Drinking milk tea and drinking coffee used to be not the same kind of people, but new tea drinks are "matching" them together.
For example, Yihetang, there are more than 5,000 stores selling coffee, and some stores rely on coffee products to sell nearly 150,000 more a year.
This year, whether it is a first-line big brand or a small regional chain, they all want to test the water on coffee.
Can tea shops really make money selling coffee? Do you want to go to the coffee product line?
100% increase in cup yield
The store sold nearly 150,000 yuan a year by relying on coffee
Tea chain brands are reaping a new dividend: selling coffee.
"Our brand has coffee products since its inception, and now in stores in Guangdong, coffee is more popular, and many stores can sell more than 40 cups a day." Chen Ya, R&D manager of Yihetang, told me, "According to the lowest price of 10 yuan / cup, a store can sell nearly 150,000 more coffee in a year." ”
Because of the importance of coffee, Yihetang invested about 20 million yuan in September last year, and equipped nearly half of the stores with a new Coffee Doctor coffee machine, and the number of coffee cups and sales doubled.
Tea brands sell coffee, and CoCo can do it early. As early as 2019, CoCo has more than 1500 stores for coffee products.
Last year, Nesher specially developed a coffee product line in 17 Pro stores, and Lele Tea also opened a coffee sub-brand "Doudou Le" this year.
According to a Shenzhen commercial real estate source, in some stores of Heytea in Shenzhen, the number of cups of coffee products can reach 1,000 cups a day.
In 2020, Zhang Hongfu, general manager of Michelle Ice City, "changed careers" to sell coffee, and the lucky coffee he founded has now exceeded 100 stores.
The reason why tea brands collectively make coffee is because they see the market demand and see the possibility of selling coffee in the future.
In fact, many small and medium-sized brands in tea drinks have long been unable to sit still. The owner of the milk tea shop consulted me on how to take the SCA test, and asked me how to choose the coffee machine.
But the reality is that under the blind entry, many small and medium-sized brands of coffee production lines have become chicken ribs, can not sell a few cups a day, the coffee machine eventually reduced to decorations...
Why do many milk tea shops fail to sell coffee?
And compared with the difficulty of innovation of tea drinks, the difficulty of research and development of coffee is relatively low, so why are many small shops selling coffee unsuccessful?
1. Equipment sills: Imported equipment is expensive and the return cycle is long
Beverage shops sell coffee, and equipment is the first threshold.
Can meet the efficiency and stability of the imported automatic coffee machine, often more than 100,000 a unit, for franchise brands, it is difficult to convince franchisees; for small stores, occupying the liquidity, it is likely that the store is not open, the money to buy the machine has not returned to the cost.
Fully automatic coffee machine
Some stores lower the standard and buy a coffee machine of several thousand yuan, but it is also painful: the configuration of these devices is basically home, 3 to 10 cups a day is no problem, once the peak period of more than 20 cups, it will be unstable, and even downtime on the spot.
Yihetang also experienced 3 iterations on the coffee machine, "the earliest use of the drip coffee machine, and then replaced by fully automatic, but the efficiency can not keep up, in September 2019 we began to find the third generation of coffee machine, and finally tested for nearly 1 year, from more than a dozen brands selected the current equipment." ”
They are now using Dr. Coffee's fully automatic coffee machine, a machine cost less than 10,000 yuan, more than 1800 stores replaced, compared to the use of imported equipment, saving a lot of costs.
Dr. Cafe fully automatic coffee machine on the bar counter of YiheTang
2. Product sills: can not completely copy the idea of milk tea
Although coffee and milk tea are both drinks, there is an essential difference in product operation.
Many small shops directly replace the tea soup in the original product with coffee concentrate, and find that the taste is not good, coffee has its own inherent flavor characteristics, do creative collocation, and follow the taste type of coffee to do compounding.
To be linked to the taste of the original product and to provide a new experience is the essence of making coffee with tea drinking ideas.
In addition, coffee has high requirements for concentrated extraction, insufficient extraction and overextraction, which will make consumers "step on the thunder". This requires training in place so that the clerks have basic coffee techniques and judging experience.
3. Sales sills: cleaning is cumbersome, and the clerk is reluctant to recommend
The cumbersome cleaning equipment may seem like a trivial matter, but it is an important factor affecting sales - in the case of inconvenient use, most of the clerks are reluctant to recommend coffee products, and the sales volume can be imagined.
Yihetang solves this problem by replacing the equipment. "The Dr. Coffee equipment we use now, only to use 40 cups to clean once, before using less than 10 cups of coffee machine to clean, very troublesome." Chen Ya said.
4. Operating sills: Many equipment after-sales service is not perfect
The daily production of coffee has also dissuaded some store owners. For example, some imported equipment, after it is broken, accessories need to be imported from abroad, and the first class is several weeks, affecting the business.
Tea shops, in the end, is it suitable for selling coffee?
With the popularity of creative coffee and Mandarin duck milk tea, the boundaries between coffee and tea drinking have been broken. The trend of coffee tea drinking is becoming more and more obvious, and the consumer overlap between the two is getting higher and higher.
Mandarin duck milk tea
For beverage stores, one more product line is to increase a sales opportunity and seize a wave of consumer groups.
Tea shops sell coffee, the key is to find their own production program, including equipment, raw materials, promotion of three aspects.
1. During the peak period, the chain is not dropped, and the partner is fast, which is just needed by the tea shop
Different from the coffee sold in cafes, tea shops make coffee, and the requirements for the product line are: stable, efficient and convenient.
Stable production during peak periods is the first requirement.
Japan's Suntory Group's Justin coffee is specialized in providing the overall service of domestic retail, hospitals, enterprises and other internal coffee bars, including 2200 Lawson convenience stores, Suntory has more than 3,000 coffee bars in China.
Yang Chao of the coffee division of Suntory Company revealed that they also use Dr. Coffee's equipment, which has more than 3,000 units in the country, and some hospitals and school channels have more than 200 cups a day, and under such intensity, the average failure rate is less than 2%.
Dr. Coffee Machine at rosen convenience store bar counter
"Recently Dr. Ka has a new product called F4, which can solve the cup pressure during peak periods by 600 cups in 1 hour." Yang Chao said that the after-sales service of the equipment is also very important, "Dr. Ka can be in store within 24 hours, 48 hours to solve the problem, the research and development ability is also very strong, according to our customers' scenarios, and constantly develop suitable products." ”
Dr. Ka's new F4 coffee machine
It is understood that Rosen, KFC, Dole Day, illy, Tesla and other brands of coffee bars, have chosen Dr. Coffee's equipment, its fully automatic coffee machine a year global shipments of more than 50,000 units, sold to Europe and other coffee developed areas.
"Live well and not stick to people", the tea shop is the second requirement for coffee making facilities.
For small shops, it is not realistic to let the clerks go to the barista certificate, and the store partners can get started quickly and clean easily, so that the coffee products can sell well. For chain brands, this is also the premise of ensuring "a thousand stores as one".
Chen Ya told me that Dr. Ka's equipment has Internet of Things technology, and the brand headquarters can replace the extraction parameters of all franchise stores with one click to improve product standardization, which is an advantage that some imported equipment does not have.
2. Don't just stare at Arabica
For milk tea shops, it doesn't have to be 100% Arabica to be the best, and it doesn't have to be a boutique café to sell SOE.
The key is to look at the surrounding population attributes and consumption levels, do not dwell on whether it is Arabica, add or not add sugar, suitable for the target group, someone continues to pay is the best.
The key is to look at the attributes and consumption levels of the crowd around the store
3. Develop a campaign to find the coffee crowd
Regarding store promotion, Chen Ya also has a point of view:
"It's not that you can sell good coffee by putting a good coffee machine on the bar. If there is no relevant materials, publicity, verbal guidance, etc., it is still impossible to create a coffee atmosphere and find a fixed coffee crowd. ”
Therefore, finding good equipment and finding the right raw materials is the first step, and then we must take the trouble to pass on the "selling coffee" to customers.
The tea industry has gradually entered the stock market, increasing turnover and improving the profitability of single stores, which is the top priority of all brands.
The head brands are betting on the coffee track, using coffee as an opportunity to do incremental.
In fact, coffee products have never disappeared in milk tea shops. As early as 2008, Zhang Hongfu, the former general manager of Michelle Ice City, put Nestlé espresso powder, tried to add sugar and milk powder, made the first cup of three-in-one coffee, and then poured into the juice machine at that time, and designed a poster: "Cappuccino iced coffee, one dollar a cup."
Unexpectedly sold surprisingly well, in the winter, this one dollar a cup of product, can sell to more than 1,000 cups a day.
Later, the coffee products were officially introduced into The Honey Snow Ice City, and also combined with ice cream, the development of Snow Top Coffee, sold for 1.5 yuan / cup, became a popular product following the Honey Snow Ice City.
Michelle Ice City Snow Top Coffee
For new tea drinks, whether it is selling professional specialty coffee or selling "small sweet water" with coffee flavor, as long as you find a suitable production plan, it is possible to seize this increment.