In addition to the “third space” concept that Starbucks advocates, there seems to be more coffee chain models in the Chinese consumer market, such as the rich flavor of coffee beans.
Editor’s note: This article is from WeChat public account “Retail boss Gaoshen” (ID: lslb168) , author Yang Yafei.
It’s not easy to let strange and vigilant consumers fall in love with coffee at once. You need to make all sorts of efforts, but this will not hinder, and more and more new players will squeeze. The broken scalp should also be squeezed in.
Despite the fact that Starbucks’ big brother’s status is still stable in a short period of time, most players obviously don’t have the strength to play with them. Of course, they may not have thought about it at all. However, there is still a more interesting phenomenon, the differentiation of the coffee line industry continues to deepen, and new subdivision scenes are constantly being discovered.
Among them, there are two kinds of cross-border explorations like Ruixing from the take-out to the white-collar group, teas from Xixi and Naicha, and Sinopec Yijie and OYO who suddenly emerged recently. They are trying to prove It is not a good idea to move a cafe into an office building, a WeChat applet, a tea shop, a gas station, or a hotel.
Schultz, who has left Starbucks management, may not think that, besides the “third space” he admires, the coffee chain model has so many possibilities in the Chinese consumer market, such as the rich flavor of coffee beans. .
And fisheye fisheye coffee, which is not a very eye-catching member of these brands, and the cafe area is generally small, “Retail boss internal reference” recently visited a number of Beijing fisheye coffee shop found that its store area is generally 20 Between m2 and 50m2, Sanlitun Taikooli (where the garden shop) visually measures only a dozen square meters of mini cafes.
But even so, fisheye is still special, belonging to the mass coffee market to make the mass coffee market, and has made a certain scale. According to the US group comments, fisheye currently has 16 stores, including 11 in Beijing, 4 in Shanghai, and 1 in Hangzhou.
Can boutique coffee take the popular route?
There are many factors that influence the quality of a cup of coffee, such as coffee beans, baking, water temperature, excipients, production methods, and distribution aging has become a new variable as the takeaway coffee market grows.But the core of course is the coffee beans. And this is the essential difference between fisheye and other coffee brands.
fisheye selects fine coffee beans, and the general coffee chain brand usually chooses to mix commercial coffee beans for the sake of balance cost.
The fine coffee beans are a relatively vague concept, but the quality threshold is high, and it must be an excellent variety without cowpeas, and they are all carefully selected and graded.
As the world’s first coffee producer to include fine coffee in the commodity trading platform, Ethiopia’s practice is to add 20 large collection centers in nine major production areas in the country. After the coffee in each district is transported to the collection center of the jurisdiction, QGrader identifies the quality, and marks the 1~9 grade and low grade products, a total of 10 grades, and then sent to ECX (Ehtiopia Commodity Exchange, referred to as ECX). ECX’s Q will further evaluate the high-quality beans of 1~3 grades in each production area, and adopt SCAA green bean grading and cup measurement standards, and then mark the officially certified first-class and second-class fine coffee with Q1 and Q2 respectively. . Both types of fine coffee can identify the cooperatives or villages from which the district is located. Coffee beans below 80 points are classified into 3~9 grades. They are general commercial coffee. ECX will only be mixed and sold, and the source is not easy to track.
The overall output of boutique coffee is small, and the price is relatively higher, and the audience is narrower. In addition to the superior quality, the general cafes recommend the way of hand-made production to preserve the original flavor. This is similar to the idea that Starbucks’ “third space” theory is to convey. Sit down and hand over a cup of coffee by the barista. The past is often a necessary experience.
“Retail boss internal reference” recently visited several fisheye stores in Beijing and found that most stores have a row of bar chairs, which can meet 4~5 people, similar to the hand-washing area of Starbucks selection shop.
fisheye Beijing Hua Trade Apartment Concept Store
However, for the fisheye that takes the popular coffee popularization route, the attitude of the store seems to be very cautious, mainly based on the small store type. In addition to the Huamao Apartment concept store, most of Beijing’s stores have smaller space and limited seats. If you don’t walk into the store, you probably won’t think it is the same as other cafes.
fisheye Huamao Apartment concept store exterior, others are small shop-style stores
Broad price belt, full product line, fisheye branding ambition
From the perspective of site selection, fisheye Beijing stores are mainly located in the daily scenes of near-consumers such as office buildings and community apartments. And the store density is high, 11 stores in Beijing are located in Chaoyang District, and concentrated between the second ring and the fourth ring. Among them, there are many shops like Sanlitun Business Circle and Huamao Business Circle, which open two stores within a few hundred meters. In the words of fisheye founder and CEO Sun Yu, what fisheye wants to achieve is that different stores can adapt to the surrounding ecology and bring their own traffic.
The actual experience found that the fisheye order is completed based on the WeChat applet, and a set of membership system has been set up. At the same time, the first cup of free, new rewards and other marketing games are launched, and the free drink is provided by a certain number of cups. Repurchase. In addition, take-away delivery and self-raising services are available to expand sales channels.
Different from the store, fisheye products More abundant. The drinks mainly include four series of black coffee, selection, milk coffee, and others. They also sell a variety of snacks such as sandwiches, breads, and muffins. The overall price range is wide, ranging from 18 yuan to 48 yuan, and the price of drinks is concentrated at around 30 yuan.
However, the price of cold-collected coffee, American, espresso, and selected drip coffee is 18 yuan, which is obvious compared to Starbucks and costa. In addition, fisheye founder and ceo have previously revealed that in the product setting, Fisheye Coffee will first streamline the SKU, and only provide 6 coffee beans per season.
In addition, fisheye also sells a variety of coffee beans, hanging ear coffee, cold extraction coffee, including limited enamel cylinders, mobile phone cases, brooches, stickers, hand-washing pots, water cups, green bags, T-shirts and other brands around Commodities, try to realize the brand IP.
The reason for this may be related to fisheye’s self-built baking factory strategy. Unlike other coffee chain brands and suppliers, fisheye is back in 2012. Just built a coffee roaster in Shenyang. According to them, it is to “control the product style and flavor at the technical level.”
Although the overall amount of money and energy is still unknown, this investment obviously affects the expansion and budget of the terminal stores to some extent. However, for a boutique coffee chain brand, a strong supply chain may also be a necessary preliminary reserve work.
To control the quality of coffee at the same time, fisheye has invested a lot of thoughts in promoting the coffee culture, and through the holding of a boutique coffee tasting salon, to popularize the fine coffee making process and the history of coffee beans. Therefore, as a coffee chain brand, fisheye seems to be interested in enhancing the brand awareness and belonging of members through cultural exchanges.
In fact, fisheye started earlier, and it was founded in 2010. It was first opened in the 1.0 version of the Sanlitun Taikoli South District in Beijing, but it was not smooth, and the opening speed was not fast. Until 2017, the brand model was upgraded to “small store + takeaway”, providing coffee service with a more flexible offline format, and completed tens of millions of A round financing at the beginning of this year.
However, fisheye’s model still has some uncertainty due to the current size of fisheye and the limitations of small store type radiation capabilities. On the road of mass coffee popularization, fisheye took a small step, but can it go through? It is worth waiting to see.