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"High cold" tea color can not be stretched?
Written/Starry Night
Editor/Lee Ha-lin
The "white moonlight" of the tea drinking industry has finally become a grain of rice sticky on the white coat.
After experiencing three large-scale store closures, employees and bosses to engage in verbal battles, milk tea product prices rise and a series of "bad things" of tea, now seems to have embarked on the path of "survival with a broken arm" under huge operational pressure.
Under the same market environment, Heytea recently announced a price reduction for some products, so doubts about the gap between the supply chain and management level between the new tea head brands have also spread.
The concentrated outbreak of contradictions may mean that the road of "top stream" with pleasant tea colors is gradually declining. From once representing and leading the Changsha style, to now being negatively entangled and slightly embarrassed, is the development model of tea and pleasant color that has always been "high and cold" not stand the test?
Negative entanglement, human design collapse?
On January 7, two head brands in the new tea industry with very different styles made a completely opposite decision.
Heytea lowered the price of some products, such as Zhizhi Mangmang from 32 yuan to 29 yuan, and pure green Yan from 13 yuan to 9 yuan. The price of some products has been raised, such as the signature products "Sound Oolong" and "Youlan Latte", which rose from 15 yuan and 16 yuan to 16 yuan and 17 yuan respectively.
Although whether it is raised or lowered, the amplitude is small, but the former in the market environment is tense, many raw material manufacturers decided to reduce the price on the basis of the price increase, the latter decided to use the price increase to try to survive this difficult day after saying the "monthly loss of 20 million".
As a result, the voice of "the management drawbacks of tea beauty are undoubtedly highlighted under the declining market situation". In the near future, tea is indeed a disaster.
First, in November 2021, Cha Yan Yue's official Weibo issued a statement saying that "in the case of repeated epidemics, the high-density distribution points in Changsha, the base camp, have made everyone hungry." The point-to-point statement made the viewers suddenly understand that the three closures in a year are actually a "self-help plan".
Just a year ago, when the tea was widely opened to Wuhan, it once attracted consumers to queue for 8 hours, just to taste a cup of milk tea that began to "province" with thousands of calls. At that time, the epidemic was also not completely over, but the peak of popularity may not have thought that the real test was still to come.
The tea-faced statement indicates one thing: once the situation improves, these temporarily closed stores will resume operations. But then, an infighting has pushed the tea color to the cusp of the storm, and the tea face and pleasant color of the circle powder with "feelings" and "human touch" are showing timidity.
Many employees have exploded wages and commissions on platforms such as Weibo and Xiaohongshu, and high-intensity work has not been exchanged for due remuneration.
Zinc Scale also found through a search that some employees said, "Every minute and every second must be squeezed clean, even daily meetings until the early morning." I worked for more than twenty days a month, and I got two thousand yuan. ”
The left is the employee complaining, and the right is the founder Lu Liang's response
In this confrontation between employees and bosses, founder Lu Liang quickly responded, revealing the idea that "the meeting time is reasonable, the commission is small and should not complain", and emphasized that "the company lost more than 20 million yuan a month during the epidemic, but although the employees' salaries were small, they were paid according to work." ”
With the fermentation of public opinion, Lu Liang once again responded and admitted that "the salary adjustment in November is indeed a decision based on the company's poor performance and the temporary closure of some stores in Changsha." Even though Lu Liang has repeatedly stressed that he hopes to work with 8,000 partners to find a way to resist this winter, from the current point of view, it seems that it is difficult for the complaining employees to regard Cha Yan Yue as a "home" anymore.
For Cha Yan Yue, the tightening of the environment and the contradictions within the company are intensifying the difficulty of this survival battle.
The Changsha-style development model has encountered a crisis
When the tea is at its peak, consumers are also rushing to Changsha to find out under the "flying" brand, and the cottage franchisees hang up their masks to "cut leeks" everywhere, and the capital market is also very optimistic about it, and they have run out of olive branches.
Due to measures such as not accepting franchises, not opening stores across provinces, and delaying financing, Cha Yan Yue has always maintained a mysterious color. Therefore, taking root in Changsha not only did not limit its development, but under the injection of traffic, the crazy rise of Changsha's local brands led by tea and color was formed.
Among them, a number of new catering forces such as Guo Ya Ya, Wen He You, Mo Mo Dim Sum Bureau and so on have gained a lot in this wave. According to Aiqicha, in the middle of 2021, Guo Yaya completed the angel round of financing, Wen Heyou completed the A and B rounds of financing, and the Mo Mo Dim Sum Bureau experienced five financing processes. It can be said that the favor of capital for these major local brands is obvious to all.
The Momo Dim Sum Bureau received multiple investments in 2021
However, at the same time, after the early dividends of the track gradually peaked, the pressure brought by the repeated epidemics was superimposed, and the emotional development model that Cha Yan Yue had been proud of in the past also began to expose problems.
An employee who has left Cha Yan Yue Has publicly analyzed several major problems within Cha Yan Yue. "The boss is moralistic, so he will give a good job to the old employees who have grown up with cha yan all the way." The employee mentioned that the initial human touch does make employees full of motivation, but as the company continues to expand, the level of internal management has gradually failed to keep up with the needs of new business.
The employee stressed that based on such a background, the internal management of Cha Yan Yue was chaotic, the process was complicated, and the infighting was serious. "The situation of small groups within is serious, and those who directly lead to their duties are not as good as those who will form gangs."
In addition, in the critical period of a number of new tea drinks, the tea color did not go out of Changsha in any way, but instead opened stores intensively in Changsha, forming a layout of "within one hundred meters, there is a tea face".
Before the outbreak of the epidemic, such a model could attract many consumers to punch in, coupled with a series of cultural tourism activities launched by Changsha, which once jumped to become an internet celebrity city.
According to the data, during the "May Day" holiday in 2019, Changsha received a total of 3.5576 million tourists, achieving tourism revenue of 3.53 billion yuan, an increase of 25.18% and 27.01% respectively year-on-year, and the scale of changsha's tourism reception and the frequency of screen brushing hit a record high.
Wen Heyou became one of the must-punch stores in Changsha
At that time, the pleasant color of tea not only firmly grasped the hearts of local consumers, but also used an invisible thread to involve foreign consumers. It's just that this model has highlighted a disadvantage that is difficult to hide after the outbreak of the epidemic, and the limited local consumers obviously cannot bring enough revenue for the tea color that is so dense and the number of stores is so dense, and the new tea brands are also rising. With the blessing of various conditions, it is not surprising that the monthly loss is 20 million.
In fact, a practitioner engaged in the short video operation industry analyzed the zinc scale, "Tea is a typical brand of new forces in Changsha, such as chaotic management, unclear authority and other issues are almost common lightning points." Now that the conflict has exploded, it may be a good thing, and taking this opportunity to change the team and thinking, there is still a chance to rise. ”
After the mystery disappears, how to save the dignity?
Regarding the reason for not expanding, Lu Liang, the founder of Chayan Yuese, once answered with a sentence that "the outside world is not as beautiful as in the phenomenon". Most of them are not beautiful, mostly related to the cost of high-end stores in first-tier cities, if the supply chain and funds can not keep up, it is easy to be destroyed.
This point may be proved by the tea of "the first share of new tea drinking" Nesher. In the past three years, Nesher's tea has continued to be in a state of loss, and after the listing, there has also been a continuous decline in stock prices. However, it is undeniable that brands such as Heytea, Naixue's Tea and Michelle Ice City have been superior to Tea Beauty at the supply chain level through years of deep cultivation nationwide.
In addition, Xicha, Neixue's tea, and Michelle Ice City are still constantly recruiting digital talents, and continue to improve a series of links that directly affect the efficiency of store operations and consumer experience stores, such as raw material management in the supply chain, online and offline integrated operation, and inventory management.
According to the "2021-2027 China New Tea Industry Market Operation Management and Investment Prospect Forecast Report" released by Zhiyan Consulting, China's new tea industry has entered the digital 3.0 stage in 2020. This may be thought that digitalization is one of the necessary skills for the development of new tea drinks to the next stage.
But digitalization alone is not enough, the audience of new tea drinks is more concentrated in the Z generation group, so differentiation, personalization and overall brand power are crucial. Insight into consumer needs, promoting category differentiation and ultimately dominating categories are also the keys to building a brand moat.
"Human touch" and mystery have made tea face quietly stand in the spotlight of the new tea drinking track, but the deviation of business strategy has made these former advantages no longer, and even accused of "the collapse of human design".
Perhaps, as mentioned earlier, the outbreak of this crisis may be a good thing for Tea Yan. In the new tea track where channels and products are gradually maturing, management and service have become the core competitive points of the next city. Halfway through the race, it wasn't too late.
END
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