Reporter | Lu Yibei
Edit | Ya Han Xiang
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In the summer of 2019, Jay Chou used a song "Say Good Don't Cry" to trigger the paralysis of music software and social media hot searches, in addition to confirming his status as an old top in the entertainment industry, at the same time, there were second-hand Hasselblad, Tokyo Tower and other attractions that appeared in the song MV, as well as a milk tea shop called "McGighie Machi Machi" (hereinafter referred to as "McGigh milk tea").
The 2018 taiwan-based brand then opened stores in Hangzhou and Shanghai. Three years later, the milk tea brand is still expanding its footprint in the mainland market. In January 2022, McGee Milk Tea opened its first store in Shenzhen MixC, and according to the public review page, more new stores are about to open.
But it may have missed the new tea drinking bonus period in the mainland for nearly 3 years.
Interface News statistics McGee Milk Tea official website, public number information found that at present, McGee Milk Tea has 23 stores in Chinese mainland, mainly gathered in East China. If you add stores in other countries and regions, the total number of Stores of McGee Milk Tea is about 30.
The epidemic is one of the reasons for the slow development of McGee's milk tea. Previously, McGee Milk Tea had 6 stores in Japan, but in February 2021, the long-term closure caused by the epidemic finally allowed McGee Milk Tea to close all Japanese stores in one go.
But in any case, compared to its initial popularity of long queues per store, 30 stores is not an ideal operating result.
McGigh Milk Tea specializes in cheese milk caps and hand-cranked tea, before Jay Chou's MV brought it to the fire, it has opened stores in South Korea, Japan, Malaysia, the United Kingdom, Australia and other markets, because of its cute packaging design, suitable for taking photos of the Ins style shop decoration style and baked Brie milk cover and other special menus, welcomed by many young consumers.
But at present, although there are still many comments on the McGee Milk Tea public review page that say "running to Zhou Dong", its momentum is not as good as before in 2019. Interface News visited the McGee Milk Tea Shenzhen Vientiane Tiandi store on January 20, and there was a queue at noon and there were many takeaway orders, but there was no phenomenon that the queue was more than 1 hour.
McGee Milk Tea Shenzhen Vientiane Tiandi Store (Photo: Lu Yibei)
In fact, aside from Jay Chou's aura, McGee milk tea is more inclined to traditional Taiwanese milk tea from the product point of view, and the unit price of the customer is about 25 yuan. But compared with the large number of new tea brands that have emerged in recent years, it seems to be lagging behind. Hey tea, Naixue's tea as a customer unit price of about 30 yuan milk tea brand can be almost weekly new, and constantly launch various types of marketing activities to maintain the heat, if compared with the middle price of the tea color, tea hundreds of ways, etc., but also spelled out the cost performance.
Another reason why McGee milk tea has not risen in the Chinese market is copycats.
Since 2020, a large number of franchise stores of McGee Milk Tea have sprung up in the market. At that time, in Shandong Jiyuan, Nanchang Nanchang County, Jiangsu Qidong City have appeared in the "McGigh Milk Tea" named after the physical milk tea shop, some netizens in the public comments commented that these stores are cottage version; in addition to the cottage store, there have also been ready-to-drink milk tea with the name of McGill milk tea, in addition to the traditional characters printed with "McGi" on the packaging, shape, and Machi's English logo, the packaging box is even printed with Jay Chou's image.
Shanghai Maji Restaurant Management Co., Ltd., the operator of McGi Milk Tea in the mainland, but the company's application for the registration of a series of trademarks such as "Maji" and "Machi" only began in September 2019 and was in the stage of "waiting for substantive examination" for a long time. This gives many companies room to exploit loopholes.
According to the information of tianyancha APP, in recent years, there have been 145 cases related to McGee Shanghai Operating Company, of which 54.5% are trademark infringement disputes, 84% of the cases are plaintiffs, and nearly half of the cases are concentrated in 2020.
Although McGee Milk Tea has emphasized that it only operates in a direct way through its official WeChat, public accounts and other channels, similar incidents are still emerging. When another milk tea brand, Antlers Lane, became popular, it also triggered the follow-up of fake franchises and counterfeit powder punching products. And the amount of energy expended to combat the cottage consumes the best time period for these brands.
And the action of McGee milk tea in the Chinese mainland market can be described as slow. Since entering Hangzhou in 2019 to open its first store, the brand has chosen to refine operations rather than expand vigorously, McGee Milk Tea officially told Interface News. Its stores will first focus on East China, but other exhibition stores do not have a specific timetable, and the operational quality of the stores that have been opened is the first priority. It was not until July 2021 that McGee Milk Tea began to enter the South China market and opened its first store in Guangzhou.
In fact, there is nothing wrong with refined operation, but in the rapidly changing Chinese tea market, there are too many brands that are constantly catching up or even rolling up, and consumers have too many choices.