How far can the e-commerce version of the cafe go?

Entrepreneurial cafe, book bar cafe. In Hangzhou, a place with outstanding people, many cafes have sprung up to take the cross-border route. This is not, now there is a new way to play-e-commerce cafes.

Recently, a cafe called Le Dian Cross-border Bar has been opened in Xiasha, Hangzhou. Interestingly, there are 56 shareholders behind this cafe, all of whom are owners or executives of Xiasha e-commerce enterprises. in addition to tasting coffee, you can also experience a handful of online shopping.

E-commerce enterprises open in groups.

Lin Fuguang, one of the sponsors of Le Dian Cross-border Bar, runs a Taobao women's shoes gold crown store. Last year, he had an idea whether he could gather the e-commerce enterprises in Xiasha and open a cafe together.

"at present, there are about 300 e-commerce enterprises in Xiasha, plus 14 universities, but there are few places for leisure and communication, so I want to open such a cafe and introduce resources from Xiasha's e-commerce, mobile Internet, finance and other high-tech industries, so as to achieve exchanges and cooperation." Lin Fuguang said.

Lin Fuguang's "Wulin Post" soon attracted many participants. Chen Guibing, a post-85 e-commerce company, was also an early member of the industry, and he also gathered some cafe shareholders through his contacts. "hearing the concept of using cafes as offline carriers to do Xiasha e-commerce sharing platform, many friends supported it and soon joined in."

So far, the cafe has accumulated 56 shareholders and officially opened last month.

Selling coffee and peddling online goods

Internet companies play cafes and always like to add some new attributes to the latter.

For example, Fuyun Coffee, which is well-known in Hangzhou, is actually a platform for Internet enterprise projects and capital docking. Nowadays, this type of cafe is called "start-up Coffee".

However, Ledian Cross-border Bar can not only build bridges for e-commerce enterprises in Xiasha, but also display and sell their products for these e-commerce enterprises. At present, if customers go to this cafe to spend money, they can see tea, tea sets, red wine and other products on display.

"these products come from our shareholders, and we hope to use this brand to better serve our shareholders." Huang Tao, another shareholder of Ledian Crossing Bar, said.

"at present, only products from shareholders can enter the exhibition area of the cafe, and next, we will put a QR code next to these goods to draw offline customers from the cafe to the online," Huang said. After the goods are sold, the cafe will charge a certain commission. "

How far can the e-commerce version of the cafe go?

Although many cross-border cafes have been opened in Hangzhou, their ability to operate has been called into question.

On the Racecourse Road in the West Lake District, JuCoffee, a cafe with 110 shareholders, has been open for more than a year. However, according to the person in charge of the cafe, the monthly profit and loss of the coffee shop has not yet been balanced.

Dong Jianqiang, founder of the China Entrepreneurship Coffee Alliance, also revealed to the media that among the nearly 50 start-up cafes he counted, the proportion of profitable enterprises was no more than 10%, and about 30% of the enterprises that broke even were still in a state of cash flow loss. In the past two years, four or five start-up cafes have transformed or closed down. "more than half of the start-up cafes have not yet solved the problem of survival, and they are likely to fall out in the next year or two." He said.

For the current business model of Ledian Cross-border Bar, some people in the industry have expressed concern: "it is difficult to say whether it can be effective to sell online goods in cafes. After all, the daily passenger flow of cafes is still limited. For e-commerce enterprises, it may not be an effective choice to show their goods and image here."

Huang Tao also said that since the coffee shop opened so far, the main revenue comes from catering, and the income from commodity exhibition and sale is very small.

However, Huang Tao said that the cafe is only a sideline for shareholders, and shareholders do not have high expectations for the profitability of the cafe itself. "We place greater hopes on the role of the cafe as a platform. We hope that after the launch of the brand of" cross-border bar ", it can provide help to shareholders' current main business."

As for the operation of the cafe, Huang Tao said, "We will try our best to provide catering services to ensure its break-even. Of course, it will be better if we can make money."