The Theory of Cafe Evolution in China: chain Brand expansion accelerates the explosion of demand for many years

Is the cafe springing up everywhere, a burst of demand that has accumulated for many years, or a market bubble?

Xin Zixiang, the president of Man Coffee, is very busy recently because he is going to open a lot of new stores. He will not only supervise the 20 new stores under construction, but also plan for the 60 stores that have already been signed and will be built.

Since the first store was settled in Wangjing in Beijing three years ago, Man Coffee has opened 26 stores across the country, including Chengdu, Hangzhou, Shanghai, Wuhan, Taiyuan, Fuzhou and Zhengzhou, and 14 in Beijing alone.

"within 10 years, we will open 3000 houses," said Xin Zixiang, a short Korean with a cigar in his hand, who was optimistic about China's coffee shop market and made big promises.

It is undeniable that Xin Zi is not the only one who is optimistic about China's coffee shop market. Starbucks, a coffee chain giant, says it will open 1500 stores in China by 2015, almost double its current size. Costa, the fastest store opening in China, also proposed a plan to "open 250 new stores within three years" this year. Pacific Coffee, which is backed by China Resources Real Estate, also opened its 100th store on Xiushui Street in Beijing at the beginning of this year.

A variety of cafes focusing on market segments are also springing up. Garage Coffee, 3W Coffee and Beta Coffee are aimed at Internet users, while Beijing's fisheye Coffee and Shanghai's quality Center Coffee focus on promoting boutique coffee, as well as jagged coffee and even coffee that provide coffee delivery services. what's even more bizarre is that a shirt shop called "Kedney Shirt" has also sold coffee.

According to statistics, there are 13600 cafes in China, and this number is growing every day, and the growth rate of the Beijing market is as high as 18%. In Hangzhou, more than 10 new coffee shops opened in May, while the average number of new coffee shops in Hangzhou was only 20,30 in previous years, according to statistics from the Hangzhou Coffee Western Food Association.

The cafe industry in China is really hot. But is this a demand explosion that has been accumulated for years, or is it a market bubble?

The surviving pathfinder

Turning the clock back 15 years, cafes were not even a business in Beijing at that time, because for most Chinese, cafes were a place far away from their lives.

It was at that time that Zhuang opened the first carving time Cafe on Chengfu Street at the east gate of Peking University, selling freshly ground coffee. At that time, like most Chinese, Zhuang didn't know much about making coffee, and sometimes he had to rely on foreigners who came to the store to guide him from time to time. This is Beijing in 1997.

Big Cat, a barista at fisheye Cafe, came into contact with freshly ground coffee as early as the 1990s, thanks to his work experience in a foreign company. "at that time, coffee powder could only be bought at the Friendship Mall and was packed in the same jar as milk powder, each costing one or two hundred yuan. Coffee pots are even more difficult to buy. They are all imported. A smallest American coffee pot costs 300 to 400 yuan, which is equivalent to a month's salary. " Big Cat recalled, "to talk with friends, either to the teahouse or to the bar in Sanlitun, there is really no coffee shop to go to."

Shangdao Coffee, which originated from Taiwan, also entered Hainan in 1997 and expanded rapidly in the form of a chain franchise. so far, there are more than 1300 stores all over the country. Before Starbucks entered, it accounted for 90% of the Chinese coffee shop market. But strictly speaking, Shangdao Coffee is not a real cafe. Shangdao Coffee not only sells coffee, but also sells a variety of tea drinks in pots. There are all kinds of Chinese rice in the food, rather than desserts and sandwiches in ordinary cafes. The layout is mainly private rooms, not the open space of ordinary cafes.

The coffee shop really entered the life of the Chinese people from the time Starbucks entered the Chinese market in 1999. In addition to selling coffee, Starbucks has spared no effort to convey the "coffee culture" to the Chinese people and to cultivate the habit of drinking coffee among Chinese young people.

"Starbucks brand is better than coffee," founder Schultz wrote in his autobiography, "putting your Heart into it." It aims to provide consumers with a sense of romance. This romantic feeling is reflected in the romantic color Starbucks gives to coffee beans and makes everything in the store romantic and pleasant: jazz, art photos posted on the wall, the style of chairs. This kind of "romance" was labeled as "petty bourgeoisie" by the Chinese in the early days, and it has a fatal attraction to Chinese young people in the new era.

"in China, in the past 10 years, because of the painstaking efforts of pathfinders such as Starbucks and Costa, a wave of people have developed the habit of drinking coffee and the habit of labeling themselves with coffee, and their spiritual and material enjoyment has become labelled." Wang Jiang, an investor in "Lian Coffee", a delivery coffee service, summarizes. He is also known as dynamic Tianhui CEO, a mobile Internet app developer whose app flight butler was recently bought by Ctrip with a rumored investment of no less than Rmb100m.

An interesting phenomenon is that carving time, Shangdao Coffee and Starbucks, the pathfinders of the Chinese cafe industry, have all survived, which is rare in other industries.

Mobile Internet promotes the third Space

Cafes are becoming less and less of a place to drink coffee.

"there is no place in China to sit down and chat with friends," Xin Zixiang believes. Even if there is no coffee, there will be other cafes to provide such a place known as the "third space."

"there are teahouses in China, but the prices of tea in teahouses vary greatly, ranging from a few hundred yuan to dozens of yuan per cup, so which one would you like to invite someone to drink tea to? This is a very complicated problem. " Xin Zixiang said that coffee is different, a cup of coffee is dozens of yuan, everyone knows this price before going in, there is no burden.

Chuang Shih-li has summed up the secrets of cafes. He believes that "openness and communication are the basic rules in cafes."

On this point, Douban company CEO Abei has an analogy. "I always think Douban is like an online 'carving time,'" he said. People like cafes not because the coffee is the best in the world, or because the food is the best in the world, just because it creates a space where you can sit down and talk.

(responsible Editor: Leo)