What's going on with this new Starbucks that doesn't sell coffee?

It is said that Alibaba Xixi Park is one of Starbucks' best-performing stores in China, where there is always a long line for coffee at any time. Alibaba opened a new Starbucks on Nov. 13, but this "store" no longer needs everyone to wait, because this time, Starbucks has opened its store into Tmall.

Tmall's flagship store is different from what many people think, and may disappoint many fans: you can't buy coffee, coffee beans, coffee cups or anything else, and there are only Starbucks gift vouchers on the shelves, including Starbucks cards in different shapes. A total of 21 Starbucks gift cards and coffee vouchers.

It feels like the owner of Starbucks Tmall checked in without much decoration, but in fact, it was a light and clever start--

First of all, Tmall Starbucks does not sell coffee and the surrounding area, obviously want to do what they are best at omni-channel to the extreme: online coupons, offline consumption. Cards and coupons have both physical and electronic types, whether in manpower or in the supply chain, they do not require large financial and human costs, nor do they need to rent warehouses to store a large number of physical products. Typical light business.

Second, Starbucks Tmall doesn't just want to sell a few more coffee coupons, but something it has always advocated-changing consumers' lifestyles and hoping to use online channels to further strengthen Starbucks' social identity.

Many people would like to send a cake and a cup of coffee to their friends and relatives in other places as a token of greetings, often relying on the O2O service on word-of-mouth and Dianping platform, but often those who receive coffee have no demand for coffee at that time. If you receive an e-gift certificate for coffee, you have a much greater choice. In addition, when many people buy star cards offline, they will worry about face-to-face gift coupons, whether they can handle the amount of 50-200 yuan, and whether others will accept gift vouchers. The online purchase of e-card coupons only need to enter the other party's mobile phone number, you can directly send the e-coupons to the other party's mobile phone in the form of text messages. In addition, according to the actual scene of life, Starbucks has designed gift vouchers with different needs, such as "birthday wishes", "warm encouragement", "workplace intentions" and so on, to meet the maximum common divisor of social needs.

Third, Starbucks Tmall flagship store sells gift vouchers online, optimizing the user experience.

Previously, when users went to Starbucks to use buy one get one free coupons in Starbucks cards, they were often told by shop assistants that they did not have coupons in their accounts. In addition, after a user buys a star card in the store, it needs to be activated before it can be used. Now, buy a Starbucks card in an online Starbucks store, bind the coupon to your account, and use it directly at the store without activating it.

However, will the Tmall flagship store of Starbucks remain so light? Let's make a few Starbucks guesses--

Guess 1: will there be more products on the line in the future?

If Starbucks can get good results in the initial test of Tmall, it will be a natural thing to start selling coffee beans, cups, instant coffee and coffee utensils. But if Starbucks plans to expand its stores in Tmall, adding professional e-commerce staff and finding suppliers for warehousing and distribution will be the first thing to solve.

Conjecture 2: can you order directly at Tmall's flagship store?

In the face of the omni-channel strategy that Tmall began to implement, whether Starbucks and Tmall will integrate online and offline to play a new card is worth looking forward to. At present, it is not too difficult for Starbucks to promote the integration of online and offline in the Chinese market. according to the distribution of existing Starbucks physical stores, most of them are distributed in places with stable and dense flow of people, such as commercial writing buildings, large shopping malls and scenic spots.

Maybe in the near future, Tmall's flagship store can provide Click & Collect (online ordering, offline extraction) service. For users, the time of waiting in line is avoided. For Starbucks, making full use of offline stores can not only reduce the cost of warehousing and professional e-commerce manpower, but also give full play to the workload of store staff and shorten the time of logistics and distribution.

Guess 3: will the online payment channel be connected to offline physical stores in the next step?

In the United States, the United Kingdom and other places, Starbucks has implemented the stored value account function, users can recharge in the Starbucks account, the offline physical store as long as the QR code can be used to spend, greatly reducing consumers' queuing time to check out.

In China, the conditions for online payment are very mature. International chain brands such as KFC and Wal-Mart have access to Alipay. Starbucks, which has not launched similar services, when to access third-party online payment channels such as Alipay? speed up checkout time and improve consumer experience? This question, after opening a Tmall store, should not keep everyone waiting for too long.

Starbucks has come to Tmall to open a store. Do you think Ikea will also come?

Source: Internet merchants under the world