Is it difficult for independent cafes to make a profit? What kind of core competitiveness needs to be built to reverse the situation?

The influence of the domestic "third wave of coffee" in the coffee industry is a bit like O2O in the catering industry, who does not participate means lagging behind. In first-and second-tier cities, independent cafes characterized by boutique coffee are also busy one after another.

What is embarrassing is that many independent cafes are not inferior to chain cafes in terms of style and taste, but they are difficult to make a profit for a long time, and some even die slowly-independent cafes are almost equated with "difficult to make profits". This has become a common phenomenon.

Foreign coffee experienced the first wave of instant coffee (1940-1960), when the epoch-making instant coffee was born.

The second wave of coffee (1966-2000), during which re-baked lattes and fancy coffee prevailed, and Starbucks, founded in 1971, grew.

The third wave of boutique coffee began to form a fashion after 2000, from the source of raw beans, coffee bean roasting, coffee production, and even the selection of coffee cups have very strict norms, independent coffee shop is its common carrier.

There are three reasons why it is difficult for independent coffee shops to get out of the profit dilemma.

1. Consumption environment. Most domestic consumers' understanding of coffee is still at the level of "distinguishing the difference between latte and mocha", and the quality of coffee is out of touch with the actual consumption demand. Most customers can't tell the difference between good coffee and regular coffee, and among those who go to coffee shops, the total number of coffee lovers who go to coffee shops is small and too scattered.

2. The problem of boss. The owners of independent coffee shops with poor management are often coffee enthusiasts who are full of feelings, rich and idle, and do not have the ability of operation and management, let alone unique resources or cost advantages, and they cannot solve all kinds of problems after opening the shop. Marketing is impossible.

3. Lack of core competitiveness and the resulting brand value. At present, most independent cafes in China can be approximately equal to literary cafes, with serious homogenization, no distinct personality and vague brand image.

After all, the independent coffee shop is different from the independent film, after all, it is still a commercial body. Although the independent coffee shop carries some spiritual sustenance, it also has to achieve the commercial goal of profit through products, services, environment and marketing means.

Chain giants like Starbucks have begun to lay out boutique coffee, and independent coffee shops with boutique coffee as their trump card will be further squeezed if they do not face up to the challenges and build their own profitability.

In a consumer market like China, which has neither coffee tradition nor rigid demand for coffee, what reasons do independent coffee shops need to understand before they can embark on the broad road of profit? Making money requires a strategy, not just about self-baking and gold extraction. You can think about it from the following points.

Based on the region and community, carry out differentiated management

Location plays an important role in any restaurant, but the cost determines that it is impossible for an independent coffee shop to choose the high-quality business district that the chain coffee shop is keen on. In fact, this is not appropriate. The focus of an independent coffee shop should first be on the taste, and then on how to attract potential customers around the place.

Starbucks coffee is not very good, better than the brand effect, cost-effective, convenient and fast, independent cafes that win by the quality of coffee should crush Starbucks every minute in taste. But in fact, there are some that can crush Starbucks, but not all. On the contrary, the taste of many independent stores is not as good as Starbucks. Low performance-to-price ratio, not fast, no brand effect, if even taste and service can not compete with chain stores, do not want to divert customers from chain stores.

Even if the quality is equal, independent cafes have never competed with industry giants like Starbucks. Independent cafes of local brands have to compete with leisure beverage stores in the region, such as Fresh Juice's shop, milk tea shop, and so on, because they share customers with casual snacks.

If you have to set up opposites, you can also regard Korean fashionable coffee shops as one, both of which are closer in size and style, and Korean coffee shops may be better in design; in terms of location, Korean coffee shops are also more likely to compete with independent coffee shops in the community and ordinary business areas to carve up customers.

The customer loyalty of the local community determines whether there is sufficient and stable passenger flow and stable profits. As for how to improve the loyalty of the community, it is necessary to adjust measures to local conditions. generally speaking, differentiation and personality are two necessary elements.

An interesting example is the pet cafe that has emerged in recent years. Similar to the Cat Cafe, HOODOG CAFE Pet Coffee recently opened in Biyun Community, Shanghai. But the difference is that not only do shopkeepers put their French bulldog pock here as a celebrity endorsement, but dog lovers can also bring their dogs in for coffee with their owners-who actually drink coffee and play with dogs and other dogs. Of course, the coffee is not careless at all, it is all made by the shopkeeper himself, and you can also drink fine coffee.

HOODOG CAFE has become a gathering platform for local pet fans, spending an afternoon drinking coffee in such a warm and interesting scene can double the experience. even if the price is as high as 70 or 80 yuan, the coffee shop is still booming, and even needs to make a reservation on Saturdays and Sundays.

The dog-themed cafe is the first in the market. It is believed that as long as a certain level of coffee is maintained, this model will first detonate the topic in the community, and then form a consumption habit, and profit is just around the corner.

When the quality coffee has become the standard in various cafes, it can not form the core competitiveness. The character and temper of independent coffee shops is particularly important, which determines the differential positioning and the impression of service. The two complement each other to form the store's character close to real life, fashionable, classical, bourgeois, dreamy, cool, warm, poetic, sports, literature and art, electronic and so on. As long as the guests can understand and feel comfortable, they will have a balance between personality and commerciality.

In the throes of the amateur shuffle, the responsibility of the coffee shop operator decides whether or not to be out.

According to the 2015 China Coffee Industry Research report, the number of cafes in China has increased from more than 20,000 in 2008 to more than 100,000 now, of which only about 30% are profitable.

Although some people criticize many independent coffee shops for selling feelings and pretending to be literature and art, if independent coffee shops want to make a profit, what they should beware of is not literature and art and feelings, but management based solely on feelings, excessive pursuit of literary and artistic tone and grandstanding.

In fact, in most cities, the coffee market is far from saturated, star dads can only occupy the core business district and senior office area, non-core business district and community space is very considerable. Many independent cafes are on the brink of death, but in fact, the market is cleaning up layman operators.

Industry insiders say: coffee is a business where values are too crowded and methodology is empty. Indeed, among today's coffee operators, there are too few people who pursue higher coffee quality, solid technical reserves, strong management skills and strong business acumen.

At this time, people are the core competitiveness, as the dominant factor, affecting the direction of life and death of the coffee shop.

The owner or operator of the coffee shop must be a compound talent who not only knows coffee like the back of his hand and is willing to spend a lot of money on expensive coffee machines, but also has to have a sense of management from the very beginning, be able to read financial statements, and have reasonable control over income and expenditure.

An independent coffee shop does mean that the boss leads the team to complete the selection, roasting and production of coffee beans, but being able to make coffee does not mean that the cafe can be run well. Operators need to sort out the work flow to ensure that every link of the work is efficient and unified. The management team provides professional training to employees to ensure that every barista and waiter is competent for their positions and provide stable and high-quality service to customers; find problems in the store at any time and study solutions; do a good job in marketing and attract traffic. attract new customers and train repeat customers at the same time; in the entrepreneurial era, some operators may also need to know how to handle capital and deal with relationships with partners and core teams.

In addition to the compound management ability, personal brand has also become the core competitiveness of independent coffee shops. The "independence" of independent coffee shops is partly due to the preference and style of the soul of the "shopkeeper"-- believing that the attraction of a shop owner who wins the World Coffee draw Competition will bring a lot of customers to the coffee shop.

Coffee + scene is not a panacea, it can only be effective if it becomes a coffee shop gene.

The cost of a cup of coffee with better raw materials is about 5 yuan, the average price of each cup of coffee in an independent coffee shop is 28 to 35 yuan, and the annual cost of store rent and staff wages in a small shop with more than 100 square meters is at least 250000 yuan. if coffee sales cannot reach a certain figure, it is impossible to survive by selling coffee alone.

Fortunately, the coffee shop is very malleable and can be seamlessly integrated into any scene, so some shops introduce book clubs into the coffee shop, and some co-organize art salons and coffee shops to promote the brand's handmade clothes. and coffee shops can try organic cosmetics and so on. However, these activities to earn venue fees, advertising for the brand of coffee + is only timely help, temporarily let the coffee shop achieve revenue, can not really make the coffee shop strong.

Instead of exploring the way of coffee + scene and finally turning it into a compound operation, it is better to integrate the scene into the management strategy of the coffee shop at the very beginning, so that the scene and coffee promote each other and become a characteristic platform. Guests are willing to consume more coffee while enjoying the satisfaction brought by the scene.

Independent cafes have serious homogenization, and customers are relatively lack of stickiness and loyalty. The unique scene can immediately form a brand distinction. The Sunflower House Cafe, located in the Art District of Xiamen University, is a typical example. Xiamen is a city full of leisure atmosphere. In addition to tourists who often come to Xiamen University Art District, there are also students, teachers and artists stationed around the university.

From the very beginning, Sunflower House has positioned itself as a "buying shop", giving the feeling of people in the surrounding community who are very sensitive to art that it is not only a coffee shop, but also a design boutique.

The coffee shop is full of groceries and designer works bought by shopkeepers from all over the country. "Buy hand Shop" creates a platform for communication between guests, and the owner is also two young people with artistic temperament, quietly making coffee for their guests and making simple meals. When asked about an object, it will tell a fascinating story.

The unique hand-brewed coffee and the artistic exchange atmosphere composed of unique designs make it get a stable passenger flow and regular customers in the park.

Start-up cafes are the ultimate platform of cafes. In the entrepreneurial cafe model, coffee is no longer the protagonist, but the carrier of venture capital atmosphere and resources. But the fact is that the start-up cafes that began in 2010 are burning from first-tier cities to provincial capitals, and the pressure for survival is even higher behind the heat. No more than 10% of the cafes are profitable and 60% of them are in a cash flow loss state.

Whether it is 3W Coffee, Garage Coffee or Beta Coffee, with the addition of the entrepreneurial scene, the cafe has become a gathering place for venture capitalists, but the vast majority of entrepreneurial coffee in the market does not have the operational capacity of mature VC, and people other than entrepreneurs rarely patronize. Except for holding venture capital activities, it is more difficult to get customers than ordinary coffee shops at other times.

After that, apart from the collapse of this model, there are only two possibilities: one is to completely peel off the core of the coffee shop and become an investment institution, but if there is no capital support, it is very difficult to achieve; second, there are too many entrepreneurs to accommodate Starbucks. I have to come here every day to talk about things.

Coffee + scene, if you use it well, you can reverse the loss, but if you don't use it well, you will lose it. The scene must be for coffee service, around the coffee to carry out special services, otherwise you may forget their own core, become chaotic and difficult to control.

Conclusion

Although Starbucks has enlightened the Chinese people's awareness of coffee, it will take some time for most Chinese to really understand what "boutique coffee" is and the culture it represents.

But the undeniable trend is that under the third wave of coffee, independent coffee emphasizes high-quality raw beans, regional flavor and shallow roasting, and the pursuit of coffee's own personality will be more and more integrated into the consciousness of the new generation of consumers.

The important task of the new wave of consumer training falls on independent coffee shops. It is not easy to win your own customers with each cup of coffee. The commercial strategy must be set early so as not to fail. For small and medium-sized players, independent boutique cafes still have a great opportunity, but they must first learn to survive and stay in Castle Peak.

The operation of independent cafes needs to return to the commercial nature, deeply explore customer needs, enlarge the comprehensive experience value of customers, fully integrate resources, and form a unique charm.

Maybe one day in the near future, you and I will sit in that Xanadu-like small coffee shop and taste coffee. You say that you like the thick and strong mixed roasted beans, just like symphonies. I say that I like the freshness and freshness of individual coffee beans, just like an instrumental solo. Everyone really experiences the beauty of coffee and gets more spiritual comfort in the process of taking root in this food category with strong craftsman culture.