Zebra consumption Chen Xiaojing
The crowded new tea drink track, can it still accommodate new players?
On the 19th, Cudi Coffee, which staged a "revenge" drama, became a "spoiler", bringing a new impact of 9.9 to the long-dormant new tea market.
Continuing the affordable play of the coffee battlefield, Cudi Coffee's entry into the new tea drink can be said to have accurately stepped on the lifestyle of young people in the morning C and evening T (morning coffee and evening tea). This move not only brings new variables to the market structure, but also allows the market's attention to lock the market gap of affordable new tea drinks. As the price of high-priced tea continues to fall, this blank area will become a new blue ocean seeking to increase the tea market.
In the face of this new opportunity, Cudi Coffee's strong entry into the game can be regarded as a bottom-buying behavior. However, there are many giants in the tea market, and it will take time to prove whether Cudi Coffee can successfully break through.
Cudi enters the game to roll up the tea
When shopping, buying a cup of milk tea has become a consumption habit for many young people. In the streets and alleys of the city, new tea brands are opening stores next to each other, and the "battlefield" of hand-to-hand combat can be seen everywhere.
There's one set of stats that's pretty staggering. At present, there are more than 160 new tea brands in the country, and more than 500,000 stores have been opened, and major brands are still staking their ground. Behind the brand's expansion is the high growth of the new tea beverage track.
The agency predicts that the average annual consumption of ready-made tea by Chinese will increase from about 9 cups in 2022 to about 26 cups in 2028, which is expected to drive the industry's terminal retail sales from 168 billion yuan to 531.9 billion yuan, with a compound annual growth rate of 21.2% during the period.
After just a few years of development, China's new tea beverage brand has entered the era of 10,000 stores, with more than 30,000 Mixue Bingcheng stores and the second oldest Gu Ming in the industry has also approached 10,000.
Even so, the market concentration of the entire new tea beverage industry is still not high, and the CR5 is less than 10% in terms of the number of stores. This means that the competition will continue, and as long as you sit at the table, you will have a chance.
In the past, the new tea industry used product prices to clearly distinguish brand levels. Hey Tea and Nai Xue's tea represent high-end (more than 20 yuan), and Mixue Bingcheng focuses on sinking (2-8 yuan); in addition, almost all brands that can be named are fighting in the mid-range price band of 10-20 yuan. The price is high and the quality is good, and the price is low and the quality is almost the general perception of the tea market.
The stereotyping of this consumption structure has also made tea consumption enter a short-term stock stage, bringing "people" to the middle price, and becoming a must for high-priced brands. The basic plate of low-cost tea drinks is also seeking a more suitable cost-effective space under the demand for quality.
The trend brought by competition is that tea products are iterating rapidly, materials are becoming healthier and healthier, prices are becoming more and more close to the people, and cost performance has become the first consideration of consumer demand.
Cudi Coffee, which has opened up a new situation in the coffee market with cost performance, is very familiar with this consumer demand in the tea market, and the cost performance is the victory of Cudi Coffee. Previously, Cudi Coffee has low-key put some tea products on the shelves to test the market demand. After a period of precipitation, Liuyun series of tea products continue to sell well and become a hit. Especially in the afternoon period, the sales of non-coffee products continued to rise, which once again verified the correctness of the cost-effective route.
As summer approaches, the peak season for tea consumption is about to be ushered in. Cudi Coffee decided to enter the new tea drink in a big way, and launched the tea season on April 19 to launch new products in batches.
9.9 yuan for all things
The so-called "flat replacement" is not only a low price, but a relatively low price on the basis of ensuring product quality, which is an expression of a higher level of "cost performance".
Finding its way in a fully competitive market, Cudi was born with this kind of problem-facing gene.
In China's chain coffee industry, Cudi is also a latecomer, and in October 2022, the first store opened in Fuzhou. In less than half a year, the scale of stores nationwide exceeded 1,000, and now, this number has become 7,000+. That's an amazing speed.
In the past, freshly made coffee was the exclusive preserve of the elite in China, and a cup of Starbucks often cost more than 30 yuan, and ordinary people could only rely on quick dissolution of cravings.
Luckin saw the huge blank market of Chinese coffee, opened a small store, focused on take-out, locked in the price band of 15-20 yuan, and surpassed Starbucks in scale.
The birth of Cudi has ushered in the second revolution in the Chinese coffee market. From 8.8 yuan at the opening promotion to 9.9 yuan at the time of the opening promotion, it has directly brought Chinese coffee into the "civilian era", and freshly made coffee has become a daily drink that all working people can afford. It caters to the general mentality of ordinary people, "You can buy expensive, but you can't buy expensive." ”
In the past two years, the rapid rise of mass sales snacks is precisely because it conforms to the market trend of affordable consumption, and even the "king of replacement" MINISO has ushered in its replacement on the Internet.
In the chain coffee industry, Cudi is a high-priced replacement. Cudi's Pure Extract Oatmeal Latte, Essence Extract Australian White, Raw Cheese Latte, Raw Coconut Dirty and other products can be found in high-priced, boutique cafes with highly similar products in terms of flavor and quality.
The Pampas Blue series, as well as the Liuyun series that has exploded in recent times, are the embodiment of Cudi's ability to create explosive models. In September last year, Cudi reached a strategic cooperation with Wuchang City, and even created the "Wuchang Rice Coffee".
This time it has entered the new tea drink in a big way, and Cudi is still 9.9 yuan for all kinds of tea drinks, and it is real tea and real milk. This pricing is not a simple replication of the coffee market strategy, but the result of an in-depth analysis of the new tea market.
The price of tea drinks in the sinking market is concentrated at 2-8 yuan, although the price is unfavorable, but it also forms the cognition of "basically with high quality" among many consumers, and the price of mid-end tea drinks with real tea and real milk is generally more than 10 yuan. 9.9 yuan is the unit price of high-quality tea that is generally acceptable to most wage earners and young people.
In the coffee market, Cudi has used 9.9 yuan of civilian coffee to fully verify the flat route, and used "high quality and low price" to brush the user's perception of freshly made coffee. The use of high-quality raw materials and the establishment of its own supply chain system, under the scale effect of 7000+ stores, will make Cudi's road to enter the affordable tea market smoother.
According to media reports, during the Cudi tea drinking season, there will be more than 20 products in six categories, including raw leaf light milk tea, fruit tea, matcha, plant-based milk tea, pure tea, and Kuco ice. Among them, new products such as Yanyun Hongpao Light Milk Tea, Alpine Matcha Refreshing Coconut, and Sunny Jasmine Green Tea are all products with explosive characteristics developed for market segments.
You must know that the Liuyun Jasmine Light Milk Tea previously launched by Cudi has been labeled by users and netizens as "Overlord Tea Ji Boya's Absolute String Replacement Version".
Replacing the two trillion-dollar markets of coffee and tea may be Cudi's ambition.
There are tough battles to be fought
Since milk tea brands can sell coffee, coffee brands can also sell milk tea. The logic is the same: there is a market space, and the supply chain and consumer groups are connected.
Since its inception, Cudi has adopted a comprehensive expansion strategy in first- to fifth-tier cities in the Chinese market, and is the first coffee brand to achieve full coverage of Chinese mainland provinces. This means that once its tea products are on the market, they can be sold to the national market as soon as possible.
When the number of Cudi stores worldwide exceeded 7,000+, its internal calculations have reached an inflection point in cost. At this time, entering the tea beverage market to increase the efficiency of store operation can further reduce the marginal cost of operation.
As for the supply chain, coffee can be regarded as the "grandfather" of new tea drinks.
Many people may not know that nowadays, some low-end teas are still using non-dairy creamer, also known as "coffee mate". At present, the dairy products with mainstream tea as the base milk on the market also have a unified name "coffee milk".
Almost all of the innovative ingredients used in new tea drinks were first used in coffee. For example, oat milk and ice bock, which are currently being introduced into new tea drinks, are first promoted in boutique cafes, then expanded to mass chain coffee, and finally to the new tea industry.
It can be seen that Cudi is fully prepared for making tea. Almost at the same time, its new professional tea brand, Tea Cat, has opened stores on a large scale across the country. In February this year, the first store of Tea Cat in the country was officially opened in Beijing Heshenghui, and not long ago, new stores in 20 cities across the country were opened.
The tea business is opened at the same time, and the supply chain of Chamao and Cudi can be synergistic. The opening of Cudi's tea season can open up the market situation for tea cats and attract mature milk tea users. With the gradual deepening of the tea market layout of Tea Cat, it will become the "second moat" of Cudi.
In the coffee market, Cudi has proven its ability to disrupt and even reinvent the market. This time, it entered the new tea drink as a "challenger", and brought 7000+ stores to "chase after it", which is bound to attract the attention of the tea industry. Will the top tea brands cut prices to "encircle and block" Cudi? I believe there will be an answer soon.