Text | Parity
Do you make money by opening a cat café?
If you had put this question on knowledge three years ago, most of the answers below would have been yes.
Now, the people who wrote these answers are beginning to hesitate. The high maintenance costs, the gradual decline in consumers' freshness for cats, and the impact of the epidemic on the offline real economy have made the cat coffee business no longer beautiful.
On the other hand, people are still deeply rooted in the idea of "just raising a few cats", which is still deeply rooted, resulting in many entrepreneurial whites still dreaming of opening a cat café and turning over overnight.
Under the situation that the pet economy continues to be hot, can cat coffee continue to make profits, and will consumers continue to buy for cat owners?
With such curiosity, the odd couple decided to go to the cat café in Wuhan to explore it for themselves.
<h2>I was forced to open for the night with the cat owners</h2>
Today's cat coffee is dazzling.
We searched for the center of the street entrance and found more than a dozen cat and coffee shops with different styles. There are cute pet houses that focus on cute pet types, pure Japanese cat coffee in The style of Japanese temples, and cat coffee experience halls that specialize in cat-themed coffee.
Photo/ A variety of cat coffee parity filming
After a detailed choice by my friend and I, we finally chose a cat café under Mafang Mountain, which is located in the core of the three major commercial centers of Wuchang, surrounded by Wuhan University of Technology, Central China Normal University, Wuhan University and other famous schools, with an excellent geographical location.
We chose the restaurant's cat kit for two, two special drinks plus a cat snack of choice, priced at 88.8 yuan.
Because it was a weekday, I arrived at the store around 7 p.m. with the store.
Unlike some cat cafes, which locate their locations in office buildings in bustling business districts, this cat café is located on the street corner of the crowded street.
From the outside, the space of the cat café is not particularly large, but the two-story design separates the space of the cat from other areas, allowing customers to have a better experience.
Photo/Parity filming
Before entering the door, I fantasized about opening the door and the scene of several hospitable masters coming to me, and by the way, I thought about how to react so as not to appear that I had not come to the cat café a few times.
It was a bit disappointing to go upstairs and push open the door, and there was no migrant worker to greet me as a guest. Throughout the shop, more than a dozen cats either fell asleep in various wonderful postures, or sat demurely thinking about meows, and a few cats enjoyed dinner by themselves.
It's so good to be a cat! Can't help but sigh, even if you are tortured by the work of "996", you can still openly work in the company to touch the fish.
In addition to the less dedicated workers, the overall environment of the store is still not satisfactory. Japanese-style décor, with dozens of cushions and round tables, cat illustrations can be seen everywhere. It is already a scene depicted in the 1984 Japanese manga series by Japanese manga artist Makoto Kobayashi of the "Cat's Tea Shop".
Photo/ Lazy Japanese decoration style parity pie shooting
Finding a good position to sit down, the clerk sister took the initiative to come up to greet us, introduced us to the name of each cat owner, and specially instructed us that the Muppet named Ibrahimovic with the Elizabethan circle had a bad temper recently, and could only be viewed from a distance and could not be blasphemed.
Photo/Cat also needs to be comforted by parity filming
"She's out of love," the friend quipped. The friend continued to ask the clerk if she could blurt out the name of each cat, and the little sister said that the operation of the cat café did not require a special amount of manpower investment, so she would accompany the cat owners here six days a week and supervise them to work hard.
After a while, the drinks we ordered and the cat food we sent were delivered, and I chose a cup of Kabu and my friend chose a glass of ice lemon emerald cold. In terms of the taste of the drink in the coffee shop, this cat coffee is relatively decent, after all, there are few cat coffees that will focus on the drink.
Because his friend came to the cat café for the first time, he was very anxious to take the cat chicken breast in his hand and look around for the target. Surprisingly, most cats choose to ignore it.
After several attempts by my friends, I found that most of the cats here are not only not hungry, but also openly refuse our hugs, in addition to the lazy sleeping position and a pair of kazilan eyes, this group of migrant workers can also be regarded as a model for working to touch fish.
The clerk sister saw the two of us who were overwhelmed and went forward to explain that due to the student holiday, the current peak period of customers in the store is generally between 2 and 5 pm. And the gap between the number of customers on weekends and weekdays is not large, so the cats will be more tired at night, and the natural enthusiasm is not high.
"Maybe it's forced business."
So in the next hour, I began to interact with the cat owners in the store, the workers were responsible for showing me all kinds of confused expressions, and I was responsible for taking pictures to record the reluctant little expressions.
Photo/ Cat in a cat café Photo by a parity pie
And finally forced a cat café's most "weak" one named Little Leopard To take a photo with me.
"This golden gradient is really healing, I can steal her away," she heard a little sister next to her excitedly say to her classmates as she left.
<h2>Cat Economics</h2>
Is it hard to get a cat?
Let's start with the pleasant and relaxed side. There's a cute, clingy-looking cat owner who will pounce on you when you get home from work; try to share your food while you're eating; stand outside the door while you're bathing to see if you're safe; and hug you in your arms when you're asleep.
Doesn't it feel like the scene is very warm? Don't worry, there is also a side that upsets you.
Many people around the cat themselves said: "If you have a cat, you really have an ancestor." "Before the cat leads the door, you need to buy a litter box, cat litter, cat food, cat canned food, cat special dry food tools, cat sticks, and eat, drink and have fun in advance."
After that, you need to take your owner to the pet hospital for a vaccination package (the kitten needs three injections of immunization plus one injection of rabies); the cat needs to take the hospital for injections and hanging water when it is sick; and from time to time, take its pet center to beautify and take a bath.
The most devastating thing is that when you come home tired after a day of running around, you are greeted not only by the ancestor in the family, but also with the smelly cat.
Speaking of which, some cat lovers who are afraid of trouble have dismissed the idea of keeping cats.
Before 2018, the above part of the crowd can only temporarily put away their cat love, from the pet store that occasionally passes by to glance at the untouchable pets, or from the mobile phone computer to see the cat owners selling cute show.
However, after 1998, maybe you only need to spend a lunch money to get in full contact with the cute cat you want, get started with the rua yourself, and don't need to work hard to take care of these difficult owners.
With the rise of the pet industry, with such a publicity concept, cat coffee came into being. The concept of cat coffee is simply to integrate cats and cafes to create a new consumption scene.
According to the data, cat coffee originated in Japan and Chinese Taipei.
In 1998, the "Kitten Garden" opened in Shilin, Taipei, was regarded as the first true cat café in Taiwan and the world.
Subsequently, the cat coffee culture quickly spread in Japan. Established in 2005, the Cat Shop became one of the first cat cafes in Tokyo to be born and is loved by local Japanese residents.
Because most of the apartments and rental houses in Japan at that time were clearly stipulated that pets were not allowed, the emergence of cat cafes gave Japanese people a place to release their inner pressure.
Photo/ Cat coffee culture has developed rapidly in Japan
In 2015, "cat economics" was used in Japan to describe the vital role that cats and their related products play in the Japanese economy.
Data show that it was also in this year that the cat economy contributed more than 2.3 trillion yen to Japan's GDP, accounting for 0.44% of Japan's total GDP that year.
At the same time, the magic of cats began to spread to places such as the United States and Europe. In 2014, the United States and the United Kingdom opened the first cat café, which successfully attracted the attention of investors.
In China, the first cat-themed café also appeared in Guangzhou in 2011.
In recent years, with the continuous strengthening of the pet economy, the popularity of cat-related products has also been rising, gathering a group of loyal cat consumers.
According to statistics, there are currently more than 3,000 cat coffee related enterprises in China, and the dividend of "picking up cats" is not small.
Holding a cup of warm coffee, snuggled up to the sofa, blowing a warm hot wind, shining into the window with the warm winter sunshine and accompanied by a sleeping cat.
Such a winter healing scene was once the dream of many cat lovers. The emergence of cat coffee makes many people do not need to raise a cat to have this warm scene.
Obviously, the popularity of cat coffee when it first appeared is not unrelated to the fact that it just hits the spiritual needs of contemporary people.
The role of coffee is to make people fade fatigue and relieve fatigue, while cats can relieve people's nervousness and depression.
This has also been scientifically confirmed, and the level of cortisol (stress hormone) will be significantly reduced in people who pet cats and dogs by hand. On behalf of the cat owners can indeed help people with high mental tension and reduce stress.
The combination of cats and coffee is the perfect place for contemporary workers to release stress.
Compared with other pets, cats and cafes have a higher degree of fit, elegant and quiet environment with more than a dozen high-cold and dignified cat owners, so that those young people who have just been tortured by work, the next second will forget the pain.
<h2>
Does cat coffee make money?
</h2>
Regrettably, the homogenization of domestic cat coffee is becoming more and more serious, and the concept of innovation is gradually disappearing.
Consumers seem to be increasingly unbuyed by homogenized cat coffee. Consumers who surpass the operational difficulties of ordinary coffee shops and whose appetites are becoming more and more difficult to satisfy make the road of part-time work difficult for cat owners.
The emergence of the epidemic has increased people's sense of anxiety. However, this sentiment seems to be more difficult to alleviate in the cat coffee, consumer awareness of the risk of virus infection and strong local policy control, so that the profitability of the cat coffee is full of uncertainty.
In fact, the impact of objective factors such as the epidemic on cat coffee is still only secondary. In the final analysis, the consumer's time-limited freshness is the real culprit of the cat coffee's sluggishness.
As the front-end representative of the experience economy, the pet experience business model can attract the attention of consumers. As the earliest cat coffee, the problem of aesthetic fatigue is inevitable.
This also gives other cute pets the opportunity to perform, and the tightest pace to follow the cat coffee is the well-known "dog coffee".
As the most loyal partner of human beings, the concept of dogs has long been deeply rooted in people's hearts. It also indicates that dog coffee is the most likely form of pet experience to follow the footsteps of cat coffee.
Of course, the dog coffee, which is highly homogenized with cat coffee, also faces higher pet maintenance costs, and dogs are typical social animals and are more difficult to manage.
At the same time, in order to meet the ever-changing aesthetics of consumers (especially young people). More and more curious pets are being treated as commodities for customers to experience.
In the past two years, a variety of pet experience halls have sprung up in major cities.
Pigs, sheep, rabbits, bears and mice, a hundred flowers bloom. Duck coffee is a representative of this emerging model, the cute-looking Ke Er duck can get more children and girls love, and now has its own stores in cities including Wuhan and Chengdu.
More stores have set up indoor zoos, cats and dogs are no longer the darlings of merchants, but instead, "exotic pets" such as Cole ducks, small fragrant pigs, and small raccoons.
This kind of pet house abandons the traditional cat and dog curry restaurant business model focusing on "coffee" and puts more emphasis on pets. While attracting more consumers, it also allows young people who choose to start a business to see the possibility of opening their own pet cafes.
Photo/Alien pet is also crazy
The parity pie takes the most mature mode of operation of the cat coffee as an example.
Time back to the night when the odd couple came to a cat café in Wuhan, my friends and I spent about an hour and a half in this cat café, during which there were only three customers who looked like students, and there were very few customers in the store, only seven or eight people.
So when I was about to leave, I couldn't help but send my "soul torture" to the clerk's sister - do you want to make money by opening a cat café?
The little sister smiled bitterly at me and said, "We have earned money every month without losing money." ”
She then analyzed with me that during the worst period of the epidemic, only a dozen customers came to the store every day. With the return of students from surrounding colleges and universities, the current one-day passenger flow has recovered to about 40 orders, and there are often repeat customers.
Because Meituan and Dianping have package activities, and customers generally travel together, the average unit price can reach the level of 70 to 80 yuan. Despite the high gross margin, it is still difficult to ensure monthly profitability.
Through the summary, Odd Couple found that the operating costs of pet experience halls are mainly concentrated in three aspects - rent, water and electricity, pet maintenance costs, and catering costs.
The level of rent is directly related to the location of the venue, and some netizens often emphasize the importance of site selection for pet experience halls.
Odd couples visited and found that of the 11 cat cafes on the side of wuhan street entrance, 8 cat cafes set the site as the surrounding office buildings, enjoying lower rents and facing the trouble of lack of traffic.
There are 2 cat cafes that will be located as the streetfront shops in the future city of the secondary business circle at the mouth of the street, which is the intersection of Wuhan University of Technology, Central China Normal University and Wuhan University, where students gather, the traffic is huge, and the shops are scarce and the rent is expensive.
This also explains why this cat café can have high traffic and cannot ensure profitability.
In addition to the relatively fixed costs such as renting water and electricity employee wages, the cost of catering raw materials and cat maintenance cannot be ignored. According to the cat café manager, the cost of making drinks has less impact on the profitability of cat cafes, while the maintenance costs of cats are full of uncertainty.
Cat food, cat litter and other supplies needed for cat daily life, used to purify the air, reduce the cat's hair loss to reduce the customer experience of the air purifier and daily cleaning, etc., will consume a lot of expenses.
In addition, the most headache is the accidents that can occur in the interaction between cats and customers.
According to the manager of the cat café, there will be cat scratches and customer scratches in the store from time to time. Although every cat has been fully vaccinated, there are still some customers who claim compensation, especially when a small child returns home after being scratched, and parents who do not understand the situation often complicate things.
It is difficult for high-cold cats to ensure that accidents will occur, and it is even more difficult to manage dogs and even other pets that are playful by nature. The uncontrollable factors brought about by this kind of pet will often increase the operating costs of the pet experience hall, which does not calculate the various epidemic prevention and medical costs of the precious pets.
Photo / Bad-tempered cat owner is locked up to prevent hurting people from parity filming
Controlling operating costs is still difficult, and increasing revenue is even more difficult. Using sweet and cute cat owners to attract consumers into the door is the biggest advantage of cat coffee, but also a major disadvantage.
Odd couples interviewed friends who love to go to cat cafes and found that the time spent by customers in cat cafes is much higher than that of pure drink coffee shops such as Luckin, Naixue, and Xicha, and some customers are even willing to stay for a day.
While sucking cats and picking up cats increases store traffic, it also limits the improvement of the turnover rate (one of the most important profit indicators of restaurants).
Another major revenue problem for cat coffee shops is that the profit model is too single.
In the case of the cat café that the odd couple personally experienced, there is almost no other income in the store except for the profit method of consuming coffee with a free cat pet project (some cat cafes charge pet tickets). The only wholesale advertisement for pet supplies in the store, according to the clerk's sister, is also the unified management of the headquarters store, and the income distributed to the branch is minimal.
Various obstacles in terms of cost and revenue have also made the idea of opening a cat and dog café or even a pet experience hall no longer beautiful. At present, the pet experience hall represented by cat coffee does not seem to have fully enjoyed the dividends brought by the continuous hot pet economy in 2021 as pet supplies and the pet hospital industry.
Some time ago, there was also a shocking news such as "the owner of the cat café ran away, the cat was locked in the store, and the water and food were cut off". Perhaps in the near future, more cat owners will also face the trouble of unemployment.
<h2>Write at the end</h2>
But is the cat café really embattled?
At least in the eyes of the clerk sister of this cat café, it is not desperate. She revealed to the parity faction that she had the logic of cat coffee management in her heart - "cat-centric, improve customer experience, and attract more repeat customers".
It is true that the pet economy and even the cat economy are still hot, and it is too early to sing the decline of cat coffee. The rapid development of the city has created more anxiety and troubles at the same time, and will also give birth to more "cat coffee".
Cat owners who heal their hearts will always have a reason to be needed.
However, the pet experience model really needs to be transformed, and when more people begin to choose "cloud pet" and "cloud suck cat", cat coffee also needs to "rub" a wave of Internet heat.
For example, using online traffic, on Douyin and Weibo, we will show more potential consumers the cuteness of cats and the endless fun of petting cats to achieve the effect of online drainage for offline.
"Give the cute pets a bigger stage", some netizens called for.
So some netizens left a message to ridicule, "Let the cat perform online hot dance"; "Let the cat perform the chest crushing stone".
It seems that the cat owners who have no talent are really not far from being laid off.