Radar Finance and Economics Wen | Zhang Kaijing, ed. | The Deep Sea
Dangdang founder Li Guoqing's first Weibo in 2022 was given to Luckin Coffee.
Recently, Li Guoqing posted a blog saying, "Ruixing pushes Hua Kui, old Li is very angry!" It said in the video that China imports more than 100 tons of Huakui coffee beans from Africa a year, and Luckin bought out more than 90 tons, and questioned whether this move constitutes a hidden monopoly in the upstream supply chain. In addition, Li Guoqing believes that the use of huakui coffee beans for chain coffee is purely a spoiler, which will cause the price of specialty coffee beans to rise, so that people who really do hand punches, boutique products and cafes have no beans to use.
However, for Li Guoqing's voice, most netizens do not "buy it". "Don't remind me that I don't know that Ruixing has entered the flower queen", "It's delicious, I manage so much", "Why can't you use good coffee beans for consumers to drink"... In the comments section, opposition rose and fell. Some netizens said that Li Guoqing and Ruixing were working together to hype.
There are also views that Li Guoqing's move is to "rub" Luckin traffic, after all, the current performance of Luckin is booming, and Li Guoqing's live wine business also needs traffic attention.
It is worth mentioning that from publicly declaring that he will not go live, to carrying goods with official seals in his pants belt, Li Guoqing has changed from a high-achieving student of Peking University and a CEO of a listed company to a "Qingzi" in the mouths of netizens.
Li Guoqing public diss Ruixing
"Old Li, I'm going to publicly diss Ruixing coffee today." At the beginning of the video, Li Guoqing made his position clear.
Immediately after, Li Guoqing said that some friends complained to themselves that good coffee beans are now getting harder and harder to buy, and the price has risen a lot, and he thought it was affected by the epidemic, until he saw the new product "Hua Kui dirty" officially pushed by Luckin.
"China only imports more than 100 tons a year from Africa, and it buys out more than 90 tons alone." I don't know if this is bragging or not, and I don't want to help Luckin advertise. But old Li wants Ruixing, aren't you just engaged in monopoly? The so-called hidden monopoly of the upstream supply chain. ”
Li Guoqing believes that Ruixing's move "will definitely make those who really drink hand punches, do fine products, cafes, and finally have no beans to drink, no beans to do, or beans to increase the price is particularly expensive." ”
It is worth mentioning that in the process of evaluating Ruixing, Li Guoqing did not forget to do a publicity for his live broadcast with goods: "You see my old Li, whether it is doing Dangdang Network, or doing wine with goods now, or doing morning and evening reading, I have not thought of monopolizing the source." It's just that each of the goods selected by Old Li Yan is carefully selected by our team, and the price is more affordable. ”
Finally, Li Guoqing also has a point of view, that is, "Luckin is not suitable for specialty coffee". Because in his view, other chain coffee shops do not have a resume of specialty coffee, and ordinary consumers cannot distinguish the difference between the taste of fine beans and non-fine beans.
"What is the difference between raw coconut lattes using fine beans and not fine beans, isn't this a waste of high-quality resources?" In the end, people who really do hand punches and drink fine products can't drink, isn't this the end of the world? ”
Radar Finance combed Li Guoqing's Weibo and found that the spitting luckin purchase of Huakui fine beans was the first Weibo it sent in 2022. In 2021, most of Li Guoqing's Microblogs are related to his own entrepreneurial content, including the promotion of business plan coaching classes, morning and evening reading and live streaming, as well as the forwarding of some good articles and his own comments on current affairs, almost never involving negative comments on a company. The last time Luckin received widespread attention was a month ago when it issued its financial report.
However, Radar Finance noted that whether it is Weibo or Douyin platform, Li Guoqing's views are rarely agreed by netizens, and the video has been widely questioned as advertising for Luckin.
Luckin officials also responded in Weibo, "Thank you Teacher Li for worrying and caring about + reverse carrying goods." It also said: "More than 90 tons of huakui were won in overseas bidding, and it is a bit too intimidating to say that the upstream monopoly is a bit too scary." Luckin's specialty coffee has been two years, in addition to Hua Kui, Yunnan, Yega... Specialty coffee is not elite coffee, good beans are fundamental. ”
Regardless of whether diss is part of Li Guoqing's marketing plan, the reality is that the Huakui series is "selling out" again. According to the statement released by Luckin Coffee on January 11, the market after the launch of the Huakui series was extremely hot, and recently some cities and stores have been sold out, and the more than 90 tons of Huakui beans purchased have been drunk nearly half in just 10 days.
Wasting quality resources? Specialty coffee reproduction has become possible
Luckin first became acquainted with Hua Kui in December 2021. At that time, Luckin had officially announced that it had signed a "super big order" for purchasing Ethiopian specialty coffee beans in Shanghai. As a famous specialty coffee in Ethiopia, Hua Kui is a highlight of this "big order".
It is understood that Huakui coffee beans are named after the famous Buku Abel estate in the Guji Hambella production area of Ethiopia, and its 2,000-meter high altitude and changeable micro-climate have a unique flavor.
In The Buku Abel Estate, only the best batch of coffee beans per year is called Hua Kui, and in 2017, a Hua Kui coffee bean from buku Abel Estate in Hambella, Ethiopia, won the TOH Sunshine Group Championship, thus becoming famous in the world of specialty coffee.
Luckin, which has more than 5,000 chain stores in China, has made a new exploration of the quality of coffee beans, which is a good thing, why is Li Guoqing accused of "wasting high-quality resources"?
Radar Finance noted that behind Li Guoqing's voice, there is a difference in the coffee industry on the consensus of specialty coffee and chain coffee.
In the past market, specialty coffee practitioners have always been self-satisfied with good raw materials, unique craftsmanship, and ritualistic procedures, but this also means that specialty coffee cannot achieve large-scale batch replication. Correspondingly, although some veteran coffee lovers pursue the exploration of coffee flavor, most coffee consumers still have only functional needs for coffee.
From this point of view, Li Guoqing seems to be in the capacity of the representative of specialty coffee, in the chain coffee advice. "Like hua Kui this kind of coffee beans, I understand a little, you have to bake a little bit of fruit acid, dirty it is best to do their own hand punch, and finally pull a flower or something, that is called respect for this coffee." 」
However, Luckin also gave feedback at the first time: "Dirty does not need to pull flowers. ”
In addition, many people in the industry pointed out that the flavor of coffee brought by hand punching is not absolute. Although it can sometimes reflect the flavor of a cup of coffee by 85% and 90%, in most cases, it may only be 50% and 60%, which is not a small difference in stability from the automatic process that can reach 75% and 80%.
And with the development of domestic coffee companies, the proposition of large-scale replication of specialty coffee is also becoming possible.
According to industry insiders, the first step in the research and development of specialty coffee is to find good beans that can give full play to their own tonality and adapt to the market through the joint research and development of multiple coffee masters. After finding, it is necessary to repeatedly adjust the degree of baking and curve, the degree of grinding particles, the water temperature and direction of brewing, and carry out hundreds of collocation relationships until the optimal value is found.
For its part, Luckin's exploration of specialty coffee began in 2020. At that time, Luckin launched the SOE specialty coffee line named "Little Black Cup", and the first product was Yega Sheffield SOE.
SOE refers to "espresso made from single-appellation coffee beans," and Yega Shefi is a small town in Ethiopia known as "one of the highest coffee-producing regions in the world."
In addition, in 2021, Luckin Coffee also signed a large order with one of the best quality coffee producing areas in Pu'er, Yunnan, through partners, and the coffee beans used in its SOE Yunnan Red Honey series are from this production area.
At present, specialty coffee has passed the preliminary test of the market. According to a post-95 coffee consumption survey data initiated by Nandu Retail Lab and Nandu Poll Center, among the factors of multiple repurchases, the choice of "launching new flavors", "more diversified purchase channels, more accessible coffee" and "launching seasonally limited/co-branded products" ranked in the top three, accounting for 24.41%, 23.29% and 14.45% respectively, and the more coffee high-frequency consumers value product innovation.
In the Li Guoqing video comment area, netizens' "defection" to Luckin also explains the market's acceptance of Huakui products from the side.
Live selling wine, what is the future?
However, it is not the first time that Li Guoqing has been "punched in the face".
In recent years, due to incidents such as snatching official seals and scolding his wife, Li Guoqing has become a celebrity, and the story of "Celebrating the Year of Chongqing" has also been widely circulated on the Internet. Recently, Lao Li has become obsessed with live streaming with goods.
"If an entrepreneur does self-media, earns advertising money or brings goods, I think it's ridiculous." In 2020, in the face of Luo Yonghao, who entered Douyin with a high profile to open the road of live broadcasting with goods "true return", Li Guoqing once said. It also said, "My fan appeal is not at all inferior to Luo Yonghao." ”
But not long after, Li Guoqing sold his new entrepreneurial project "Morning and Evening Reading" membership card in the Taobao live broadcast room. It is worth noting that compared with Luo Yonghao's first live broadcast with goods exceeding 100 million turnover, Li Guoqing finally realized less than 500,000, and there is still a big gap between the two in terms of fans.
Subsequently, Li Guoqing entered Douyin and began to share entrepreneurial dry goods, and after accumulating hundreds of videos, he chose to land on Douyin's live broadcast room on April 23, 2021, World Book Day, and opened the debut of Douyin. However, the data shows that the total sales of the live broadcast products are still only in the early 600,000.
Seeing that selling books did not make money, Li Guoqing began to sell wine. He said that his live broadcast is not because he has no money, because when he founded it, he was free of wealth. "Now that live streaming is rampant with fake goods, buddies really can't watch it, and Old Li is going to shoot."
Because the main liquor sold in the live broadcast room, Li Guoqing was also jokingly called "Qingzi" by netizens, and the protagonist of the "PanGa's Friendship" incident, Pan Changjiang "Panzi", Xie Mengwei "Gazi" and became the "three sons of Douyin". Li Guoqing also sold the Feitian Moutai that he once called the "IQ tax", and his blunt statement said that sometimes it is necessary to use Moutai to fill his face.
In addition to habitually being punched in the face, Li Guoqing is also good at "rubbing traffic".
In its Douyin number, Li Guoqing often mentions divorce incidents and official seal snatching incidents. In the live broadcast, he also said that he "very much regrets having had two domestic violences in his marriage." In order to create momentum for his live broadcast brand "Old Li Yanxuan", he directly lifted his jacket in the live broadcast room to show that he was pinned to the waistband of his pants when he was officially sealed, "The official seal is not assured where it is placed, so he simply hangs it on the waistband of his pants." It is understood that on the day of the hot search on the official seal, Li Guoqing increased the number of fans by 29,400.
When selling his own entrepreneurship class, Li Guoqing also said: "Relying on a beautiful PPT can get financing, which is not only something Jia Yueting can do, every entrepreneur can do it." ”
After Yu Minhong announced that he would test the water live with goods, Li Guoqing also tried to "persuade each other with good words". "Old Yu be careful, this water is very deep, don't put all the wisdom of your past life into it."
In Li Guoqing's view, live streaming with goods is his third entrepreneurship, and he has also set himself a sales target of 3 billion yuan to 10 billion yuan per year, determined to become the top three anchors in the industry.
However, in December 2021, some statistics said that Li Guoqing's sales of goods on the 30th exceeded 20 million yuan, according to which Li Guoqing still needs a lot of efforts to achieve his goal within one year.
In fact, since the market was affected by the epidemic, many entrepreneurs have tried to live stream goods, but the big anchors who are currently doing well in the industry are rarely entrepreneurs. Dong Mingzhu has handed over the baton to his "successor" Meng Yutong, Yu Minhong's several live broadcasts are not satisfactory, and Luo Yonghao's success, on the one hand, is inseparable from the strong support of Douyin, on the other hand, in the field of enterprises, Luo Yonghao also has a big gap with several other big guys.
In this context, Li Guoqing's live broadcast of selling wine is difficult to say that it is bright.
Note: This article is the original of Radar Finance (ID: leidacj). Unauthorized reproduction is prohibited.