Coffee shops don't make money? You're the one who doesn't understand coffee shop business!

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With the advent of the third coffee wave, more and more people are no longer content with just going to Starbucks for a cappuccino. People try to understand the process of making coffee, the characteristics of its taste and the culture behind it. Coffee is no longer just a light and extravagant drink, but also a craft or handicraft.

People began to treat coffee like red wine. In the third coffee wave, people pursue the ultimate experience more, but are less sensitive to the price. In addition to deliberate research, ordinary people want to integrate into this trend and seem doomed to return to the cafes that attach importance to the construction of the third space environment.

At the same time, the thinking of playing with chopsticks also found that there are more and more bottled coffee in supermarkets, convenience stores and vending machines, and the price is naturally much cheaper than Starbucks. Coffee seems to have become a common drink in China overnight.

On the one hand, there is a further aristocracy of coffee, on the other hand, it is becoming more and more expensive; on the other hand, it is talking about coffee culture, manual preparation, and taste differentiation, while it is being produced on a large scale and in large quantities; on the other hand, there is a more exquisite "third space" of coffee shops. on the other hand, it is the simplicity and convenience of supermarket shelves and vending machines.

There seem to be two completely different trends in the Chinese coffee market. Will the future trend of the coffee market be "the third space" or "new retail"?

In fact, from the history of the development of coffee, whether it is the third space or retail, coffee is not a new thing. In the first coffee wave, instant coffee was all the rage as a retail commodity, despite the excessive extraction of instant caffeine and poor taste.

In the second coffee wave, Starbucks let the world appreciate the charm of the third space it created, and Starbucks expanded rapidly in the process.

For coffee, whether it is the third space or the new retail, it is based on the consumption upgrading or changing consumer demand for innovation.

With the advent of the third coffee wave, more and more people are no longer content with just going to Starbucks for a cappuccino. People try to understand the process of making coffee, the characteristics of its taste and the culture behind it. Coffee is no longer just a light and extravagant drink, but also a craft or handicraft.

People began to treat coffee like red wine. In the third coffee wave, people pursue the ultimate experience more, but are less sensitive to the price. In addition to deliberate research, ordinary people want to integrate into this trend and seem doomed to return to the cafes that attach importance to the construction of the third space environment.

At the same time, the thinking of playing with chopsticks also found that there are more and more bottled coffee in supermarkets, convenience stores and vending machines, and the price is naturally much cheaper than Starbucks. Coffee seems to have become a common drink in China overnight.

On the one hand, there is a further aristocracy of coffee, on the other hand, it is becoming more and more expensive; on the other hand, it is talking about coffee culture, manual preparation, and taste differentiation, while it is being produced on a large scale and in large quantities; on the other hand, there is a more exquisite "third space" of coffee shops. on the other hand, it is the simplicity and convenience of supermarket shelves and vending machines.

There seem to be two completely different trends in the Chinese coffee market. Will the future trend of the coffee market be "the third space" or "new retail"?

In fact, from the history of the development of coffee, whether it is the third space or retail, coffee is not a new thing. In the first coffee wave, instant coffee was all the rage as a retail commodity, despite the excessive extraction of instant caffeine and poor taste.

In the second coffee wave, Starbucks let the world appreciate the charm of the third space it created, and Starbucks expanded rapidly in the process.

For coffee, whether it is the third space or the new retail, it is based on the consumption upgrading or changing consumer demand for innovation.

Coffee shops don't make money? No, I didn't make money because I didn't understand the business of the coffee shop.

According to the relevant report, the number of cafes in China exceeded 100000 in 2016, but the industry reshuffled immediately, with a net closure rate of 13.5% for the whole year.

In the face of fierce competition in various industries, many cross-border people think that the threshold for opening a coffee shop is relatively low, the gross profit is high, and there is cash flow. At the same time, they also feel that opening a coffee shop has an atmosphere, a comfortable environment, and is not as complicated as a restaurant. So they joined the industry one after another.

However, the operating difficulties of the coffee shop "three high and two low" will not disappear because of the good wishes of entrepreneurs. Nowadays coffee shops are faced with the problems of high rent, high labor cost and high raw material price. At the same time, compared with the rapid growth of the number of coffee shops, the growth of coffee consumption is much slower; the increase in the number of coffee shops leads to more fierce competition and a decline in coffee prices.

High costs, coupled with poor revenue, so some coffee shops fast in and out, while many of the rest are scraping by.

Not all coffee shops are struggling. Starbucks, for example, is racing the enclosure and growing rapidly.

In 2015, Starbucks' share of the Chinese coffee chain market was as high as 36.8%. Starbucks opened more than 300 stores in China in 2016, opening a new store almost every day. Judging from the growth trend, Starbucks is even better than the catering giant McDonald's.

1. Lay out in advance, attach importance to long-term interests, and let Starbucks take the lead.

Starbucks' success in China is not accidental. In 1999, Starbucks entered China. At that time, most Chinese people were still strange to coffee, and coffee enterprises were even more rare. It can be said that Starbucks is the enlightenment of Chinese coffee culture.

After entering China, Starbucks is not eager to make a profit, but while cultivating Chinese consumers' coffee consumption habits and coffee awareness, while shaping its own brand image, Chinese consumers' awareness of coffee is tied to Starbucks.

More importantly, Starbucks conveys the concept of "third space" to Chinese people by opening stores in developed locations in important cities. Starbucks itself is a good example of "third Space". By providing "third Space" service, Starbucks actually sells a way of life to Chinese people.

Howard Schultz, chief executive of Starbucks, said the company had lost money in China for nine consecutive years and that for most of its time in China, its coffee was priced at more than most Chinese consumers could or were willing to pay.

Starbucks is deliberately nurturing its own image of light luxury goods, so that as prices fall, consumers will increasingly feel value for money. Starbucks paid off handsomely when the Chinese coffee market matured and expanded.

2. Starbucks has not relaxed any link in standardized management, independent operation and in-depth transformation of the industrial chain.

Similar to Western fast food such as McDonald's and KFC, Starbucks ensures the high quality of service and products by standardizing as many links as possible. At the same time, the large number of stores makes Starbucks, like other catering giants, make large-scale purchases to reduce costs.

In addition, Starbucks in-depth transformation of the industrial chain, through the support of coffee growers to form a stable and mutually beneficial relationship with suppliers to achieve win-win results.

Unlike the franchise operation of McDonald's and KFC, Starbucks is more inclined to operate on its own. In fact, whether it is franchise or independent operation, it is necessary to ensure that each of its stores can implement standardized management, ensure the high quality of products and services, and then create brand effect.

3. Localize, digitalize, meticulous and timely meet the needs of Chinese consumers.

Although Starbucks guarantees the user experience through standardized services and products, Starbucks has never refused to make changes for Chinese consumers.

Some Starbucks stores in China have begun to imitate traditional Chinese teahouses. Traditional Chinese wooden furniture and wall hangings make people feel that Starbucks understands Chinese culture.

Starbucks highly localizes its drinks to suit the tastes of Chinese consumers. Starbucks has conducted a special analysis, remix and blending of Chinese consumers' tastes. Starbucks even allows each branch to choose flexibly from its diverse beverage mix to better meet the needs of the local market.

China is very big, and different regions have different tastes and consumption levels. In order to adapt to this complexity, Starbucks has chosen different partners in different regions: in the north, Starbucks partnered with Beijing Meida Coffee Company; in the east, Starbucks co-operated with Taiwan Unification Enterprise; and in the south, Starbucks chose Hong Kong Meixin Food Co., Ltd. as its partner.

Starbucks takes advantage of each company's advantage in the local market to maximize the tastes and preferences of local consumers.

Starbucks also attaches great importance to the application of digital means. Early on, Starbucks began to understand consumer needs from digital means such as store WiFi system, company website, APP to social networks, and adjust services and products accordingly, so as to improve customer participation and loyalty, and provide customers with "personalized" customized services as much as possible.

4. The dilemma of independent cafes: empty feelings, lack of management ability and unique competitiveness

Independent cafes have a natural disadvantage, it is easy to fight alone, and will not be able to compete head-on with giants like Starbucks. Because the raw materials and equipment are purchased on a small scale, the unit cost is higher than that of large enterprises, there is no brand effect, and the rent is higher than that of brand enterprises. At the same time, the shortage of funds, marketing has become the biggest headache.

But these congenital deficiencies relative to large enterprises are not the deadliest. The deadliest thing is that entrepreneurs open coffee shops based on their feelings and dreams, and eventually find that they only have a warm heart, and the rest have to learn from scratch.

After all, opening a coffee shop is a commercial activity. Although it has good feelings, it also needs solid and meticulous management and cost control. Just because you can make the most delicious coffee doesn't mean the coffee shop will make a profit; even if the customers are full of praise, they may find a deficit when doing accounts.

Independent cafes tend to be homogenized, and everyone is playing a major role in literature and art, which gradually becomes a surplus of feelings.

In the way of thinking of playing with chopsticks, independent cafes no longer have the advantage of scale compared to large enterprises, and they most need to make a comeback with their own characteristics. Either the taste is far better than the chain brand, or the unique environment makes people linger, or the service is more intimate and play the emotional card.

For those cafes that are not well managed and do not have unique competitiveness, it is only a matter of time before they are eliminated from the market.

However, with the maturity of the domestic coffee consumption market and the advent of the third coffee boom, consumers' demand for cafes will become increasingly diversified, and the demand for coffee quality will also increase day by day. This will provide a more relaxed living space for independent cafes with flexible management.

Boutique coffee, cute pet department, public space, community cafe. A New way to play Coffee in the third Space

Focus on the third space of the coffee shop new play, generally speaking, or based on the coffee shop this platform, the content of each part of the innovation and expansion.

1. Deep excavation and innovation of products: high-identification boutique coffee.

Coffee shops sell coffee after all. Perhaps it is an extravagant hope to expect most consumers to really understand and taste boutique coffee, but some people are already preparing it in advance. Some coffee brands seize the existing boutique coffee market through the innovation of coffee products.

BerryBeans is a coffee brand positioned as boutique coffee. Founder Wei Hanye agrees with the tide of boutique coffee and believes that more and more people will consume boutique coffee.

Boutique coffee is not only the research and innovation of coffee taste. Consumers can observe the production process of coffee on BerryBeans, and baristas will communicate with consumers to introduce the characteristics of all kinds of coffee and spread the knowledge and culture behind coffee. BerryBeans strives to be a club for people who really love coffee and coffee culture.

2. The innovation of cafe environment provides customers with different "third space".

Starbucks provides a model for the third space of the city, but Starbucks is after all a chain brand, although the environment is comfortable and pleasant, but it is difficult to cover everything, which actually provides a wide range of independent cafes. Consumers who are tired of the Starbucks environment also need a varied cafe environment.

For shopkeepers who want to make a breakthrough in the cafe environment, they still need to be based on the specific needs of consumers.

Such as the cute pet cafe of the healing department.

Cat coffee, which has been verified by the market, aims at the customer group of "cat powder", combining cats with cafes, attracting a large number of students and white-collar workers. For many cat-loving customers, it doesn't matter what you drink in the cat cafe, the most important thing is the warm and healing atmosphere.

In China, this kind of cute cafe is still dominated by cats and dogs, while in Japan, there are many types of animal cafes: goats, owls and rabbits. These healing cafes meet the needs of urban people for intimacy and can relieve customers' stress and annoyance in their daily work and life.

Such as CUP ONE, which provides public space for young people.

CUP ONE focuses on meeting the needs of young people in first-tier cities for public space. In first-tier cities such as Beijing and Shanghai, it is difficult for people under the age of 30 to own their own house, and most people share it with others. Therefore, their demand for public space is extremely strong.

In this kind of public space, although there are people next to him, these people have nothing to do with him, and in fact, these people virtually accompany and supervise him. We are not isolated from each other, but we feel safe and comfortable.

These people also have different requirements for specific scenes: some people need to be brighter, some people need to be darker, some people like to be quieter, and some people want to have some people next to them. different people have different specific needs for tables and seats. CUP ONE differentiates the decoration and zoning of the cafe space according to these needs.

Such as warm community cafes close to the people.

Independent cafes not only compete with chain coffee brands, but also face competition from leisure beverage shops in the community. If they want not to be defeated by milk tea shops and fruit juice shops in the community, the first thing independent cafes should do is to integrate into the community.

In China, a country where coffee culture is not yet popular, milk tea and juice are obviously more popular than coffee. In this unfavorable situation, independent cafes have to put down their posture. In addition to being more friendly and affordable in terms of products and services, interior furnishings should also cater to the tastes of the local community as much as possible. In this case, the cultural theme of the cafe has become less important, because a specific theme not only attracts a certain group of people, but also excludes others.

Because of the popularity of coffee culture in Japan, Starbucks began to expand into community coffee shops in Japan. In order to integrate into the local community, these coffee shops deliberately avoid the usual style, reduce the eye-catching "Starbucks" logo as much as possible, and generally give priority to elegant and fresh neighborhood style. Instead of wearing standard clothes, waiters can wear casual clothes and serve hot coffee to customers like friends and neighbors.

The menu of Starbucks Community Store has also been adjusted accordingly, specially serving alcoholic beverages and dishes according to the culture of Japanese wine houses. All these changes are designed to make community residents feel at home.

As China's coffee culture is not yet popular, Starbucks is in no hurry to open similar community cafes in China, which provides space for independent cafes. The positioning of neighboring shops can help independent cafes integrate into the community, avoid being excluded by milk tea shops and fruit juice shops, and provide diversified products and services, which is also conducive to broadening the profitability of the store.

Such as the "start-up coffee" that incubates dreams.

Binggo Coffee, located in Zhongguancun Entrepreneurship Street, not only sells coffee, but also provides entrepreneurial training and investment incubation platform with coffee as the carrier. Binggo mainly serves startups, and above the cafe is a small "incubator". Binggo can provide start-ups with work stations and equipment as well as supporting legal and financial support.

Entrepreneurial coffee like Binggo is not in the minority, but it is not easy for everyone to play with.

Chopsticks play thinking that entrepreneurial cafes have actually broken away from the scope of traditional cafes, and it is no longer the management of coffee itself that determines the life or death of entrepreneurial cafes, but the ability of the platform to gather resources and coordinate communication. Without relevant supporting resources, coffee shop practitioners can not easily imitate.

Coffee plus, coffee takeout, unmanned vending machine. Various attempts at the new retail of coffee

The new retail of coffee is more to meet the needs of consumers for coffee itself and its surrounding products. From the point of view of enterprise management, the new retail of coffee is the inevitable choice for enterprises to seize the market and broaden the living space.

1. It is no longer enough to sell coffee. "Coffee plus" has become a general trend.

Cafes have already started robbing restaurants for business. Before Starbucks launched "Huan Xin Food", many cafes in China had already launched a simple meal of western food to match coffee.

Although selling meals in cafes can attract new consumers and broaden the profit area, the cost of doing so should not be ignored. The increase of meals will inevitably require more equipment, space and manpower, and the management of the corresponding stores will become more difficult.

What needs more attention is whether the introduction of food in cafes will damage the previous brand and positioning, and drive away a group of regular customers. In order to avoid these problems, the first thing that cafes should pay attention to is to ensure the standard of coffee and food service. The increase in categories can easily increase the burden on shops, which in turn leads to the decline of service level and product quality.

On this basis, the cafe needs to pay most attention to ensure that the food is consistent with the original brand style. For Starbucks, the category of food should be in line with its theme of leisure, romance and extravagance.

There are also some merchants who think about the products around the coffee. While running boutique coffee, Yuet Coffee will also sell coffee sets, while 80 seconds Coffee will hire designers to design cups, spoons, tables and chairs to enrich its products. Eighty seconds also envisages making full use of the scene of the coffee shop and striving to create a scene-oriented store, so that consumers can feel the characteristics of the product more intuitively.

Most of the retail in the coffee shop will be carried out in the special area, and the completely scene-oriented retail is a kind of attempt and innovation for the coffee shop. In doing so, we should be particularly careful not to let catering and retail interfere with each other.

2. With the rise of coffee takeout, O2O and e-commerce will gradually become important positions.

The development of coffee takeout is relatively late compared with other catering industries, but some enterprises have made efforts in this regard.

Founded in 2014, Lian Coffee completed its 158 million B+ round of financing in March this year. Lien Coffee started by providing distribution services to Starbucks. During this period, Lian Coffee accumulated a large amount of original user data. After knowing which areas people like to order coffee takeout and their specific preference for take-out coffee, Lian Coffee started an independent business.

Because it specializes in take-out coffee, even coffee only needs to set up coffee production stations in areas with strong demand, without having to invest money in environmental construction, and personnel only need baristas and couriers, which makes the investment and operation of even coffee very light.

Coffee Wing is working hard to build its own O2O e-commerce platform. Coffee Wing has been doing franchise services all over the country, and in this process, Coffee Wing has accumulated large-scale channels and user data, which provides a basis for it to build an O2O e-commerce platform. Although the current domestic coffee O2O takeout market is not optimistic, but once the platform is successfully built, Coffee Wing is expected to make a profit by selling user traffic to e-commerce.

3. Coffee retailing, breaking through the limitation of cafe venue management.

Coffee is becoming more and more popular in China, in addition to going to cafes to enjoy the leisure and comfort of the third space, coffee itself has increasingly become a necessity for some people, which creates conditions for the development of fast-elimination retail of coffee. Convenience store retail and unmanned vending machines have become an important part of the layout of many coffee brands.

Although many people now claim that boutique coffee is the future of China's coffee market. However, looking at the mature foreign coffee market, coffee is more of a fast consumer product. The higher gross margin of domestic coffee has always made coffee have some luxury color, while the gradual increase in retail coffee is expected to change this situation.

Never Coffee specializes in the production of boutique canned coffee, limiting the price of a bottle of coffee to 10 yuan. Never Coffee lowers prices because of the belief that coffee will increasingly become a common drink for post-90s generations. Although the price is very low, the overall cost can be greatly reduced through the purchase of raw materials in large quantities and large-scale production.

In addition, the production of canned coffee can save a lot of costs such as stores and labor. Even if it sells for 9.9 yuan, never Coffee can still guarantee a gross profit of 50%.

Yue Coffee is also developing bottled coffee, hoping to expand its products to supermarkets, convenience stores and even online sales outside its stores. Starbucks goes a step further, hoping not only to retail coffee, but also to make other drinks and meals it produces enter supermarket shelves.

Coffee Wing has launched the "Free Wing" project to provide consumers with freshly ground coffee or other drinks through the city's smart coffee machine. The "Free Wing" intelligent coffee machine is entering shopping malls, hospitals, office buildings and other public places. The intelligent coffee machine brings not only the growth of sales, but also a large amount of user data to Coffee Wing. On this basis, Coffee Wing can operate more finely and respond more timely to market changes.

"third Space" Coffee and New Coffee Retail meet the needs of consumers at different levels, and there is no contradiction between the two.

Based on the coffee shop itself, the "third space" coffee focuses on the improvement of coffee taste and the innovation of coffee shop environment. This kind of coffee brand focuses on creating consumers' offline experience and providing consumers with additional services in addition to coffee.

The new retail of coffee tries to provide consumers with convenient and cost-effective coffee drinks, focusing on meeting consumers' demand for coffee itself. the new retail of coffee strives to strike a balance between the quality of freshly ground coffee and the convenience of instant coffee.

"third Space" coffee can even be integrated with the new retail of coffee. For example, while doing a good job in the operation of offline cafes, Yuet Coffee is breaking through the regional sales radius through new retail thinking. Coffee wings through the layout of intelligent coffee machine, for their own offline coffee shop is also a very good promotion. According to their own reality, different enterprises can specialize in a certain field or combine the two to complement each other.

Conclusion

The Chinese coffee market is full of opportunities. With the advent of the third coffee wave and the increasing popularity of coffee consumption, China's coffee market will be further expanded and subdivided.

"third Space" coffee and new coffee retail are the development trend of China's coffee market, and are the performance of market segmentation. Both are faced with different coffee consumers and different consumer needs.

If coffee enterprises want to have an advantage in the future market competition, the most important thing is to combine their own conditions to accurately grasp and meet the changing needs of consumers.

According to the relevant report, the number of cafes in China exceeded 100000 in 2016, but the industry reshuffled immediately, with a net closure rate of 13.5% for the whole year.

In the face of fierce competition in various industries, many cross-border people think that the threshold for opening a coffee shop is relatively low, the gross profit is high, and there is cash flow. At the same time, they also feel that opening a coffee shop has an atmosphere, a comfortable environment, and is not as complicated as a restaurant. So they joined the industry one after another.

However, the operating difficulties of the coffee shop "three high and two low" will not disappear because of the good wishes of entrepreneurs. Nowadays coffee shops are faced with the problems of high rent, high labor cost and high raw material price. At the same time, compared with the rapid growth of the number of coffee shops, the growth of coffee consumption is much slower; the increase in the number of coffee shops leads to more fierce competition and a decline in coffee prices.

High costs, coupled with poor revenue, so some coffee shops fast in and out, while many of the rest are scraping by.

Not all coffee shops are struggling. Starbucks, for example, is racing the enclosure and growing rapidly.

In 2015, Starbucks' share of the Chinese coffee chain market was as high as 36.8%. Starbucks opened more than 300 stores in China in 2016, opening a new store almost every day. Judging from the growth trend, Starbucks is even better than the catering giant McDonald's.

1. Lay out in advance, attach importance to long-term interests, and let Starbucks take the lead.

Starbucks' success in China is not accidental. In 1999, Starbucks entered China. At that time, most Chinese people were still strange to coffee, and coffee enterprises were even more rare. It can be said that Starbucks is the enlightenment of Chinese coffee culture.

After entering China, Starbucks is not eager to make a profit, but while cultivating Chinese consumers' coffee consumption habits and coffee awareness, while shaping its own brand image, Chinese consumers' awareness of coffee is tied to Starbucks.

More importantly, Starbucks conveys the concept of "third space" to Chinese people by opening stores in developed locations in important cities. Starbucks itself is a good example of "third Space". By providing "third Space" service, Starbucks actually sells a way of life to Chinese people.

Howard Schultz, chief executive of Starbucks, said the company had lost money in China for nine consecutive years and that for most of its time in China, its coffee was priced at more than most Chinese consumers could or were willing to pay.

Starbucks is deliberately nurturing its own image of light luxury goods, so that as prices fall, consumers will increasingly feel value for money. Starbucks paid off handsomely when the Chinese coffee market matured and expanded.

2. Starbucks has not relaxed any link in standardized management, independent operation and in-depth transformation of the industrial chain.

Similar to Western fast food such as McDonald's and KFC, Starbucks ensures the high quality of service and products by standardizing as many links as possible. At the same time, the large number of stores makes Starbucks, like other catering giants, make large-scale purchases to reduce costs.

In addition, Starbucks in-depth transformation of the industrial chain, through the support of coffee growers to form a stable and mutually beneficial relationship with suppliers to achieve win-win results.

Unlike the franchise operation of McDonald's and KFC, Starbucks is more inclined to operate on its own. In fact, whether it is franchise or independent operation, it is necessary to ensure that each of its stores can implement standardized management, ensure the high quality of products and services, and then create brand effect.

3. Localize, digitalize, meticulous and timely meet the needs of Chinese consumers.

Although Starbucks guarantees the user experience through standardized services and products, Starbucks has never refused to make changes for Chinese consumers.

Some Starbucks stores in China have begun to imitate traditional Chinese teahouses. Traditional Chinese wooden furniture and wall hangings make people feel that Starbucks understands Chinese culture.

Starbucks highly localizes its drinks to suit the tastes of Chinese consumers. Starbucks has conducted a special analysis, remix and blending of Chinese consumers' tastes. Starbucks even allows each branch to choose flexibly from its diverse beverage mix to better meet the needs of the local market.

China is very big, and different regions have different tastes and consumption levels. In order to adapt to this complexity, Starbucks has chosen different partners in different regions: in the north, Starbucks partnered with Beijing Meida Coffee Company; in the east, Starbucks co-operated with Taiwan Unification Enterprise; and in the south, Starbucks chose Hong Kong Meixin Food Co., Ltd. as its partner.

Starbucks takes advantage of each company's advantage in the local market to maximize the tastes and preferences of local consumers.

Starbucks also attaches great importance to the application of digital means. Early on, Starbucks began to understand consumer needs from digital means such as store WiFi system, company website, APP to social networks, and adjust services and products accordingly, so as to improve customer participation and loyalty, and provide customers with "personalized" customized services as much as possible.

4. The dilemma of independent cafes: empty feelings, lack of management ability and unique competitiveness

Independent cafes have a natural disadvantage, it is easy to fight alone, and will not be able to compete head-on with giants like Starbucks. Because the raw materials and equipment are purchased on a small scale, the unit cost is higher than that of large enterprises, there is no brand effect, and the rent is higher than that of brand enterprises. At the same time, the shortage of funds, marketing has become the biggest headache.

But these congenital deficiencies relative to large enterprises are not the deadliest. The deadliest thing is that entrepreneurs open coffee shops based on their feelings and dreams, and eventually find that they only have a warm heart, and the rest have to learn from scratch.

After all, opening a coffee shop is a commercial activity. Although it has good feelings, it also needs solid and meticulous management and cost control. Just because you can make the most delicious coffee doesn't mean the coffee shop will make a profit; even if the customers are full of praise, they may find a deficit when doing accounts.

Independent cafes tend to be homogenized, and everyone is playing a major role in literature and art, which gradually becomes a surplus of feelings.

In the way of thinking of playing with chopsticks, independent cafes no longer have the advantage of scale compared to large enterprises, and they most need to make a comeback with their own characteristics. Either the taste is far better than the chain brand, or the unique environment makes people linger, or the service is more intimate and play the emotional card.

For those cafes that are not well managed and do not have unique competitiveness, it is only a matter of time before they are eliminated from the market.

However, with the maturity of the domestic coffee consumption market and the advent of the third coffee boom, consumers' demand for cafes will become increasingly diversified, and the demand for coffee quality will also increase day by day. This will provide a more relaxed living space for independent cafes with flexible management.

Boutique coffee, cute pet department, public space, community cafe. A New way to play Coffee in the third Space

Focus on the third space of the coffee shop new play, generally speaking, or based on the coffee shop this platform, the content of each part of the innovation and expansion.

1. Deep excavation and innovation of products: high-identification boutique coffee.

Coffee shops sell coffee after all. Perhaps it is an extravagant hope to expect most consumers to really understand and taste boutique coffee, but some people are already preparing it in advance. Some coffee brands seize the existing boutique coffee market through the innovation of coffee products.

BerryBeans is a coffee brand positioned as boutique coffee. Founder Wei Hanye agrees with the tide of boutique coffee and believes that more and more people will consume boutique coffee.

Boutique coffee is not only the research and innovation of coffee taste. Consumers can observe the production process of coffee on BerryBeans, and baristas will communicate with consumers to introduce the characteristics of all kinds of coffee and spread the knowledge and culture behind coffee. BerryBeans strives to be a club for people who really love coffee and coffee culture.

2. The innovation of cafe environment provides customers with different "third space".

Starbucks provides a model for the third space of the city, but Starbucks is after all a chain brand, although the environment is comfortable and pleasant, but it is difficult to cover everything, which actually provides a wide range of independent cafes. Consumers who are tired of the Starbucks environment also need a varied cafe environment.

For shopkeepers who want to make a breakthrough in the cafe environment, they still need to be based on the specific needs of consumers.

Such as the cute pet cafe of the healing department.

Cat coffee, which has been verified by the market, aims at the customer group of "cat powder", combining cats with cafes, attracting a large number of students and white-collar workers. For many cat-loving customers, it doesn't matter what you drink in the cat cafe, the most important thing is the warm and healing atmosphere.

In China, this kind of cute cafe is still dominated by cats and dogs, while in Japan, there are many types of animal cafes: goats, owls and rabbits. These healing cafes meet the needs of urban people for intimacy and can relieve customers' stress and annoyance in their daily work and life.

Such as CUP ONE, which provides public space for young people.

CUP ONE focuses on meeting the needs of young people in first-tier cities for public space. In first-tier cities such as Beijing and Shanghai, it is difficult for people under the age of 30 to own their own house, and most people share it with others. Therefore, their demand for public space is extremely strong.

In this kind of public space, although there are people next to him, these people have nothing to do with him, and in fact, these people virtually accompany and supervise him. We are not isolated from each other, but we feel safe and comfortable.

These people also have different requirements for specific scenes: some people need to be brighter, some people need to be darker, some people like to be quieter, and some people want to have some people next to them. different people have different specific needs for tables and seats. CUP ONE differentiates the decoration and zoning of the cafe space according to these needs.

Such as warm community cafes close to the people.

Independent cafes not only compete with chain coffee brands, but also face competition from leisure beverage shops in the community. If they want not to be defeated by milk tea shops and fruit juice shops in the community, the first thing independent cafes should do is to integrate into the community.

In China, a country where coffee culture is not yet popular, milk tea and juice are obviously more popular than coffee. In this unfavorable situation, independent cafes have to put down their posture. In addition to being more friendly and affordable in terms of products and services, interior furnishings should also cater to the tastes of the local community as much as possible. In this case, the cultural theme of the cafe has become less important, because a specific theme not only attracts a certain group of people, but also excludes others.

Because of the popularity of coffee culture in Japan, Starbucks began to expand into community coffee shops in Japan. In order to integrate into the local community, these coffee shops deliberately avoid the usual style, reduce the eye-catching "Starbucks" logo as much as possible, and generally give priority to elegant and fresh neighborhood style. Instead of wearing standard clothes, waiters can wear casual clothes and serve hot coffee to customers like friends and neighbors.

The menu of Starbucks Community Store has also been adjusted accordingly, specially serving alcoholic beverages and dishes according to the culture of Japanese wine houses. All these changes are designed to make community residents feel at home.

As China's coffee culture is not yet popular, Starbucks is in no hurry to open similar community cafes in China, which provides space for independent cafes. The positioning of neighboring shops can help independent cafes integrate into the community, avoid being excluded by milk tea shops and fruit juice shops, and provide diversified products and services, which is also conducive to broadening the profitability of the store.

Such as the "start-up coffee" that incubates dreams.

Binggo Coffee, located in Zhongguancun Entrepreneurship Street, not only sells coffee, but also provides entrepreneurial training and investment incubation platform with coffee as the carrier. Binggo mainly serves startups, and above the cafe is a small "incubator". Binggo can provide start-ups with work stations and equipment as well as supporting legal and financial support.

Entrepreneurial coffee like Binggo is not in the minority, but it is not easy for everyone to play with.

Chopsticks play thinking that entrepreneurial cafes have actually broken away from the scope of traditional cafes, and it is no longer the management of coffee itself that determines the life or death of entrepreneurial cafes, but the ability of the platform to gather resources and coordinate communication. Without relevant supporting resources, coffee shop practitioners can not easily imitate.

Coffee plus, coffee takeout, unmanned vending machine. Various attempts at the new retail of coffee

The new retail of coffee is more to meet the needs of consumers for coffee itself and its surrounding products. From the point of view of enterprise management, the new retail of coffee is the inevitable choice for enterprises to seize the market and broaden the living space.

1. It is no longer enough to sell coffee. "Coffee plus" has become a general trend.

Cafes have already started robbing restaurants for business. Before Starbucks launched "Huan Xin Food", many cafes in China had already launched a simple meal of western food to match coffee.

Although selling meals in cafes can attract new consumers and broaden the profit area, the cost of doing so should not be ignored. The increase of meals will inevitably require more equipment, space and manpower, and the management of the corresponding stores will become more difficult.

What needs more attention is whether the introduction of food in cafes will damage the previous brand and positioning, and drive away a group of regular customers. In order to avoid these problems, the first thing that cafes should pay attention to is to ensure the standard of coffee and food service. The increase in categories can easily increase the burden on shops, which in turn leads to the decline of service level and product quality.

On this basis, the cafe needs to pay most attention to ensure that the food is consistent with the original brand style. For Starbucks, the category of food should be in line with its theme of leisure, romance and extravagance.

There are also some merchants who think about the products around the coffee. While running boutique coffee, Yuet Coffee will also sell coffee sets, while 80 seconds Coffee will hire designers to design cups, spoons, tables and chairs to enrich its products. Eighty seconds also envisages making full use of the scene of the coffee shop and striving to create a scene-oriented store, so that consumers can feel the characteristics of the product more intuitively.

Most of the retail in the coffee shop will be carried out in the special area, and the completely scene-oriented retail is a kind of attempt and innovation for the coffee shop. In doing so, we should be particularly careful not to let catering and retail interfere with each other.

2. With the rise of coffee takeout, O2O and e-commerce will gradually become important positions.

The development of coffee takeout is relatively late compared with other catering industries, but some enterprises have made efforts in this regard.

Founded in 2014, Lian Coffee completed its 158 million B+ round of financing in March this year. Lien Coffee started by providing distribution services to Starbucks. During this period, Lian Coffee accumulated a large amount of original user data. After knowing which areas people like to order coffee takeout and their specific preference for take-out coffee, Lian Coffee started an independent business.

Because it specializes in take-out coffee, even coffee only needs to set up coffee production stations in areas with strong demand, without having to invest money in environmental construction, and personnel only need baristas and couriers, which makes the investment and operation of even coffee very light.

Coffee Wing is working hard to build its own O2O e-commerce platform. Coffee Wing has been doing franchise services all over the country, and in this process, Coffee Wing has accumulated large-scale channels and user data, which provides a basis for it to build an O2O e-commerce platform. Although the current domestic coffee O2O takeout market is not optimistic, but once the platform is successfully built, Coffee Wing is expected to make a profit by selling user traffic to e-commerce.

3. Coffee retailing, breaking through the limitation of cafe venue management.

Coffee is becoming more and more popular in China, in addition to going to cafes to enjoy the leisure and comfort of the third space, coffee itself has increasingly become a necessity for some people, which creates conditions for the development of fast-elimination retail of coffee. Convenience store retail and unmanned vending machines have become an important part of the layout of many coffee brands.

Although many people now claim that boutique coffee is the future of China's coffee market. However, looking at the mature foreign coffee market, coffee is more of a fast consumer product. The higher gross margin of domestic coffee has always made coffee have some luxury color, while the gradual increase in retail coffee is expected to change this situation.

Never Coffee specializes in the production of boutique canned coffee, limiting the price of a bottle of coffee to 10 yuan. Never Coffee lowers prices because of the belief that coffee will increasingly become a common drink for post-90s generations. Although the price is very low, the overall cost can be greatly reduced through the purchase of raw materials in large quantities and large-scale production.

In addition, the production of canned coffee can save a lot of costs such as stores and labor. Even if it sells for 9.9 yuan, never Coffee can still guarantee a gross profit of 50%.

Yue Coffee is also developing bottled coffee, hoping to expand its products to supermarkets, convenience stores and even online sales outside its stores. Starbucks goes a step further, hoping not only to retail coffee, but also to make other drinks and meals it produces enter supermarket shelves.

Coffee Wing has launched the "Free Wing" project to provide consumers with freshly ground coffee or other drinks through the city's smart coffee machine. The "Free Wing" intelligent coffee machine is entering shopping malls, hospitals, office buildings and other public places. The intelligent coffee machine brings not only the growth of sales, but also a large amount of user data to Coffee Wing. On this basis, Coffee Wing can operate more finely and respond more timely to market changes.

"third Space" Coffee and New Coffee Retail meet the needs of consumers at different levels, and there is no contradiction between the two.

Based on the coffee shop itself, the "third space" coffee focuses on the improvement of coffee taste and the innovation of coffee shop environment. This kind of coffee brand focuses on creating consumers' offline experience and providing consumers with additional services in addition to coffee.

The new retail of coffee tries to provide consumers with convenient and cost-effective coffee drinks, focusing on meeting consumers' demand for coffee itself. the new retail of coffee strives to strike a balance between the quality of freshly ground coffee and the convenience of instant coffee.

"third Space" coffee can even be integrated with the new retail of coffee. For example, while doing a good job in the operation of offline cafes, Yuet Coffee is breaking through the regional sales radius through new retail thinking. Coffee wings through the layout of intelligent coffee machine, for their own offline coffee shop is also a very good promotion. According to their own reality, different enterprises can specialize in a certain field or combine the two to complement each other.

Conclusion

The Chinese coffee market is full of opportunities. With the advent of the third coffee wave and the increasing popularity of coffee consumption, China's coffee market will be further expanded and subdivided.

"third Space" coffee and new coffee retail are the development trend of China's coffee market, and are the performance of market segmentation. Both are faced with different coffee consumers and different consumer needs.

If coffee enterprises want to have an advantage in the future market competition, the most important thing is to combine their own conditions to accurately grasp and meet the changing needs of consumers.

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