the little brother nearby likes to pick up Ruixing's list after delivering lunch. "it's a little worse at the beginning, and now I can make more than 100 yuan in two hours on average at noon." He said that he had heard that Starbucks was going to make a delivery, and everyone was very happy, but later it was said that it had not been done because the price had not been agreed.

Luckin Coffee over 35 yuan is free of distribution fee, so who will pay for the 7 yuan? Lucky subsidy. It sounds like another business at a loss, but with Ruixing's current store coverage and no takeout, the radiation range of each store is only 500 meters around. It costs 7 yuan to expand the radiation radius by two kilometers, which is very cost-effective.

"have you ever noticed? We don't have flowers in our coffee. " The so-called pull flower is the technique of making a pattern on the surface when milk with milk foam is poured into coffee, which is also one of the criteria for judging the professional skills of a barista. A lucky barista said privately that it takes less time to make a cup of coffee without pulling flowers. "and the presence or absence of flowers doesn't affect the taste, and customers won't even notice."

Not only that, reduce the amount of time spent on training a barista, as long as you are proficient in the production steps and no more skills are needed. This is one of the reasons why Lucky's stores are expanding so fast that people can still keep up. So where do the other "skilled workers" come from? By poaching.

Earlier, there were media reports that Lucky poached about 1x7 employees in Starbucks Beijing market, and some high-end handheld stores and even 1Accord 4 employees were poached. In the same position, Luckin Coffee poached people with a salary three times higher than that of Starbucks.

Is it the same with Hangzhou? "I don't know exactly how many baristas there are, but there are a lot of baristas from Starbucks, and the wages here are high." A lucky employee revealed that two new baristas in his store this month had changed jobs from Starbucks, but it was not clear whether their salary was really three times higher. "unless it's a senior barista or a management position."

Ruixing: the discount will not be cancelled any time soon.

With explosive expansion means and high user subsidy policies, Luckin Coffee is more like a typical Internet company than traditional food companies. The reporter of Qianjiang Evening News contacted Ruixing officials, and they responded to the reporter's questions.

"I've never made coffee before, but we know business." Luckin Coffee founder Qian Zhiya, a former COO of Shenzhou Youche and a business veteran, also admits that they are using the Internet to quickly break through an industry and practice the feasibility of a business model. Prior to this, there were many rumors on the Internet that Ruixing had invested 1 billion in early marketing. "We invested more than 1 billion in the early stage, and it is not convenient to disclose the specific amount, and there are sufficient cash reserves at present."

Lucky's crazy play really attracted the attention of the investment circle, but except that Lu Zhengyao, CEO of Shenzhou excellent car, once revealed that he was Lucky's angel investor, there were no public investors. "some investors have come to us, but I haven't seen them." Qian Zhiya said that the main reason is that he is too busy at this stage to concentrate on the business and does not want to be distracted. "in addition, the operational data is not complete, the business model has yet to be verified, and we do not want to waste everyone's time."

"an open letter to Starbucks" made Ruixing known as "touching porcelain", which still bothers Qian Zhiya. In her view, this is the unfair competition environment faced by the team in the development of their business. Although the case against Starbucks suspected of monopoly in China has been formally filed and the relevant complaint materials have been submitted to the state anti-monopoly law enforcement agency and accepted, the current competitive environment has not changed.

After completing the layout quickly, Rui Xing's pace will be a little slower. "the company is basically satisfied with the density of existing stores, and the next step will slow down the opening speed and gradually open stores according to the needs of customers and the operational capacity of the company." Qian Zhiya said that there is no target for the total number of stores by the end of the year.

To the delight of consumers, Lucky's discount will not be cancelled any time soon. Qian Zhiya said bluntly that in order to cultivate users, he has not stopped considering buy five get five free for the time being. "it should continue for quite a long time."

Judging from past examples of Internet entrepreneurship, whether it is Didi, mobike or Letv, the real challenge is not to educate users, but to return to the nature of business: it is easy to expand, but difficult to survive.