Chinanews client, Beijing, May 9 (Zuo Yukun) When my family was shopping in Xiaoxu in a third-tier city during the May 1st holiday, they found that there was a total of two or three hundred-meter-long commercial streets in their hometown. Twelve or three milk tea shops.
"Can this really make money?" Xiao Xu was puzzled.
Faced with such fierce competition in the industry, Xiao Xu feels that the brand might be able to outperform its advantage through a low-price strategy.
But after walking through a few stores, I found that the price increase of milk tea became the mainstream.
Milk teas, what's wrong?
Consumers order at the milk tea shop.
Photo by Zuo Yukun, China News Service
New tea drinks set off a "price hike"
Not long ago, the news that the beverage giant Coca-Cola announced a price increase made many "happy water lovers" feel "never happy again", and also attracted a lot of people to ridicule: "You can drink milk tea for more than a dozen yuan. Do you still care about these three dollars of Coca-Cola?"
Now it seems that not only the price of Coke for three yuan is going to increase, but the value of milk tea for more than a dozen yuan also wants to go swiftly.
Not long ago, a lot of new summer products have been added to the milk tea brand Tea Baidao, and the prices of some famous products have also refreshed.
The prices of signature products such as Yangzhi Ganlu, Golden Coconut Coconut Oolong, and 1L Fruit Tea are all raised by 2 yuan.
The prices of some products of the milk tea brand CoCo have also risen. The prices of products such as jasmine milk tea, Miss Red Fruit, and Passion Fruit Double Gun have been increased by 1-3 yuan, and even the small ingredients have not been overlooked, such as pearls, coconuts, etc. The price was raised from the previous 1 yuan to 2 yuan, an increase of 100%.
Earlier, "In order to continue to provide high-quality drinks and services, we will fine-tune the prices of drinks on February 1, 2021." At the beginning of the year, many little stores made such a notice and announced price increases.
Yihetang, which previously focused on parity, has also increased in value.
In the past, the price of the benchmark Michelle Ice City rose all the way, and the price of the signature product Yihe Roasted Milk rose from 6 yuan to 8 yuan, which increased by one-third.
The price of the same milk tea drink rose by two yuan.
Among the new tea brands with a price of "10 yuan +", price increases have already begun.
This price band carries the largest share of milk tea consumers. The game between quality and price may be between one or two yuan, which makes them particularly sensitive to prices.
"When I first drank CoCo, the original milk tea only cost 4 yuan a cup, and now the prices of its new products are beginning to'guarantee 20 and 30'." A netizen recalled.
The sound of "rising" caused a spit.
"In the current milk tea shop, the price of the old model is increased by one or two yuan, and the new model is directly more than 20 yuan. My financial ability can no longer keep up with the rate of price increase of milk tea." Some consumers concluded.
The price increase is only because the milk tea cup is expensive?
What is the reason for the price increase?
There is a "letter to tea powder" sent by Wang Xiaokun, the founder of the 100 Roads of Tea, on the Internet. It mentioned that due to the impact of the general environment, the price of fruit equipment, packaging and other raw materials will rise, and the price of beverages will be increased. Fine-tuning.
In general, just as the CEO of Coca-Cola attributed its brewing price increase to the increase in raw material prices, the reason for this wave of price increases in milk tea is also that the price increase of bulk commodities has blown from the upstream raw material supply chain to every consumer's Milk tea cup.
“The fluctuations in the price of a single raw material are normal, every year, but it is the first time that so many raw materials have risen together.” A tea industry insider told the media.
Ms. Liang joined a chain of milk tea shops not long ago. She told Chinanews.com that this kind of first-line milk tea brand franchise application is still relatively difficult. In addition to the registration, preliminary review, interview, training and other steps in the process, before the store opens , Ms. Liang has invested a total of nearly 600,000 yuan in funds.
But the thing that worries Ms. Liang is still behind.
Consumers order at the milk tea shop.
Photo by Zuo Yukun, China News Service
"I chose to join this milk tea brand because I liked it very much before. I often drank it and found it to be cost-effective. So I was shocked when I received the new menu. Why did I increase the price when I opened it?" Ms. Liang Said, "But when I really started to do business, I discovered that the costs of all aspects are indeed rising."
The first is the raw material. Ms. Liang uses fruit perfume lemon as an example: perfume lemon has become a common raw material for fruit tea because it has a lower astringency than ordinary citric acid. The price has soared more than four times this year. The purchase price of jin has now risen to more than 20 yuan."
There are two main reasons for the price increase of perfume lemon: one is that parts of its main producing area in Guangdong are affected by the climate, and the output is lower than in previous years; second, this year the new tea drinking industry has set off a "Southeast Asian style", and a variety of lemon teas are popular. The demand for perfume lemons is also higher than in previous years, and prices are rising due to the contradiction between supply and demand.
At the same time, affected by international trade, some fruits that account for a relatively high proportion of imports, such as grapefruit and pineapple, have also seen significant price increases.
"I now expect to see a large number of watermelon and other fruits on the market in the summer, and the cost of raw materials will be lowered when the price drops." Ms. Liang said.
In addition to fruit raw materials, there are many parts that consumers "invisible" are also experiencing price turbulence.
For example, after the Spring Festival this year, the prices of copper, stainless steel, aluminum and other metals have risen in turn, affecting the pricing of various sealing machines, smoothie machines and other tea drinking equipment; the price increase of plastic particles, paper, PE film, etc., is allocated to each The cost of milk tea cups has risen by a few cents; the raw material costs of seemingly inconspicuous leaflets, outer packaging bags, corrugated cup holders, etc., have increased by several thousand yuan per ton, which is also not small. Number of.
Ms. Liang also mentioned that the "straw banning order" that started on New Year's Day this year has also caused many milk tea shop owners to "pain in their hearts."
At the beginning, milk tea shops basically replaced paper straws with a relatively low cost, but they received a lot of bad reviews due to the disadvantages such as inability to open and frequent soaking.
Later, most of the top brands replaced PLA (polylactic acid) straws.
"The cost of each PLA straw is about a dime more than plastic straws, and a few cents more than paper straws. The average daily consumption of hundreds of straws in the store is still very heartache." Ms. Liang said.
The competition is intensifying, can the new style of tea be able to carry it?
"If the milk tea that was originally worth more than a dozen yuan rose to more than 20, then why didn't I add a few more yuan to buy Hey Tea?" In the feedback from consumers on the price increase, "Do you have any points in your milk tea?" The loudest.
Practitioners also said that the price increase will not have so much impact on brands with prices above 20 yuan, and the biggest impact is on regional small brands.
"They sell a cup of fruit for about 10 yuan, the gross profit is not high, and the ability to resist risks is weak.
Consumers line up to buy milk tea.
Photo by Zuo Yukun, China News Service
"I think for store owners like us, they don't even want to increase prices than consumers." Ms. Liang said that for consumers, price increases may be a question of buying in another store or not, but for those with fierce competition. For new-style tea brands, a price increase of one or two yuan may mean sending the hard-earned consumer group to competitors.
Since the development of new-style tea drinks, fresh fruits, high-quality tea, and fresh milk have become “standard”. The price of “real materials” is that the industry has long lost its original profiteering profits. There are even sayings that the net profit of new-style tea drinks is only 10%. %.
When costs in all aspects rise, small brands that have to rely on price increases to maintain costs have also lost their low-price advantage.
In the eyes of industry insiders, low-customer unit price brands may usher in a reshuffle.
Milk tea brands are scouring the sand amidst rising prices, which one would you choose?
(Finish)