The low-threshold takeaway platform makes "cottage milk tea" not only flood in small counties, but also blatantly enters the white-collar office buildings of first-tier cities such as Beijing. The online sales of nearly 5,000 pieces per month and the location of the offline remote and few people, the carefully created online word of mouth and the messy offline experience, make these cottage milk tea shops in a contradictory and absurd situation.
At the just-concluded National Two Sessions, the unfair competition case of "Tea Face Pleasant Color" Milk Tea v. "Tea Face Color" was included in the work report of the Supreme People's Court. The SPC report clearly states that sanctions will be imposed on acts of unfair competition such as "famous brands". The reporter visited a number of cottage milk tea shops in Beijing and found that the brand intellectual property rights of the tea industry urgently need more powerful protection.
A cup of "wrong taste" takeaway milk tea
"Wow! How sweet is it to the point of panic? Looking at the "wrong taste" milk tea in his hand, white-collar Xiaohong couldn't help but complain to his colleagues. As a young man who relies on milk tea to "continue his life" every day, Xiaohong and her office colleagues are very accustomed to opening the takeaway APP and buying themselves a cup of milk tea to refresh their minds and replenish their energy in the afternoon when they are sleepy.
"That cup of milk tea, the first sip I drank it was not right, I was full of two words: saccharin." This is definitely not a serious CoCo. Xiaohong recalled that she quickly looked through the takeaway order records, only to find that the takeaway merchant's orange background portrait and capitalized white CoCo letters were followed by the two words of miller.
"The milk tea I ordered was actually fake!" Xiaohong said that from the product name, the milk tea she bought is exactly the same as CoCo milk tea, all called "milk tea three brothers", from the appearance, they are also orange cup body, the seal is written with capital "C" letters, the cup body also has the word "coco". "The biggest mystery is that the outer packaging bag of this cup of fake milk tea only has the word tea written on it."
On March 16, the reporter placed two orders of "milk tea three brothers" of Meituan takeaway near Dongdan, from CoCo Duke (Wangfujing Yintai store) and CoCo Miller tea (Shangdu Soho store). In the ordering process, the reporter observed that the latter's takeaway menu covers almost all of the former's signature hot products, including "CoCo double spelling milk tea", "milk tea three brothers", "coco milk tea", "fresh passion double cannon" and so on.
At the same time, the reporter compared the two cups of milk tea and found that CoCo Miller's milk tea has many similarities with CoCo in terms of color system and Coco word. However, it seems that the packaging of "cottage" milk tea has been slower to update, and the outer packaging of CoCo Miller and the use of transparent plastic cups are more similar to the packaging that CoCo can do in 2020. In terms of taste, the flavor of CoCo Miller is also significantly different from that of genuine milk tea, not only extremely sweet, but also has a strong flavor flavor.
In fact, the reporter also saw a large number of complaints from consumers about this store on the takeaway platform: "This is too difficult to drink, it is completely flavored with water" "like saccharin bubbles", "I said why is it so difficult to drink, and now I find that it is not a serious CoCo", "What is a mouthful of something is difficult to drink, spit it out, the packaging is no different from CoCo."
"Cottage" store online and offline "two heavens"
These "cottage" milk tea shops with online monthly sales of more than 1,000 often have a look offline? Walking into the first floor of the Soho Shangdu North Tower, taking a full circle, and then turning around into a more enclosed corridor, the reporter finally found a small CoCo Miller tea in a corner. The orange CoCo at the counter is no different from CoCo, the voice notice of the takeaway order is constantly broadcast, and the two clerks have been busy in the back kitchen. In the 40 minutes of the reporter's stay, the store had 15 takeaway orders, and the takeaway brother hurried in and out, in an endless stream, but only 2 people came to the door to order milk tea.
Online business is booming, there are few customers in physical stores, and takeaway brothers frequently come and go... This situation also appears in CoCo Mood Tea (Guangqu Store). Through the long corridor, the reporter found the shop at No. 7 Nanli Market Passage in Donghua City, but found that the name of the shop was impressively written "CoCo Iris Tea Drink". The environment in the store is not only simple and simple, but also raw materials such as quick-frozen juice pulp and pearl coconut fruit for blending drinks are also piled up in front of and behind the counter, and even woven bags containing white sugar are directly opened for the clerk to use at will.
In the course of several days-long investigation, the reporter observed that the biggest difference between these cottage milk tea shops and ordinary milk tea shops is that their location is often remote and cramped, and they do not care whether the surrounding passenger flow is dense. "We are not the main offline business, my high season takeaway orders often 'burst orders', can not be picked up at all." The clerk of CoCo Mood Tea told reporters frankly.
Despite the brand "cottage", the pricing of these milk tea shops is not cheaper than that of genuine stores. The reporter observed the price list of "CoColi Tea" on the 1st floor of Soho 3 Building in Sanlitun and found that the price of the large cup of "Yangzhi Manna" drink in the store was 22 yuan, which was 2 yuan more expensive than the genuine store; the large cup of "Berry Fruit Tea" was priced at 16 yuan, which was 1 yuan more expensive than the genuine store; the small cup of "Coconut Fruit Milk Tea" was priced at 10 yuan, which was 1 yuan more expensive than the genuine store.
"Even if you buy cottage milk tea, you didn't expect to spend more money than the genuine product." Consumer Xiaoyue said helplessly.
Takeaway platforms or act as "umbrellas"
The offline store design and CoCo can be very different, but the takeaway APP uses online visual design, avatar and signature drinks that are difficult to distinguish from the genuine store, and the practice of these cottage milk tea shops has troubled many well-known tea brands. However, the reporter found in the investigation that the takeaway platform not only connived, but even took the initiative to push the cottage milk tea shop to consumers.
CoCo Mood Tea, COCO Tea JOANNA, CoCo Rock, CoCo Tea Allen, CoCo & Lucky... Reporters were in Dongdan, Guangqumen, Yong'anli, Communication University, Suzhou Street and other places with the Meituan takeaway search "CoCo" keywords, meituan in the information flow to the reporter to take the initiative to push these sandwiched between the genuine milk tea shops cottage shops, only in the store avatar of the extremely inconspicuous place, marked with the word "advertising".
There are also a large number of cottage milk tea shops on the Ele.me platform. The reporter searched for the keyword "CoCo" near the Guangqu Gate, and the Ele.me platform directly ranked coCo tea shops such as CoCo tea (Shuangjing store) and CoCo Miller tea (Jinsong store) before the CoCo Duke store.
In addition, the Beijing Fengtai District Market Supervision Bureau has clearly stated in the law enforcement action that CoCo tea is suspected of infringing the exclusive right to use CoCo's registered trademark, but Ele.me still impressively marked the word "brand" on its store avatar. Also certified as "branded" stores are CoColi Tea, CoCo iris Tea, CoCo & Lucky, COCO JOANNA Tea, and more.
The reporter noted that on October 27, 2020 and December 1, 2021, CoCo Duke released two anti-counterfeiting statements on the WeChat public account. The statements said: "Recently, we have found that operators use logos similar to the registered trademarks of the 'CoCo Duke' brand in the online service platforms such as Meituan Takeaway, Meituan Dianping and Ele.me. In order to avoid misunderstanding or confusion among consumers, we hereby declare that the goods sold by such operators have nothing to do with the 'CoCo Duke' brand. The CoCo & Lucky and CoCo tea drink allen, which the platform actively pushed to reporters, are among the "such operators".
What needs to be more vigilant is the makeover and resurgence of cottage milk tea shops. In August last year, the Fengtai District Market Supervision Bureau conducted a surprise inspection of 21 tea shops in Fengtai District suspected of infringing the exclusive right to use the registered trademark "CoCo Duke", and seized a total of 3,984 suspected infringing items. After only half a year, the infringing brands that have been investigated and punished are still operating well on the takeaway platform. For example, COCO tea drink JOANNA (Shuangjing store), Meituan takeaway score as high as 4.8 points, monthly sales of nearly 1800 pieces. COCO tea JOANNA (Baiziwan store) monthly sales of nearly 2,000 pieces. The CoCo Mood tea on the Meituan platform (Guangqu store), after the reporter's investigation, the name of the offline physical store is the CoCo iris tea that can be actively named by CoCo.
"If the takeaway platform knows or should know about the infringement of the merchant, it should bear joint and several liability for it." Zhao Zhanzhang, a special researcher at the Intellectual Property Research Center of China University of Political Science and Law, said that the main reason for the rampant cottage milk tea is that the cost of infringement is low, and the infringer chooses to hitchhike for their own commercial interests. "From the perspective of brand intellectual property protection, enterprises should actively use legal weapons to protect their rights through various channels such as complaining to the platform and filing lawsuits with the court."
Some of the image sources: Meituan screenshot, Hungry Mo screenshot, CoCo can be