In the cafe, the little secrets that have nothing to do with coffee

The Little Secrets of the Retail Circle-- journalists' investigation (37)

Business newspaper reporter Chen Yili intern Chen Anne

Not long ago, a cafe on Wulin Road that charged an "air purification fee" became popular-unlike other places, you had to "pay" for the air you breathed when you drank coffee at its house. Although people have different views on this, it has to be admitted that the owner of this cafe has put a lot of thought into the hardware and provided a different way of thinking for the operation of the cafe.

Many people are used to bringing coffee from Starbucks to work on weekdays, meeting clients at COSTA, and getting together with friends on weekends. Cafes have unwittingly and slowly seeped into our lives, and associated with them are different scenes and different atmosphere.

Do you know? In fact, behind these everyday scenes, in addition to allowing you to identify the individual decoration style at a glance, the seemingly inconspicuous details come from the store's good intentions. This is the theme of our "consumption experience": what secrets are hidden in the details that have nothing to do with coffee in the cafe.

Experience report

COSTA COFFEE (Wulin Yintai Store) experience time: April 17th around 8: 00 p.m.

COFFEE (Wulin Yintai Store)

Experience time: April 17th around 8: 00 p.m.

There are very few COSTA guests at this time, so you can choose the seat with the best view by the window. The most comfortable seat here is the kind of classical sofa with backrest and armrest. There are only 6 sofas in the whole store, scattered in the corners at both ends, and the rest are wooden chairs with soft cushions, or slightly smaller simple leather sofas.

But compared with Starbucks, the seats here are much better, regardless of the size of the space and the comfort of the seats. But for some reason, the number of guests that night was only about half that of Starbucks, and the environment was much quieter.

Unlike Starbucks, COSTA window seats are all three people, while Starbucks has two seats. In the case that the seats can be moved at will, it is obvious that the COSTA seat is more adjustable and flexible.

Spicy comments:

At that time, the four people sitting on the table next to the reporter were four elderly guests, who had been chatting softly with coffee, drinks and desserts. Unlike the noise of many young people at Starbucks, the silence is enjoyable, but the boss of COSTA should envy the noisy noise next door, right?

Starbucks Coffee (Wulin Yintai Store) experience time: April 17 around 9: 00 p.m.

Compared with the COSTA separated by a wall, Starbucks is obviously more lively in the near period of time. As soon as we entered the door, about 70% of the seats in front of us were seated, especially the window seats were full, and the table for four in the middle, although not every seat was full, there were no empty tables. This area, which accounts for about half of the entire store area, is decorated with soft sofa seats.

The layout of Starbucks seems to be more compact than that of COSTA. For example, a narrow space against the wall, according to COSTA, may only fit two sets of four tables and sit eight people. Starbucks has made a row of sofa seats against the wall, with five or six small round tables in front of them, so close to each other that fat people can hardly pass between the two adjacent round tables, but in this way, a squeeze can seat more than 10 people.

In the other area, on the opposite side of the door, the seats are dominated by wooden seats. Except for the two girls sitting by the window chatting, the rest of the seats are empty, in sharp contrast to the front area.

Spicy comments:

There are probably the most uncomfortable wooden chairs in Starbucks, and people with fleshy buttocks don't feel very good, not to mention people with "hemp pole" figures, who can't sit for a long time at all. It is estimated that everyone has this idea: "my friend in the most comfortable seat, when will you leave?"

Fantasy coffee experience time: around 10:30 in the evening on April 17th

When the reporter sat down by the floor-to-ceiling window of Wulin Road on the first floor, he soon found that there was a low roar of machines in his ear. He turned around and found that it was the sound of the air purifier behind the seat. There is a small card on each table reminding guests that the store charges 1 yuan per person for air purification.

According to the owner of the store, he installed two air purifiers in the non-smoking area and four in the smoking area to allow guests to enjoy a better air environment. Maybe that's why, even in the smoking area, you don't feel much smoke.

The seats here basically have soft backrest and cushion western food chairs and sofas, the table is slightly higher, after people sit down, about in the chest position.

In the west area of the second floor, the seats are neatly arranged face-to-face and back-to-back, with a high back, which should be higher than the head of the sitting guest, as if sitting in two screens.

Spicy comments:

A dollar for fresh air is a bargain, but why won't the aunt at the next table pay? It is very special to experience such an environment in which the door is required to be scrubbed 12 times a day in addition to the purification of the air. As a regular customer, "hope their kitchen is as clean as the front door" should not be a luxury wish, is it?

Experience time of Man Coffee (Wulin Road Shop): around 11:30 in the evening on April 17th

Apart from Starbucks, this is the most popular coffee shop in this experience. After 11:00 in the evening, the attendance rate of seats on the first floor and the second floor is more than 70%. Because the whole space LOFT-style structure, coupled with the top bright crystal lights, there are so many guests, slightly noisy, so that the whole atmosphere is a bit like a noisy night market.

Because of the smell of smoke on the first floor, the reporter went to the second floor, but the second floor is much hotter than the first floor. If it is more comfortable in winter, but like the current temperature of more than 20 ℃, it is a bit unbearable. The open-air seats here should be the most comfortable, but they were already full of guests, so the reporter had no choice but to leave.

Spicy comments:

The coffee in the daytime is very petty bourgeois, the sofa on the back is very comfortable, and the view of the floor-to-ceiling window is very good. Reporters have also been to this coffee, during the day when there are few people, it is still more comfortable, and there are often Taobao stores to shoot here. And the muffins here are also recommended by many consumers.

ZOO COFFEE (Hubin Yintai Store) experience time: April 18 around 9: 00 p.m.

Near the floor-to-ceiling window on the inside of the mall, there is a bar with two Macintosh computers, one of which is already in use by a guest. The reporter chose a seat in front of another computer, which is a high chair made of steel. Although the color is bright, but the material is hard and cold, it is estimated that this kind of chair will not be very comfortable after sitting for a long time.

Most of the guests sit on the middle sofa seat, and the table in front of many sofa seats-- perhaps called the coffee table-- is more appropriate, because the height is very low, about a punch above the knee. There are two big boys sitting side by side at a table playing with their cell phones, taking a very uncomfortable-looking posture: the phone is on the table, the whole cat is on the waist, almost "lying" on the table.

On the other hand, the table of normal height here (that is, after the guest sits down, the table is about between the chest and abdomen), whether it is a round table or a square table, the desktop area is very small, if you want to put a laptop here, it is basically difficult to accommodate drinks or desserts.

Spicy comments:

I was impressed when I received a phone call from an important interviewer on the road, and I immediately took out my notebook and rushed in when I saw ZOO COFFEE, but I found that most of the seats were matched with a table not much higher than my knee, which was not suitable for writing at all. I crouched at the table for a long time (here there were ten thousand immortals and beasts galloping by), and I felt that my legs were almost useless.

Experience analysis

The Secret behind the seats in the Cafe on August 18

a. How does Starbucks use its seat to "drive" you out?

For Starbucks, which has the best business, only by letting customers who have bought coffee leave quickly can they give up their seats to later customers and create more sales. In this respect, Starbucks can be said to be wily about how to tamper with the seats to "drive" away guests and improve the rate of turning the table.

It uses a lot of uncomfortable furniture such as wooden chairs, high stools, wall tables and so on. Can you stay in such a seat all afternoon? Maybe an hour at the most.

Moreover, in general, the restaurant meals in cafes will provide customers with porcelain cups, which can not be taken away until they are finished, and customers will stay longer, while Starbucks, whether they eat or take out, are packed in paper cups, and customers can take the coffee away at any time.

It is said that there is a better way-- you can experience it in the summer-- is to increase the air-conditioning and freeze you alive.

b. Want to work in ZOO COFFEE? NO!

After my experience in ZOO COFFEE, I learned that not all cafes are suitable for office work. When you can only put your computer on the "coffee table" just above your knee, are you going to sit in a chair and type on your waist, or just kneel on the ground?

The owner of a cafe said that according to the normal seating standard, the matching table height is about 75 centimeters. If it is a sofa, considering that people will sink in, it can be reduced by 3 centimeters. So, what does ZOO COFFEE mean by a table with a height of only about 50 centimeters?

This may be similar to Starbucks, because if everyone treats this place as an office or even an Internet cafe, how can they do business if they order a cup of coffee and sit all afternoon? So hurry up and take your computer home, or go to another cafe that welcomes you.

c. The high-back chair gives you a private space.

The high-backed chairs on the second floor of Fantasy Coffee are impressive because their high backs block the eyes of the guests in the front and back seats and sit in them as if they were in an enclosed box.

Zhu Ze, the owner of the store, said that the arrangement of these high-backed chairs and face-to-face, back-to-back rows is precisely to give guests a relatively private space. Zhu Ze himself was also very concerned about and respected privacy, so after taking over the store, the first thing he did was to replace all the curtains and pillows, including installing curtains that were not originally available for the floor-to-ceiling windows on the second floor. on the one hand, add some color and beauty, on the other hand, also provide some shelter for guests in need.

"there are always some guests who don't like to be disturbed. This kind of space makes them have more sense of security and feel more comfortable." "unlike Starbucks, we prefer to keep our customers in the store," Zhu said. "

d. Only one couple has an empty seat opposite to each other, do you want to sit or not?

When you can't find a seat in the cafe, you finally find that only one couple's seat opposite is still vacant. Would you like to sit or not?

We may often encounter this situation in a cafe: a set of four tables often seats only one or two people, and other later guests will usually find another seat instead of sharing the table, especially the seats opposite the couple. Most people avoid for fear of embarrassment.

As a result, many cafes try to adjust the traditional rules of table and chair placement. For example, diffuse coffee reduces the placement of tables for four, but carefully designs tables and chairs of different sizes, such as single table, double table, six-person table, etc., which can be reassembled and changed into more combinations to improve the space utilization of the cafe.

They are cafes and "social clubs".

Have you noticed that more and more cafes like to put long tables for more than a dozen people to sit down? At first, it may have taken into account the need for someone to hold a meeting in a cafe or a large group of friends to come to the party, but later, the long table had another effect, that is, socializing.

According to a survey, 82% of Chinese agree that a cafe is the ideal place for social gatherings, while 43% of Chinese female respondents spend an average of more than an hour drinking coffee and chatting with friends. Cafe owners are also aware of this importance.

"A long table that can hold more than 10 people is different from a table of four, which is easy to produce table-sharing behavior." The owner of a cafe said that when young people sat together like this, it was inevitable that when they talked about some topics, they would collide and resonate with each other, and they would communicate and get to know each other. "this kind of offline social interaction is much more reliable than using Wechat, Momo and so on."

When you get to the cafe, how can you not take a selfie?

"if you don't take a selfie when you drink coffee at Starbucks, isn't that for nothing?" "if you don't take a picture and post it on moments, who knows I came to Starbucks?" Although this is all a joke, the cafe has long been the first choice for "B". The environment full of literary accent and petty bourgeoisie atmosphere, beautiful coffee and desserts, coupled with soft lighting, are all designed for taking pictures.

Some netizens even compare and summarize the "selfie" of the cafe, such as "there is a long table at the door of peach coffee in Queen's Park, the light is very bright, it is most suitable for selfie" and so on. In addition, in ZOO COFFEE, Man Coffee and other stores, cartoon animal-shaped decorations and dolls usually attract girls to take photos with them.

"We welcome guests to take selfies or take pictures in the store out of self-amusement rather than commercial activities." The owner of a cafe said that they are also happy to provide their guests with an environment they like. "moreover, they will upload the photos in our store to Weibo, Wechat and other social platforms, which is also a kind of publicity for us."

What else can they sell besides coffee?

It is said that a cafe in Moscow, Russia has adopted a completely different mode of operation, where customers do not have to pay for refreshments, but only need to pay for their time here, charging 1 rupee per minute plus 50 kopi. you can enjoy free drinks and refreshments.

From the point of view of our domestic cafes, although coffee is still the core of a store, more and more other goods and functions are constantly emerging.

For example, in addition to "selling air", fantasy coffee is also "selling planners" and "selling venues". According to the boss Zhu Ze, many units and individuals have rented venues on the third floor to hold activities, from parent-child activities in kindergartens to personal marriage ceremonies, and so on. This has become an important business of Fantasy Coffee. "We can be responsible for not only lending venues, but also planning and implementing the layout of the venue."

In addition to selfies, many cafes have also become popular filming spots for some Taobao stores. The owner of a cafe said they would charge a fee for such commercial filming. After the public charge, more and more Taobao stores came to shoot. This has gradually become a revenue channel for cafes.