Coffee takeout competition is fierce, even coffee launched a coffee package aimed at the office group buying crowd

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With the rapid expansion of Luckin Coffee and the latest entry of strong chains such as Starbucks and McDonald's, even coffee has lost its influence, and it must try to retain users.

The coffee takeout market is becoming increasingly crowded, and former front-runner Lian Coffee is trying not to be left behind by competitors.

Using low prices to attract consumers is a tried-and-tested means for businesses. Taking advantage of this Singles Day holiday, Lian Coffee launched two discount activities: individual group purchase and coffee package.

Among them, individual group purchase is divided into three kinds: 1799 yuan for 100 cups, 50 cups for two, and 33 cups for three for each person, valid for three years. For the 50-cup coffee package, the average price per cup ranges from 3.98 yuan to 7.98 yuan, which is equivalent to a 1.8-3.6 discount on the original price of coffee. However, the number of deliveries of the package is limited, and 10-50 cups need to be delivered at one time. Take the Golden Award American package as an example, the price of an one-time delivery of 50 cups is 199 yuan, the price of two deliveries of 25 cups is 299 yuan, and the price of five deliveries of 10 cups is 399 yuan.

The condition of one-time delivery of 10-50 cups is like a hurdle, keeping many individual consumers out of the door. Therefore, the discount activity of this coffee package is also seen by the outside world as an attempt to expand the enterprise-end customers of even coffee.

Established in 2014, Lian Coffee, which was founded in 2014 through the official Wechat account as the entrance, accumulated users and experience by providing coffee delivery services of Starbucks and other brands, and began to transform into its own-brand coffee in August 2015. With Internet thinking and O2O play, Lian Coffee quickly opened up the field of take-out coffee and won the favor of capital, having previously received two rounds of financing totaling 208 million yuan.

But with Luckin Coffee's rapid expansion and the latest entry of strong chains such as Starbucks and McDonald's, even coffee has lost its influence, and it must try to retain users.

Expanding enterprise users (B-side) is likely to be the next step for Lian Coffee. Hong Tao, director of the Institute of Economics at Beijing Business University, said in an interview with the Beijing Business Daily that in the field of e-commerce transactions, the volume of e-commerce transactions on the 2B side accounts for 80%, and the proportion on the 2C side is 20%. And Lian Coffee's model is to capture 80% of the 2B side.

However, in the Chinese coffee market, the competition at the B end is also fierce. At present, both Starbucks and Pacific Coffee have corresponding B-end business. Luckin Coffee buy five get five free discount is mainly aimed at office group buyers, and those single cafes in office buildings are also aimed at this market. It is not easy for coffee to open up the situation on the enterprise client side.

Lien Coffee does not have an advantage over its peers in terms of product itself, pricing and distribution, but based on the operating characteristics of Wechat official account and the marketing background of its founder, Lian Coffee has always made social as a breakthrough in its business.

At the end of 2016, Lian Coffee launched the product concept of "coffee store", which encourages consumers to share coffee points with friends to get free coffee. In August this year, it launched Mini Program Pocket Cafe, which allows users to set up their own virtual cafes, spread and sell coffee to friends through Wechat, and get corresponding rewards and other value-added services.

After Singles Day, Lian Coffee once again focused on playing social cards and launched a new card setting activity for collectors. In other words, every time consumers invite three Wechat friends to "open red packets", they will have the opportunity to get a personal card and set up five different cards, then they will get free coffee. These people set up cards with the current popular state of life as the theme, including "Douban judges" who love movies, "monsters" who love moral judgment, and so on.

However, take-out coffee consumers are still most concerned about products and distribution services, too many marketing games may increase consumers' decision-making costs.

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