After years of market cultivation, coffee has become a part of many people's lives. Not only are there more and more people drinking coffee, but various chain coffee chains and independent coffee shops have also appeared around us more frequently.
However, affected by the epidemic, chain coffee brands began to shrink their strategies, Starbucks announced the closure of 400 stores in North America, luckin coffee "shut down and turn" domestic stores... In this context, how have individually run independent coffee shops been affected? And how do you respond to the challenge? In this regard, the reporter interviewed the operators of three independent coffee shops, revealing the survival status of coffee shops under different business models.
Po Coffee: Insisting on takeaway during the epidemic has ushered in a turnaround
Operating time: about 1 year
For Zeng Lin, drinking a cup of coffee after a busy work is a very pleasant thing. So when she came up with the idea of quitting her job to start a business, the first thing that came to mind was to open an independent coffee shop.
As a cross-border white, she and her partner first signed up for a coffee training class, and then began to design menus and debug products, preparing for about a month. In April 2019, they opened a small coffee shop near the core area of guanyinqiao business district, with an area of only more than 20 square meters, providing more than ten kinds of coffee, tea and desserts.
"There are only two of us in the whole store, and we are both the boss and the employee, which is no easier than when we went to work before." Zeng Lin said that because running an independent coffee shop to bear its own profits and losses, there are still many peer competition around them, which also makes them more soberly aware that opening a coffee shop is not only to achieve an "ideal life".
The first is the location, the store is located in the bustling business circle, the passenger flow is large, but the surrounding chain coffee, independent coffee shops are also very many, resulting in the initial opening of the cup is not high, coupled with the high rent, once let them feel the pressure. The second is brand awareness, the fame of independent coffee shops is not as good as chain coffee, customer cultivation needs a certain amount of time, if you want to drain in the short term, you need to ask Internet celebrities, self-media, etc. to do marketing, small shops are difficult to bear such costs.
"Without the aura of an influencer, the price that everyone is willing to pay for a niche coffee shop will not be too high." Out of this realistic consideration, we decided to take the cost-effective route and gradually attract customers by word of mouth. She said that after more than a year of deep cultivation, almost one-third of the customers who come to the store are repeat customers.
When it comes to the impact of the epidemic on independent coffee shops, Zeng Lin believes that there is no doubt about the impact, but there are both challenges and opportunities.
The challenge is that people are closed during the epidemic, and the decline in consumption has led to a decline in business income. The opportunity is that in the case of a large number of other coffee shops closed, they have been insisting on providing takeaway services, so that more people have taken this opportunity to recognize this small coffee shop, and now business is not only picking up, but also better than before the epidemic.
"With Nestlé, Starbucks, and even Luckin Coffee nurturing the market, consumers are now more and more willing to drink coffee. For independent coffee shops, now is a good time to develop, on the one hand, the market is still in its infancy, on the other hand, consumer acceptance is increasing, as long as it makes characteristics, there are opportunities for development. ”
FIKA by JEAN Yang: "Coffee + Wine + Flowers" to achieve complementary formats
Operating time: about 6 years
Also because of her love of coffee, in May 2014, Li Bo'er quit her stable job and returned to Chongqing from Chengdu to start a business. Her partner, who came back from studying abroad and made coffee, desserts and bartending, decided to work together to open a coffee shop.
The first time she opened the store, she and her partner set their sights on an undeveloped community commercial street. Unexpectedly, two years have passed, there is no news of the shopping mall that was originally planned to open, and the business of coffee shops is getting weaker and weaker.
In 2017, she began to look for a new location, determined to start over in another place. Soon, a small single-family house in the enterprise park where office workers gathered was successfully liquidated. This time, the coffee shop is integrated into the "micro bar", selling coffee during the day and focusing on cocktails in the evening. After finding that the compound format worked well, she transformed the second floor into a bar, supporting most of the revenue of the entire coffee shop. Soon after, a flower shop was introduced on the first floor.
Under the integration of coffee, wine and flowers, the coffee shop has attracted a wave of customers and slowly gathered some loyal fans.
By this year, the coffee shop is gradually on track, and she plans to renovate the store and upgrade the catering. Who knew that when the epidemic came, the rhythm was disrupted, and he also used his savings to make up for the wage expenditure during the epidemic.
After surviving the epidemic "fever", the coffee shop resumed its previous sales after reopening for a month. But changes have also come, and fewer customers have come to the store for a drink than ever before. In order to make up for the decline in revenue of this format, from May, desserts such as snacks and pastries were added to the store to add some revenue.
"It's not easy to be an independent coffee shop, especially in a competitive situation, and it's difficult to make a profit on coffee alone. Therefore, we hope that by constantly exploring and integrating new formats, we can collide with sparks and make coffee shops go further. Li Bo'er said.
Warm light coffee: online takeaway, offline activities drainage
Operating time: about 7 years
Before opening a coffee shop, Wu Fei was a barista. In 2013, the couple opened a coffee roasting training studio in the Hongding International Office Building in GuanyinQiao, and after gaining word of mouth and popularity, they have always hoped to have a single-family building that makes both coffee and desserts.
So, in 2017, they moved the store to the Meow Er Shi Cultural and Creative Park, rented a whole building, the first floor to operate coffee, the second floor to operate coffee pastry training courses and agent sales of coffee utensils. Soon after discovering that the traffic of the Cultural and Creative Park was very unstable, the focus of the business shifted to the training courses and equipment sales on the second floor.
"The early operation was not bad, which was to fill the gap in the Chongqing market segment at that time, although the cost was higher, but the overall profit was profitable." Until 2019, we began to feel the pressure of operation, followed by the epidemic, the impact on the entity is relatively large, and we have to make operational adjustments. Wu Fei said that in order to reduce operating costs, they moved out of the original Cultural and Creative Park in July this year and tried to open different stores to explore the development model that suits them best.
Up to now, Warm Light Coffee has 3 coffee shops and 1 coffee pastry college in Chongqing. Among them, 3 coffee shops are located in shopping malls, communities, and cultural and creative parks, and the formats are different for different locations and customer groups.
"During the epidemic, it was difficult to operate, and it was not until May that it gradually recovered. In terms of response measures, we mainly rely on more refined management, try online business, and hold drainage activities in offline stores. For example, in the case of closing stores offline, online channels have been opened to sell coffee beans, coffee powder and other products. After the store resumed operations, activities such as coffee salon sharing sessions were held to promote the recovery of customer flow. ”
He believes that the epidemic has accelerated the reshuffle of the industry, especially for independent coffee shops. If you don't want to be eliminated, you need coffee shop operators to tap their own advantages, find out the positioning, and take transformation measures in a timely manner to adapt to the new situation and new needs.
Reporter's Observation》
The unexpected arrival of the epidemic not only made the coffee giants feel the "pressure", but also accelerated the reshuffle of independent coffee shops. In 2020, survival is a top priority, whether it is for chain brands or independent coffee shops.
From the perspective of the overall development trend of the market, the competition in the coffee market is becoming more and more similar to that of the tea industry. The same category has broad prospects, and more and more entrants are entering the game. The difference is that tea drinking has a deeper foundation in China, and coffee consumption habits are still being cultivated, so coffee is still in the incremental market and has not yet reached the stage of stock competition.
Affected by the change of consumption habits and the epidemic, digital transformation has almost become the same choice for everyone. On the one hand, due to the closure of offline experience scenarios, the transfer of consumption to online has been accelerated, and on the other hand, the maturity of online channels is sufficient. For independent coffee shops, whether to open online channels will also determine their survival status to a certain extent, which is a link that cannot be ignored.
Innovation is another factor affecting the survival of independent coffee shops. Compared with chain coffee shops, independent coffee shops often do not have an advantage in store scale, financial strength, and brand influence, but they can better jump out of the standardized program and flexibly respond to market challenges. How do you let customers choose themselves over other brands? As presented in the above cases, independent coffee shops should make a fuss about innovation, innovate in a timely manner, such as formats, products, services, etc., and walk out of the road of differentiated development.
Upstream News Chongqing Business Daily reporter Tang Xiaobei Wu Jiawen intern Cheng Lanxin