Coffee with you has entered a dead move. Most consumers are still in the dark that led to the decline of coffee with you.

Although coffee has made a dead move with you, many consumers are still in the dark. A reporter from the Beijing Business Daily recently received a complaint from a consumer Xia Jun (a pseudonym) that the coffee near Zhenhua Mall on Jinan Road in Dongying City, Shandong Province, was closed with you, while the stored value card she issued only last December was facing scrapping. In fact, since May last year, the bad news such as the broken capital chain of coffee with you, the withdrawal of headquarters and the running away of the boss has been coming repeatedly. Half a year later, although the brand of coffee with you exists in name only, the offline franchisee is still trying to "make money."

Consumers are in the dark

"the stored value membership card, which was issued only in December last year, found that the store was closed after the New year. I found out that the brand was about to close down after checking on the Internet, and now I don't even know who to ask for the money back." Xia Jun told the Beijing Business Daily that she applied for a 300 yuan stored value card with you in the coffee near Zhenhua Mall in December last year, but now the store is closed, and she has not received any explanatory message from the store so far.

According to the membership card information, Xia Jun called the customer service hotline, but the message was "this number does not provide service for the time being." From the above-mentioned store information that has not been removed from Dianping, call to know that "the number has been shut down in arrears", and the relevant comments on Dianping ended in October last year.

Since May last year, coffee has been shut down with you in China. Qi Dong, CEO of the former Coffee Company, publicly issued a resignation letter, saying, "Coffee accompanies your Chinese shareholders to stop making unilateral capital advances three months ago." A reporter from the Beijing Business Daily found at that time that the coffee headquarters at Kaitai Building on the East fourth Ring Road in Beijing had been empty. Another coffee accompanies your internal staff to say that the salary of nearly 10 million yuan of coffee with your headquarters for several months is in arrears, and the company's capital chain is seriously broken.

According to public media reports in recent months, information about store closures continues to come out in Jinan, Shandong, Xiamen, Fujian, and Jinhua, Zhejiang. However, a reporter from the Beijing Business Daily found that in the registration information on the Beijing Enterprise Credit Information Network, the registration status of "Coffee with you Management Co., Ltd." and "Coffee with you (Beijing) Trade Co., Ltd." is still open, but the recorded contact number has been shut down.

Franchisees grow freely

Coffee has been with you for half a year, but the stores that have entered this circle are still in operation because of the individual joining mode. Hu Quan (a pseudonym), a former coffee companion, told Beijing Business Daily that after joining Coffee to accompany you, in addition to the previous site selection, equipment procurement and staff training, stores basically operate independently, and food raw materials are mostly purchased through their own channels. Join is to buy a brand, through the influence of the brand at the beginning of the store to attract popularity.

In the absence of franchise control of brand enterprises, franchise stores can purchase drinks and food raw materials on their own, resulting in completely different tastes of coffee tasted by consumers in coffee shops under the same brand. Some analysts pointed out that the lack of trust endorsement of brand enterprises means reducing the cost of default for franchisees, which is also the reason why Korean coffee franchisees run frequently. In addition, the above analysts believe that in the absence of brand enterprise control and management, the possibility of illegal operators counterfeiting brands to open stores cannot be ruled out.

For most franchisees who have opened stores, although the coffee accompany your brand is in jeopardy, but under the influence of the huge store base, the brand reputation will not fail in the short term. Hu Quan said that operating a coffee shop requires a lot of upfront investment, and maintaining the store operation is to make up for the loss of joining investment. It is understood that joining coffee to accompany you requires the franchisee to pay 500000 yuan in intention money, including rent, decoration, equipment procurement and other costs, the total investment in the early stage is about 3 million yuan.

The brand falls unsupervised.

If the brand enterprise goes bankrupt, the franchisee is also the victim, and the franchisee can make up for the franchise loss by legally using the franchise brand to maintain the store operation. Tian Jun, a lawyer at Beijing Jintai Law firm, said that even if the coffee exists in name only, the franchise store can continue to use the brand without losing its registered trademark and company management qualification. Without the trust endorsement of brand enterprises, it is equivalent to increasing the risk of loss. Xia Jun said, "at that time, I made a decision to apply for a stored value card because the coffee accompany your brand was very large, but I didn't expect that the brand had been lost day and night, and I had been kept in the dark." Tian Jun said that the joining behavior of coffee with you belongs to the category of franchise.

According to Article 5 of the regulations on the Administration of Commercial franchising, the competent department of commerce under the State Council shall, in accordance with the provisions of these regulations, be responsible for the supervision and administration of franchising activities throughout the country. The competent departments of commerce of the people's governments of provinces, autonomous regions and municipalities directly under the Central Government and the competent departments of commerce of the people's governments at the municipal level divided into districts shall, in accordance with the provisions of the above regulations, be responsible for the supervision and administration of franchise activities within their respective administrative areas. Consumers may report the case to the public security organ or report it to the market supervision department when the operator is missing and running away.

Whether coffee accompanies your brand vitality or not has become an issue of concern to franchisees and consumers. According to a person familiar with the matter, there are still staff to maintain the operation with you, but the headquarters has changed its location. However, the Beijing Business Daily reporter could not be reached by calling the customer service hotline and the contact number announced on the Beijing Enterprise Credit Information website.

According to the filing information of China Business franchise Network, Coffee accompany you was established in October 2012 and opened its first franchise store in China in July 2014. A reporter from Beijing Business Daily learned that the State Council issued the Reform Plan of registered Capital Registration system on February 21, 2014, and decided to stop the annual inspection of limited liability companies, joint stock limited companies, non-corporate legal persons, partnerships, sole proprietorship enterprises and their branches, foreign (regional) enterprises that come to China to engage in business activities, and other business units from March 1, 2014. Instead, it will implement the publicity system of enterprise annual reports. According to the release date of the historical annual report of Coffee with you in Beijing Enterprise Credit Information Network, if there is the latest annual enterprise report, it should be released from February to March this year.

Korean coffee is dying.

Coffee accompanies you in the popularity of South Korean TV dramas in China, with more than 600 stores in China as of May last year, catching up with Starbucks, which has entered the Chinese market for 17 years. There is a saying in the industry, "Starbucks teaches Chinese what coffee is, coffee accompanies you to teach Chinese how to open a coffee shop."

However, in just four years, there has been a shift from the expansion of stores to the precarious existence of brands in China. On the other hand, the Korean coffee brand Zoo Coffee, which is also open to individuals, has also been criticized for the phenomenon that "stores are closed, franchisees run away, and consumer cards store value into waste paper".

The frequent problems of joining stores have something to do with the lack of control over the joining management of brand enterprises. A reporter from the Beijing Business Daily once saw a recruitment advertisement on the decoration enclosure of a Korean coffee brand, including store managers, baristas and cashiers. Mr. Ma, who is engaged in coffee shop operation, told Beijing Business Daily that the manager is mainly responsible for the daily operation and publicity of a coffee shop, and the quality of coffee is determined by coffee beans and barista craftsmanship. From this point of view, the recruitment notice of the above coffee shop basically includes the core staff of the coffee shop, and the franchisee has become a cashier after the investment. Although it is not known whether the franchisee has relevant experience, it has to make people question the threshold of the joining review of the coffee brand.

Let go of the way to join

Korean coffee brands are not wiped out in China, such as Man Coffee, one of the three major Korean coffee brands, which is still developing steadily because of insisting on self-management. Opening up and joining is not a matter of color change for coffee chain brands, such as Pacific Coffee carries out strict control over franchisees by raising the threshold for joining. It is understood that the cooperation form of Pacific Coffee is the exclusive agent in a single city, with 10-15 stores in each city. Pacific Coffee related official said that the company will join the store for brand image, marketing, food planning and other aspects of unified management. At the same time, the franchisee will assist in the operation and management of the franchisee according to the daily sales data fed back by the franchisee. Industry analysts believe that "the difficulty of managing one franchisee in each city is absolutely different from that of managing 10 franchisees in each city. The form of regional agency is more conducive to the centralized management of enterprises and stronger control over brands."

Looking at the chain operation industry, the chain operation model of individual joining has a long history. Take the traditional beauty salon industry as an example, through the free joining mode, the scale of the traditional beauty salon chain is expanding rapidly, but the news such as the closure of the hair salon and the scrapping of the membership card sometimes comes out. Now, more and more beauty salon brands have changed from joining freely to joining shares. In the view of Lu Liande, founder of Oriental famous scissors, joining shares will help chain brand enterprises to strengthen the control of the service quality of franchise stores, carry out unified personnel, procurement, management and management of all stores, and protect brand image.

Source: Beijing Business Daily