Korean Coffee "Coffee with you" has reached 50 main female markets in China.

Coffee with you (caffebene) has opened its first store in Korea since 2008, and now it has opened 800 stores in South Korea. Since it officially entered China two years ago, it has opened more than 50 stores in China. But entering the Chinese market, this authentic Korean first-tier coffee chain is still a step behind.

At the end of 2011, when Coffee accompanied you to open your first store in Beijing's Wangjing area, ManCoffee, which also followed the Korean-style route but completely started in China, has already opened three stores in Beijing. The preemptive advantage of diffuse coffee appeared decisively in less than two years, and now it has become the most popular and representative Korean cafe, with a tendency to catch up with European and American brands such as Starbucks and COSTA, and also led to the rise of zoo coffee, Hollys and a number of Korean cafes and imitators large and small.

The key to becoming popular: focus on the female market

If you see a two-story cafe with large floor-to-ceiling windows on the street, decorating in pastoral, forest and other original styles, paying attention to multi-woody and retro objects, and coffee selling fancy sweet drinks with desserts such as waffle, then this must be a standard Korean cafe.

"Starbucks would never do such a storefront. European and American coffee shops usually focus on business, the decoration style is masculine, and the customers are mainly male. In South Korea, coffee accompanies you to find that this market is snubbed by women, so you consciously move closer to the women's market and do a designed business sense, with both Korean style, pastoral style, and a bit of post-modern style, which has become popular in South Korea. " Li Qiang, author of "just want to Open a Cafe" and chief planner of Zhitong Liuyi (Beijing) International Food and Beverage Management Co., Ltd.

Therefore, when the Korean version of the coffee shop is defined for female consumers, especially those women in the 20-35 age range who are dominated by petty bourgeois beauties, there is an interesting phenomenon in China: women are the main consumption of cafes in China. The proportion of women who go to cafes is very high. Beauties also bring handsome guys, making Korean cafes more and more fashionable, quickly distinguishing them from Starbucks'25-45-year-old consumers who are most influenced by Western culture.

The brand positioning of Korean cafes is more textured than that of domestic cafes, and more delicate than that of European and American cafes. The most obvious feature is the addition of leisure in addition to the light business style. The Korean version encourages a slow pace and is more open-minded to customers who order a cup of coffee and stay in the store all day than those in Europe and the United States. Although there is a "turnaround rate" in the catering industry, customers are more welcome to sit in the store for a long time to enjoy the environment, such as coffee and coffee, which even has a square table that is more suitable for desk work and a big round table that is more in line with Chinese party habits. "you feel like a guest has been here all day, but in fact he can't sit alone all day. He will probably call his friends, who will order coffee and food when they come, and the guests will help us guide our consumption, so there is no problem with a low turnaround rate. " Xin Zixiang, chairman of Man Coffee, said.

In terms of product structure, Korean version is more concise than Shangdao and other domestic systems, and does not make pizza, porridge, rice, steak and other highly flavored food; but it is also richer than European and American food, when coffee accompanies you to find that women are not so strongly receptive to caffeine products. Created a special latte series. The word "latte" means milk in Italian, so this series is actually a sweet non-caffeinated drink, such as purple potato latte, cereal latte and so on. In addition to a variety of fancy coffee, but also increased the supply of waffles and other desserts and simple meals, and in contrast to Starbucks unified distribution of food, the coffee shop has a kitchen, fresh, fresh, so to meet the meal needs. As a result, Korean cafes not only please young people who continue to decline in acceptance of European and American coffee brands, but also have more audience space. "A lot of aunts and even couples with two-or three-year-old children come into the coffee shop at lunchtime." Xin Zixiang said.

Another important distinction is visual impact. Korean version of the storefront added a lot of decoration as a highlight, and widely used "Asian color". "you can understand it as the color of the log. Of course, Starbucks also uses a lot of wood, but its wood is particularly bright, close to metal, giving people a sense of cleanliness; Korean cafes add a little idyllic style, and the affinity is instantly increased. " Li Qiang said. There are subtle differences between different Korean cafes: Hollys uses a lot of red brick walls to highlight the forest style, while zoo coffee places animal decorations everywhere to reinforce the theme. But generally like to use textured logs, solid wood chairs, rattan chairs, cotton linen sofas and so on, in sharp contrast with Europe and the United States.

Business strategy: open a big store and do word of mouth

At the end of 2011, authentic Han Fan er's coffee accompanied you into China, opening the first store in Wangjing, where Koreans gathered, and became famous by word of mouth. But at this time, the market has been preempted by diffuse coffee. Before coming to China, Xin Zixiang did Korean hot pot chain business in South Korea. A trip to Beijing (000802, stock bar) found the demand for Korean food in the domestic market. "Chinese consumers have very high expectations of Korean food, but the level of Korean restaurants is very backward." He expects to open a high-end Korean restaurant here will be very popular. In March 2006, Aijiangshan No.1 store opened in Lido. Sure enough, the business was very good, and it took only a month to get back to Ben.

In 2010, there happened to be a piece of land next to Aijiangshan No.1 store, the barbecue shop was both hard and expensive, and Xin Zixiang found a domestic demand for "enjoy slowly" cafes. Obviously, Starbucks and COSTA can not meet this demand. What can meet a little bit is to go to the island, where you can sit down to eat, play, and chat. But once on the island, there is noise, playing cards and smoke everywhere. By one o'clock at noon, all kinds of flavors come up, and you don't have any mood at all.

The coffee team is made up of more than a dozen people. After nearly a year of inspection in South Korea, Man Coffee No.1 opened next to Aijiangshan. This site was not expected, 250 meters away is Starbucks, but after the store opened, business is very good. Soon Man Coffee opened a second shop on the campus of the National people's Congress. Most stores, such as Lido stores, industrial sports stores, Fuzhou stores, etc., can be paid back in about 8 months. "our brand has started and there are no competitors at the moment." Xin Zixiang said.

At first glance, in the decoration style, product structure, coffee and coffee accompany you are very similar, so there is widespread imitation of coffee to accompany you in the industry. However, the location ideas of the two are obviously different. Coffee accompanies you to the busy business district with large passenger flow, and it is best near the street and around the corner. "it is mainly concentrated in office areas and commercial centers." Coffee with your China Executive Director Jin Liangyong summed up. Diffuse coffee likes to settle in the middle of offices, shopping malls and homes. "the third space" is a concept repeatedly emphasized by Xin Zi: "when you don't want to go home and you don't want to work, you can come and sit in it." So such a storefront doesn't have to face the street, and it doesn't matter if you hide in it. But Xin Zi made it clear: "We don't like pure business or office districts." In particular, there is no passenger flow in pure commercial office buildings on weekends. And we don't open a store to lose money, it must be to make money and return. If the rent is too high, the money you earn has been paid for, and there is nothing left, why open it? "

There is also a significant differentiation in the format. Coffee with you is divided into three formats: more than 300 square meters, mostly two-story shops; 100,300 square meters, mostly first-floor stores, moderate scale, if there is not enough kitchen space, there may not be food; there are dozens of square meters of window shops set up in areas with large passenger traffic, such as airports and railway stations, mainly selling take-away coffee. Jin Liangyong revealed that the future will also open a store with a similar area structure to Subway. Diffuse coffee only opens a large store, similar to the first kind of store that coffee accompanies you, but the area may be larger, usually about 600 square meters, and may be appropriately reduced to 400 square meters depending on the location, but usually when the store is opened, it will still be larger than this standard. "the main strategy of diffuse coffee is to first use big stores to do word-of-mouth, increase attention, and detonate the whole market. By contrast, Starbucks rarely has more than 300 square meters of stores, basically less than 200 square meters. "

(responsible Editor: Leo)