Eliminate the "9 blocks 9 free mail", what is the quality upgrade of e-commerce tea?

Another year of Spring Tea Festival, the difference is that this year out of the special market.

Due to the low temperature, the "labor shortage" caused by the epidemic prevention and control, and the poor logistics and transportation, this year's spring tea will be listed later than in previous years.

In order to cope with this series of adverse effects, this year tea companies pay more attention to online channels to find new increments.

In fact, China's tea online channel sales have been growing steadily in recent years, contributing a lot to tea companies. According to the data of The China Tea Circulation Association, in 2020, the total online transaction volume of tea in the country will be about 28 billion yuan, an increase of 15.23% over 2019. In 2021, the total online transaction volume of tea in the country will continue to grow.

After the epidemic, the online transformation of tea has been further accelerated, and the current popularity of spring tea online is also a microcosm of the brand's increasing attention to online.

However, it should also be noted that under the general trend, while tea companies seek development online, inferior and low-cost tea still floods the online market, and high-quality products are sold at low prices and wage price wars with inferior products, resulting in the dilemma that excellent tea brands are difficult to break through. In the face of this mixed market, consumer choices have become more difficult.

The industry behind the online popularity

At the moment when offline tea picking is busy, everyone has chosen to buy spring tea online.

According to the data during the pre-sale period of Jingdong Spring Tea, on March 21 this year, Jingdong Tea Tea Seconds Day, tea sales increased by 50% year-on-year. In addition, in March, the sales volume of various types of tea rose month-on-month, green tea rose by 105%, of which Longjing rose by 205%.

In fact, this achievement can also be seen from last year's consumption trend.

According to the "2021 Annual Food and Beverage Industry Consumption Report" released by Jingdong Supermarket, among the food and beverage categories with the largest number of shopping users in Jingdong's whole station, the compound growth rate of tea categories ranks first in the food and beverage category, with a compound growth rate of more than 65% from 2019 to 2021. The categories represented by Longjing tea, jasmine tea, green tea, black tea and white tea have performed the most eye-catching in the past three years.

Wang Xiaojun, general manager of the retired food and drinking department of Jingdong Retail Food Fresh Business Department, said to 36Kr that Longjing Tea maintained a strong momentum of more than 100% compound growth in three years, which shows that its brand awareness is still increasing year by year. Moreover, since the opening of the Jingdong Supermarket Spring Tea Festival this year, Longjing tea has once again been welcomed by consumers.

In the eyes of many tea companies, it is not easy to achieve today's results. You know, in the past, online tea was at the other extreme, and inferior products flooded the market.

"In the past, the tea products in the e-commerce market were uneven, with a few dollars a pound of Tieguanyin, and there were also 9 yuan and 9 packages of shipping in Iceland." Zhou Nan, general manager of Zhejiang Tea Group Hangzhou E-commerce Co., Ltd., said that in the years of business exploration of the e-commerce market, this is an unhealthy state of development.

When inferior tea completes the market card slot at a low price, the breakthrough of excellent tea brands online becomes particularly difficult, resulting in online tea brands in a state of low concentration for a long time. Brand recognition is low, consumers' online tea buying experience is not ideal, and it is difficult to buy genuine products.

In addition to the chaos in the industry, for some time, for the tea category, there are also shortcomings in the online channel itself.

How to do a good job in service experience has been a major problem in the online transformation of tea brands. There are many types of tea, and there are differences in origin and process, and new tea customers often need to go through some exploration. Therefore, offline tasting is difficult to be replaced by online graphic descriptions.

For online channels, Lu Zhenghao was also very nervous at first, when he opened the Jingdong flagship store in 2015, they were not sure whether consumers would accept buying West Lake Longjing online, especially for brands like them that took high-end positioning, in the past few decades, Lu Zhenghao has taken the traditional sales model based on experience and tasting.

The problem of logistics timeliness also existed for a time. In the past, tea farmers often needed to spend 1 hour or more to deliver to the express delivery site, and the fresh tea picked often took two or three days to be sent, and the quality of spring tea that was easily affected by high temperature weather would obviously be reduced.

Online has become a new sales channel for tea companies, but there is still a long way to go when tea brands are truly online.

The pandemic is a watershed. On the one hand, the drastic changes in the market have given tea companies a wake-up call, and the development of new channels has become a "basic skill" for tea companies to resist risks. In addition, consumers' habit of buying tea online is quietly forming, and tea brands urgently need to seize the minds of online users one step earlier.

Create a Jingdong code for good quality tea

High-quality tea develops online channels, in which JD.com plays a catalytic role.

"Although tea is non-standard, some classic products have a mature mind in the minds of old tea customers." Song Jia, the relevant person in charge of the Jingdong tea category, said that the first thing Jingdong did was to cooperate with major brands to investigate products and analyze needs, and promote the rapid launch of the most popular products in omni-channel to reach old tea customers.

After saving word of mouth, Jingdong has accelerated the ecological governance of tea brands to eliminate consumers' doubts about the fidelity of online tea purchases.

To this end, in the past two years, Jingdong has accelerated the linkage with a number of tea special source sources, signed strategic cooperation with Wuyi Municipal Government, West Lake Longjing Association and other characteristic source sources, and established a quality alliance to skip the middle layer of circulation channels and directly reach users.

In addition, Jingdong will also comprehensively rectify the geographical indications of tea categories in 2021, including products identified as national geographical indications such as West Lake Longjing and Anxi Tieguanyin, and must upload relevant government authorization qualification certificates in the background to reflect geographical indications in product names.

This also means that products that are not authorized but have a geographical indication in the trade name are removed from the shelves. Maximize the protection of specialty tea production areas.

"Before, there were a lot of Anxi Tieguanyin ration tea, the price was particularly cheap, and after consulting with the local government, we finally decided to remove all related products that did not meet the market production price." Song Jia said that from the perspective of follow-up sales trends, this not only did not affect sales, but also increased word of mouth.

JD.com has also made a series of process specifications and requirements, from Shangxin to stock SKU governance, as well as after-sales service, forming a complete set of governance processes. At present, the Jingdong tea category has been fully rectified.

"The platform strengthens the standardized supervision of stores and products, so that inferior products can not be hidden." Yang Xiaohong, president of Hong Kong Tiger Label Group, said that under the standardized supervision of JD.com, Tiger Label has accelerated production and marketing coordination, while avoiding low-price sales of high-quality products or price wars with inferior products.

It is worth mentioning that in order to further solve the concerns of consumers about the authenticity of tea purchased in Jingdong, Jingdong has also jointly launched the "Tea Worry-free Insurance" product service with well-known tea brands inside and outside the United Nations. In September 2020, JD.com and West Lake Longjing jointly explored product traceability to further standardize the production and market circulation of West Lake Longjing.

A series of quality upgrade efforts have enabled Jingdong to quickly build a communication bridge between the tea brand and consumers. Jd.com's inherent advantages are also playing an active role.

The efficient logistics experience is also the most intuitive feeling of the tea brand. Zhou Nan said that compared with the 2-3 days timeliness of traditional express delivery, JD Logistics can achieve next-day delivery or even same-day delivery. Compared with offline distribution channels, this advantage is more significant, taking the pre-sale spring tea as an example, it can be delivered to consumers faster than direct stores.

Zhou Nan told 36Kr, especially for teas with high preservation requirements such as Longjing tea, high temperature weather will cause the tea to deteriorate rapidly, and the flavor and taste will be affected. JD.com can minimize the impact of intermediate links on tea quality.

After cooperating with JD.com in 2020, the delivery problem of the tea factory in Shaolian Village has also been fundamentally solved, "the same day to receive the goods, the next day the spring tea will be delivered." Cheng Kaijian, head of the tea factory, said that in the past, the wholesale market pressed to the purchase price of more than 200 yuan a catty, but now eight or nine hundred yuan a catty is not worried about sales, and tea sales have also tripled.

After playing this set of combination punches, JD.com's report card is very eye-catching. According to the data, more than 2,000 brand merchants have settled in the tea category. More and more tea brands are developing new quality tea markets through JD.com.

The intensive influx of tea brands is directly related to JD.com's outstanding performance in high-end tea.

According to the data of the tea industry of Jingdong Supermarket, the high-end tea products of tea have grown rapidly in the past year. Among them, tea products of 10,000-20,000 yuan increased by 283% year-on-year. From the perspective of the main sub-categories, the proportion of high-end products continues to increase, and more and more consumers tend to buy high-end tea in Jingdong.

"Over the years, we can clearly feel that consumers are becoming more and more accepting of buying Longjing tea online, and the requirements for tea quality are getting higher and higher." Hu Biru, general manager of Hangzhou Zhenghao Tea Co., Ltd., said that Jingdong is Lu Zhenghao's highest-selling e-commerce channel, from the opening of pre-sale to the spring tea listing period, product sales, online and offline synchronization.

Zhejiang Shifeng's high-end Longjing tea also has outstanding performance in Jingdong, especially the products of 1500 yuan and 2000 yuan and 150 grams. Today, the Shifeng Jingdong flagship store is at the forefront of all its channels, and in the peak sales season, the unit price of customers has reached 600 yuan.

Wang Xiaojun said that at present, the tea category of Jingdong supermarket is maintaining rapid and stable growth, and has grown into a TOP-level category of Jingdong supermarket, with thousands of brand merchants settled in Jingdong, and the market has formed a customer mentality of buying "quality tea on Jingdong".

Innovation is accelerating, and the upgrading of the tea industry is timely

Reaching young consumers quickly is another important reason why tea brands are actively embracing online channels.

According to the relevant report of Jingdong Supermarket, the post-85 generation is the main force of tea consumption, and shows the characteristics of high education, high income and high consumption, compared with the core users of traditional offline channels, online channels have narrowed the distance between tea brands and young tea lovers and broadened the potential user base.

Benefiting from the rapid growth of online sales and rich user demand, Shifeng has accelerated product innovation in a targeted manner. In addition to the classic product line, Shifeng has launched new product lines such as small packaging and portable suits for young consumers, and constantly iterated and upgraded the external packaging design.

"We hope to have some new breakthroughs in customer experience and sales of young products," Zhou Nan said, adding that Shifeng's product update iterations are speeding up in an all-round way. As an old brand, Shifeng is making a moderate transformation from Jingdong channel to rejuvenation.

In 2012, Tiger Biao, a herbal tea brand from Hong Kong, which entered Jingdong and relied on JD.com's superior resources, has also rapidly expanded the tea gift box business.

"In the past year, we have developed small boxes for souvenir positioning, as well as canned gift boxes for families, and developed corresponding gift boxes for the Year of the Tiger during the Spring Festival in the Year of the Tiger." Wang Wei, general manager of Tiger Label Group, told 36Kr that in order to enhance the customer experience as much as possible, Tiger Biao has also set up a professional customer service team composed of young tea artists.

With the service advantages of JD Logistics, Tiger Label has also upgraded the product after-sales experience, customers can taste it first after receiving the goods, and if they are not satisfied, they can directly return it. In the view of Yang Xiaohong, president of Tiger Biao Group, the concessions made in after-sales service are exchanged for a more convenient purchase experience for consumers, and also make Tiger Biao have higher customer stickiness.

"We pay more attention to the repurchase rate than sales volume." Yang Xiaohong said that he hopes to use better quality products to serve consumers and operate for a long time through JD.com. In the planning of Tiger Biao, the next step will be to rely on Jingdong to improve the layout of all categories of traditional Chinese tea and create a high-quality traditional Chinese tea "one place, one tea".

Lu Zhenghao, who also settled in Jingdong very early, has also stepped up internal innovation in recent years, in addition to doing a good job of Lu Zhenghao's brand West Lake Longjing tea, it has also added a sub-brand "Qingbai Oriental Tea Shop" to lay out six major tea product lines to meet the needs of different consumer groups.

Behind the intensive innovation of brands, the standardized development of China's tea industry still needs to be further improved, especially the "category, no brand" problem in the tea industry, of which West Lake Longjing tea is the most typical.

Hu Biru said that coupled with the tea and tea gardens in West Lake Longjing are in the hands of tea farmers, making it a long way to make a strong brand in West Lake Longjing. In addition, the standardization of tea is also a major problem, specifically the standardization of tea production and the unified standard of tea knowledge system.

The standardization of the place of origin is the basis for the standardization of tea. JD.com is trying to play a bigger role in promoting the industry.

It is reported that authorized by the local municipal government, Jingdong has deepened its cooperation with major well-known tea industry belts in recent years, and since 2021, it has successively opened flagship stores in Anxi Tieguanyin, Yunnan Puer, Rizhao Green Tea and other industrial belts, driving the rapid development of the famous tea industry belt online. Among them, the Anxi Tieguanyin flagship store was launched only three months ago, and sales exceeded one million yuan.

This territory continues to expand. This year, Jingdong plans to carry out in-depth cooperation with Fuding City to jointly promote Fuding white tea, help five local key scale enterprises open self-operated stores, and help 30 tea companies/cooperatives to achieve the construction of Jingdong's online e-commerce channels.

At present, the products of major core tea production areas are sold on the Jingdong line on a large scale. Wang Xiaojun said that this year's spring tea listing, the variety is very rich, only longjing category has thousands of new products listed. Jingdong Supermarket gives full play to its advantages in digitalization, supply chain, finance and other fields, provides new impetus for the development of the tea industry belt in terms of digital transformation and upgrading, origin traceability, product standardization, etc., and is becoming the industry's largest stabilizer, the largest brand increment field and the largest trend incubator.