Letter | Chinese coffee, is your opponent milk tea or Lafite? Talk about Chinese coffee.

Author | Feng Ben, founder of Biel Coffee Station

Edit | Cafe sir

I believe everyone will sigh: Chinese coffee is too expensive!

Recently, almost all coffee companies have learned to come up with a data (the content is nothing more than how many cups per capita in China, how many cups next door, how many cups, how many cups, how many tens of thousands of the market last year, tens of thousands of growth, tens of thousands this year and so on), shows the great potential of China's coffee market, to raise funds to burn money, to join.

Yes, the potential is huge, but where is the potential? In which part of the consumer? They won't give an opinion.

Because they don't care about selling an extra cup of coffee, what they want is to burn the funds, which is the franchise fee.

So far, many chain coffee shops are burning money, which makes me very jealous. It is easy to understand that the Internet spends money on traffic, but does the traditional catering industry, such as cafes, need to burn money to find a profit model?

Where does the money burn? The answer is in your pocket with coffee.

Everyone envies the coffee culture of Europe, the United States, and even South Korea, Japan and Taiwan (actually the market), because people there often drink coffee and do business easily.

Although the coffee industry in China is in a "period of rapid development", in fact, what many people do is only to "liven up the circle".

What is meant by "bustling in the circle"? just take a look at the annual April exhibition in Shanghai, as well as the Weibo during the exhibition. It is nothing more than the mutual attention and flattery of some practitioners and enthusiasts, and has a dime relationship with ordinary consumers.

I have seen too many ideas like "how to promote the third wave of coffee" and "how to promote boutique coffee". This is indeed a good way to increase the added value of coffee products, because the "third wave", "boutique", why don't you pay more?

But this is just a problem with bigger and bigger than bigger.

On the contrary, it is the basic question of "how to sell freshly ground coffee", which is not very hot.

In fact, I particularly admire KFC on this issue. They really know Chinese consumers and know very well the level of Chinese consumers' awareness of freshly ground coffee-not Arabica, not fine coffee, not SOE, but the simplest word "freshly ground".

What is the crux of limiting the growth of Chinese current coffee consumption?

Price, price, price! (say important things three times)

There is no need for us to review the broken 4p theory, but it is not hooliganism to make products and brands and just throw the price aside.

Compare the average income per cup of coffee between China and foreign countries, and you can see what I'm talking about.

But why don't everyone work hard on it?

In my opinion, the maximum cost of a cafe is divided into four pieces-decoration and equipment, raw materials, labor and rent.

If you want to put a knife on the price, you must start from these aspects.

However--

How can decoration reduce the cost? That's not enough.

How can the equipment reduce the cost? Only La Marzocco is worthy of my coquettish position.

How can raw materials reduce costs? Only the coffee beans of ¥300/kg + blue bottle VIPs are worthy of our shop.

How can labor reduce costs? Only baristas with high level and good appearance are qualified to work in our store, and each person has 5 deputies.

The rent, uh, it's not up to us.

If you don't make an effort in any one piece, the cost everywhere remains high.

Moreover, the cafe itself is a kind of awkward existence of "low guest order and low overturning".

So even under the premise that the average price is so high, our "coffee masters" continue to play the "boutique coffee" card, constantly trying to raise the price of coffee and raise the unit price of coffee.

My ideal coffee drink is something that everyone can consume.

The competitor of coffee is milk tea, freshly squeezed juice and lemonade.

To fight against them is the pride of coffee people and something to be proud of, because we are driving out bad ones with good ones.

In this battle, someone is bound to become cannon fodder.

I wish I could be the one at the forefront, even if I was the first to die.

Biel was founded to sell cheap and delicious coffee. We do not pursue art-grade coffee, nor do we pursue storefronts that can be worshipped.

Our double Italian concentrate costs only 8 yuan, so we are not convinced to fight.

We hope to try our best to reverse the "high-end" impression of coffee in the minds of the Chinese people, so that it is no longer a spokesman for forcing, but a healthy drink that everyone can consume.

We need to attract consumers who think that there is milk tea and "Fresh Juice" is unhealthy; we need to attract consumers who think coffee is too expensive but are willing to try it; we want to let consumers who like coffee enjoy more coffee at lower prices.

Then, the market will be big, and the rest will be left to the master.

Source: Ka Men