Why does the delivery of weak coffee with low profit, high cost and high competitiveness become a chicken rib?

The field of coffee delivery has become the Red Sea, and many enterprises have even stopped serving because of their thin profits, single business model and poor operation.

On December 1, Coffee delivery Service platform and Coffee Micro Service announced that it would increase the service charge for some cooperative brands from 2 yuan per order to 5 yuan per order. This move is also widely believed by the outside world that the platform can not bear to burn money and change business thinking. A reporter from the Beijing Business Daily yesterday learned that the field of coffee delivery has become the Red Sea, and many enterprises have even stopped serving because of their thin profits, single business model, and poor operation. Coffee delivery is also considered a "chicken rib".

The "big account" shrinks and the "second account" is barren.

Beijing Business Daily reporter learned that even coffee micro-service brands including Starbucks, Gloria, Costa and Pacific Coffee, but did not raise the service fee for their own coffee brand Coffee Box. For the reason for the price adjustment even coffee customer service said that it is the business needs of the company. According to industry insiders, the main purpose of raising the service fee for Lian Coffee Micro Service is to strengthen the promotion of its own brand, so as to make the self-built new brand grow and become the profit point of the platform as soon as possible. However, the reporter also learned that even the coffee micro-service has quietly narrowed its business scope recently, withdrawing from Hangzhou, Chengdu, Shenzhen, Tianjin and other cities, and concentrating its business scope in Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou. In this regard, the above-mentioned industry insiders said frankly that even coffee actually had no money to burn and had no choice but to shrink its operation and increase the service charge.

In fact, after the outbreak of the coffee delivery market, there is now a bubble in the coffee delivery market, and a number of coffee delivery companies have withdrawn from the market one after another. The "Starbucks Coffee Micro-end delivery Service", run by Wechat, also put out a high-profile advertisement of "reducing the service charge" to win popularity on Oct. 31, but its customer service made it clear that they had given up the business just a month later. The order page of another official account called "first Coffee reservation" can no longer be opened. There are also a lot of coffee delivery platform information has not been updated for a long time, customer service phone, customer service Wechat, or began to push information that has nothing to do with coffee.

Profits do not depend on service charges and merchants' discounts

How on earth do these coffee delivery platforms make money? In fact, at present, the scale of coffee delivery service platform is relatively small, and the number of teams is also very limited, so the limitations of the region are very obvious. In addition, these platforms have one thing in common, all rely on brands such as Starbucks, although there are many self-operated coffee brands, but it is difficult to cut into the coffee delivery market.

The person in charge of Yi Dian Coffee, who is engaged in the coffee delivery business, told the Beijing Business Daily that the service fee for the coffee delivery platform is roughly the same, which is 2 yuan per order, but the service fee is not a source of profit, but is used to subsidize the distributor. The real profit comes from discounts from stores of coffee brands such as Starbucks that work with it. As long as the order of the coffee delivery platform is large enough, you can negotiate with the coffee shop and get a lower price.

According to a rough calculation by a reporter from the Beijing Business Daily, assuming that a coffee delivery platform can send 100 orders a day, take Starbucks'27 yuan medium cup latte as an example, Starbucks gives the coffee delivery platform a reduction of 7 yuan per cup on the premise of 100 orders, plus a service charge of 2 yuan per order. Coffee delivery platform can earn 900 yuan a day. But the coffee delivery platform pays more than 100 yuan a day for fuel, as well as subsidies for distributors, as well as all kinds of other expenses. According to this calculation, the profit margin of the coffee delivery platform is very low.

Mr. Zheng, founder of Hangzhou Lianxing Coffee, admitted that Lianxing Coffee is still losing money, and the company is also looking for the possibility of transformation. at present, the delivery department of Lianxing Coffee has been outsourced to partners, while Lianxing Coffee focuses on operating users. to pave the way for the launch of new products and services in the future.

The heavy distribution of goods is the pain point.

Mr. Zheng told the Beijing Business Daily that at present, almost all coffee distribution platforms are facing two major pain points: thin profits at the commodity end and too heavy at the distribution end. Only some platforms with financial advantages can barely survive, but they are not likely to last. In addition, coffee delivery platforms also face fierce competition. Coffee shops in busy business areas are densely distributed, and many coffee shops also provide delivery services. It is worth noting that ele.me, Baidu takeout, Meituan takeout have long been cut into the field of coffee delivery, and the choice of coffee brands is more complete, becoming a member can also be free of delivery fees.

The head of Yi Dian Coffee said that in order to improve its competitiveness, Yi Dian Coffee is considering extending its service to the suburbs of Shanghai. "the demand for coffee delivery services in the high-tech industrial parks in the suburbs is no less than that in the bustling business district," said the head of Yi Dian Coffee. But the person in charge also admitted that easy coffee does not consider expanding its business to cities outside Shanghai, "the pressure to expand to other places is too high".

It is still difficult to break through by increasing the category of self-built brands.

In the course of the investigation, a reporter from the Beijing Business Daily also found that desserts, fruits and other commodities were added to many coffee distribution platforms. "if you want to change the current situation of thin profits and heavy distribution, unless you can develop your own coffee brand and make your own goods." Mr. Zheng said bluntly, "but how to build users' awareness of their own brand has become a new problem." The person in charge of easy Coffee also said that in order to reduce the pressure on the distribution side as much as possible, easy coffee chose to use cars to distribute uniformly to the areas where the order was concentrated, so as to reduce the number of distributors and save labor costs.

However, the outside world is not optimistic about the coffee delivery platform, some analysts pointed out that for the coffee delivery platform, customers' loyalty to them is not high, the reason why they unanimously choose Starbucks, mainly because users are loyal to the Starbucks brand, so the self-built brand can not guarantee that people will buy it. In addition, the major delivery platforms are the biggest competitors, and coffee delivery will sooner or later be carved up by takeout giants.

Source: Beijing Business Daily (Beijing)