The world's first Starbucks "Coffee Fast" unveiled! Is there going to be an online fight with Luckin Coffee?

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Last weekend, Starbucks opened the world's first "Kaikui" concept store in the Yuetan Center of Beijing's Financial Street, focusing on ordering with mobile phones, self-picked up "Kaikui" and Starbucks takeout "special star delivery". Today, Luckin Coffee (luckin coffee) announced the official opening of its 3,000 store in the West Plaza of Hangzhou East Railway Station, a big step closer to the goal of "reaching 4500 stores by the end of 2019." Has the online battle between Starbucks and Luckin Coffee started?

Starbucks "Coffee Quick" stores open to keep up with the trend of digitization in China

The world's first Starbucks concept store was officially opened in Beijing on July 12, which means you can try to "click online and pick it up at the store" in the future. Different from the previous experience of focusing on the third space, Starbucks'"Kaikai" concept store mainly places orders with mobile phones, "Kaikai" service picked up at the store, and "special star delivery" takeout. Compared with the social and spatial experience, the "brown fast" concept store is more "efficient".

As early as May this year, Starbucks China has launched the "online click, pick up at the store" service, and took the lead in the pilot launch of about 300 stores in Beijing and Shanghai. This "Kaikui" concept store can be seen as an upgrade of Kaikui service. Today, the service has covered 1300 stores in Beijing, Shanghai, Hangzhou and Nanjing. According to the restructuring of Starbucks China's business structure in June this year, all the previous businesses were reorganized into two major business units-"Starbucks Retail" and "Digital Innovation". It can be seen that digital innovation has become a business that Starbucks attaches great importance to in China, and the advent of Coffee Fast ™concept store is also a new attempt of Starbucks digital innovation in China.

The first "Kaikui" concept store in Beijing's Financial Street is different from the other Starbucks offline stores, which only provide a few seats for customers to make a short stay, which is completely different from the previous experience of the third space. In order to improve the efficiency of picking up food, a "starry stand" has been specially installed in the coffee fast concept store. Baristas will welcome customers at the "starry stand" and assist them to pick up goods from the lockers in the store. Even independent pick-up lines and exclusive pick-up cabinets have been designed for "special star delivery" riders. "Ke Kuai" and takeout products will be placed in self-delivery cabinets, similar to the express cabinet mode, which is picked up on arrival.

Although the Kaikuai concept store is not suitable for customers to pass the time, it is "soul" to take a single password when communicating with the barista clerk offline to pick up the goods.

According to the sharing of netizens, friends who order coffee with "Kaikui" will receive an idiom or phrase that is kind, lovely, eerie and anticipated. For example, there have been: koi Ben carp, Lingbo Weibo, charming, so excellent, birds singing cicadas, other people's children, suddenly happy, like summer, a toast to the moonlight, Spider-Man, sesame open the door.

For Starbucks, this is a new form of retail stores, which is very different from traditional stores and selected stores, and different from the concept of the third space. It can be said that it is a new integration of the third space and the fourth space, and another innovation of the store type. Although there is not much space, there are all kinds of goods, except for coffee beans and commodities, there are many light snacks, pastries and coffee drinks, and the immediate needs of customers can be met.

Starbucks said that the stores have also adopted an intelligent dispatch system to radiate production capacity to the entire business area. During peak periods of passenger flow, the central kitchen in the store can share orders delivered by special stars in nearby stores, reduce the waiting time for customers in other stores in the business district, and help baristas in these stores to focus more on improving the third space experience in their stores, thereby improving the efficiency and quality of the experience in Starbucks stores in the whole business area.

It is not difficult to guess that Starbucks wants to solve the problem of large-scale customer demand with smaller stores and less rent. The Starbucks concept store is more of a test of the water, another response to Luckin Coffee's "pick-up + takeout model". If the trial is successful, it should be promoted in more cities across the country in the future.

Luckin Coffee has more than 3000 stores across the country, and the speed of opening may be accelerated.

Interestingly, this first concept store in the world, located in the center of Yuetan, Financial Street, is small in area and surrounded by pure office buildings, but there is a lucky pick-up shop less than 20 meters away. No wonder it was teased that the online battle between Starbucks and Luckin Coffee began head on.

Luckin Coffee, who was successfully listed in the United States in mid-May, has made a series of moves recently. Just announced in early July to enter the new tea market, launched more than a dozen Xiao Lu tea drinks, and signed artist Liu Haoran as a spokesman. The range of items in the store has also expanded from selling coffee to tea, desserts and light foods. Qian Zhiya, founder of Luckin Coffee and CEO, once said publicly that Luckin Coffee's corporate vision is to start with coffee and become a part of people's daily life. It seems that Luckin Coffee's ambition from coffee is not limited to coffee.

Luckin Coffee (luckin coffee) announced the official opening of its 3000 store in the West Plaza of Hangzhou East Railway Station, which will provide consumers with products and services such as master coffee, deer tea, freshly squeezed fruit and vegetable juice, and healthy light foods. This is also a further extension of Luckin Coffee's infinite scene brand strategy.

According to public data, Luckin Coffee was founded in May 2018. one year after its official business, Luckin Coffee was listed on the NASDAQ market in New York on May 17, 2019, setting the fastest record for a Chinese coffee brand to be listed on the US stock market since its inception, raising a total of US $695 million and a market capitalization of US $4.25 billion, making it the largest Asian company to raise funds on NASDAQ IPO this year.

In January 2019, Qian Zhiya, founder of Luckin Coffee, announced a "bold" goal: to reach 4500 stores by the end of 2019, surpassing Starbucks to become the number one chain coffee brand in the Chinese market. In addition, according to the plan, Luckin Coffee will build 10000 stores by the end of 2021. At present, Luckin Coffee has 3000 stores across the country, which is still some way from the target of 4500. Next, Luckin Coffee's task is arduous, and the speed of layout may continue to accelerate.

Photo: Weibo China, Starbucks

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