Editor's note
The small town has many stories and is full of joy and joy. Residents’ consumption is changing with each passing day. The young people bring fresh vitality and keep pace with the urban economic development.
Nanfang Daily has specially opened this column to gain insight into the new characteristics of "urban affairs" brought about by new changes in consumption, from international cities to grassroots counties and villages.
The number of cafes per 10,000 people in Yanji, a small border town, is nearly four times that of Shanghai. Coffee has been recognized by Yanji people as the city’s business card and appears in the official cultural and tourism promotion article for the Spring Festival of the Year of the Dragon; during the Lantern Festival, Jiangmen sends an invitation to the world , opened the second China Overseas Chinese Capital (Jiangmen) Coffee Culture Week, released the "Coffee Taste Overseas Chinese Capital" industrial tour route, and created a deep integration of cultural tourism and consumption.
Meituan data shows that during the Spring Festival, with the flow of people returning to their hometowns, county coffee has ushered in the busiest time of the year. The number of new business types such as coffee shops in county markets has also increased by more than 50% in recent years, driving new occupations such as baristas. The rise of Shen market.
When Chinese people who were accustomed to drinking tea began to fall in love with coffee, the aroma of coffee spread from north to south. The "concentration" of coffee became an important indicator of county economic vitality, supporting young people's return to their hometowns and rejuvenating local communities. business card.
joint name
The temptation of personalized signs
"It's hidden in a community. I didn't expect that its 'Hua Mei Coffee' is really good." After returning to her hometown during the Spring Festival, Ms. Zhang and her close friends accidentally discovered a community coffee shop with a pleasant taste in the urban area of Shantou, Guangdong. .
"Lord, keep your number" is a phrase used in the Chaoshan area to pray for peace during festivals and festivals. The scene of this prayer copy floating on the coffee opened the eyes of Ms. Song from Dujiangyan, Sichuan, "Coffee can actually play like this!" Leho Coffe, located deep in an alley in Chaozhou Archway Street, attracts many young people to check in because of this cup of "Laoye Guaranteed Latte".
Titalk cafe, a few blocks away from Lehao, has incorporated the old medicine orange, another characteristic element of the Chaoshan area, into its latte and made it a store sign.
Bingbing, the boss born in the 1990s, introduced that Ki Tao combined with local culture and launched a series of creative dishes such as tangerine American style, yellow peel American style, single-cong tea cake, etc. “In this way, people can have a cup of coffee in the ancient city of Chaozhou. Taste memory.”
From international cities to county towns, imported coffee is being "captured" by local culture, and various unique and interesting "co-branding" capture the hearts of young consumers.
On the eve of the Spring Festival, Shamian Island held a "morning coffee and evening coffee - 2024 Shamian Coffee Culture Festival" that combined Guangdong customs and culture. The reporter saw in front of a Chaoshan coffee booth that Puning bean paste latte was named "ghost animal". The taste has successfully attracted citizens and tourists to queue up to experience it; coffee brands from Foshan have fully integrated Guangfu culture: a series of coffee named after the traditional Chinese martial arts "Wing Chun", Guangfu Chen Mengji, Xingshi... and ginger Milk latte, lion peach American style, etc.
It is estimated that over the two weekends, the Coffee Culture Festival attracted an average of nearly 50,000 citizen tourists per day.
During the Spring Festival, "celebrating the New Year in a coffee shop" and "welcoming the New Year with a cup of coffee" have become the New Year's taste of young people.
More and more coffee shops are open during the Spring Festival. They offer surprise items, interesting Spring Festival couplets, God of Wealth candy wrappers, Year of the Dragon latte art and other special New Year features. The atmosphere is full of atmosphere. The "foreign-style" cafes are also full of traditional New Year flavor and gather the atmosphere of fireworks. .
Laojie Coffee, Xica, Alley Coffee, and Let’s Have a Cup of Coffee on Zhengguo Old Street in Zengcheng, Guangzhou are packed with customers almost every day during the seven-day long holiday.
"Coffee is a good medium and connector. It can connect different cultural customs and things, breaking the boundaries of time, space and region." The person in charge of the Guangzhou Coffee Industry Association told reporters that with the vigorous development of the coffee market, In recent years, innovative approaches to “coffee +” have emerged intensively, and the aroma of coffee has become an excellent traffic code and cultural carrier.
expansion
Chain brand ambitions
Just as hilarious videos of local coffee shops like "Pickled Vegetable Coffee" are circulating in WeChat Moments, starting from the Lunar New Year, chain brands' coffee sinking scale war has also begun.
NOWWA Coffee, a chain brand co-founded by former executives of Ele.me, announced the New Year's "Thousand Store Strategy": It will increase store opening subsidies in 2024, with a subsidy of 50 million yuan, and plans to open another thousand stores.
It is worth noting that in the process of accelerating store openings, the sinking market has become the key target of Nova Coffee.
Sun Binbin, co-founder of Nova, said: "70% of stores across the country are located in sinking markets. During the Spring Festival this year, the performance of stores in sinking markets is also very impressive. The sales of the top ten stores all increased by 236%, and the actual payment of each store was The highest growth rate is more than 15 times.”
The word "county" rarely appeared in Starbucks' financial report meeting.
In January this year, Starbucks Chief Financial Officer Rachel Ruggeri said at the financial report conference for the first quarter of fiscal year 2024 ending on December 31, 2023: In the first fiscal quarter, Starbucks China opened 169 new stores and entered 28 new counties.
Starbucks China Chairman and CEO Wang Jingying further said: "As of this quarter, we have covered 857 of China's nearly 3,000 county-level administrative districts. We have huge market opportunities, including increasing penetration in existing cities. rate, including entering new county-level markets.”
It can be found that the profitability of the coffee giant's new stores in county-level markets has become increasingly outstanding, prompting it to continue to accelerate its expansion and enter more county-level markets.
The reporter learned that over the past year, Starbucks has further accelerated its expansion in Guangdong, including the sinking market in Chaoshan. As of January 30, the number of Starbucks stores in Shantou, Shanwei, and Chaozhou was 13 and 3 stores respectively. , the number of stores in Guangdong Province is about to exceed 1,000.
In addition, cities in the third tier and below are also becoming fierce battlefields for other coffee brands.
According to statistics from Narrow Door Food Eye, Luckin Coffee accounts for 15.78%, 10.26%, and 4.63% in third-, fourth-, and fifth-tier cities; Kudi Coffee accounts for 18.13%, 12.31%, 6.71%; Lucky Coffee accounts for 28.61%, 23.23%, and 11.95% in third-tier, fourth-tier, and fifth-tier cities.
According to the person in charge of the Guangzhou Coffee Industry Association, the sinking time is right.
"First of all, the market has been cultivated, and the cake is getting bigger and bigger."
Last year, the number of Luckin Coffee stores exceeded 10,000, and the number of Kudi Coffee stores exceeded 5,000. Many tea brands such as Mixue Bingcheng, Nayuki Tea, Heytea, etc. have launched offline chain coffee stores.
On December 13, 2023, the latest report released by the research organization "World Coffee Portal" showed: "In the past 12 months, the total number of Chinese coffee brands' stores around the world has surpassed the United States for the first time, with 49,700 stores. Ranked first in the world.”
Among them, the contribution of the number of brand coffee stores comes from the sinking market.
The "China Catering Development Report 2022" shows that the number of coffee stores in first-tier cities and new first-tier cities will account for 56.3% of the total number of coffee stores in the country in 2021. The stores are distributed quite densely, showing typical stock competition characteristics.
Collision
Game in the streets
In Jiangmen, Guangdong, where the first Heytea shop was born, there are at least four independent cafes crowded in an alley less than 1 kilometer away on Sansanxu Street in Pengjiang. Most of the prices per customer are in the 15-30 yuan range.
When you walk out of the lane and onto the street, you can see a lot of car trunk coffee and street stall coffee.
By afternoon tea time, almost all cafes were packed, and several even had queues.
In this city, coffee brands such as Starbucks, Luckin, and Kudi gather together, "narrowly encountering" these local specialty coffee shops.
For coffee brands like Starbucks, Luckin, and Cudi, this is a strategy to "enclose the market".
According to Meituan's "2022 China Fresh Coffee Category Development Report", takeaway coffee orders in fourth- and fifth-tier cities increased by 257% and 253% respectively year-on-year in 2021, much higher than in first- and second-tier cities.
A set of data from the "2023 China Coffee Market Insight Report" released by Kamen shows that coffee orders in fourth- and fifth-tier cities have increased by more than 250% year-on-year.
Qin Chao, founder of the restaurant owner Neican Gonghao, analyzed that compared with first- and second-tier cities, consumers in lower-tier cities are generally less mature in their understanding of coffee brands and quality. This is the best time to seize the market by quickly opening stores. .
Therefore, we can see that Luckin and Cudi are rapidly staking their claim through thousands of franchisees.
As the saying goes, martial arts in the world can only be broken quickly. At present, the coffee war in the sinking market has begun, and the brand ladder has begun to take shape.
Among them, the three giants, Luckin Coffee, Starbucks, and Lucky Coffee, have thousands of stores in lower-tier markets, and each occupy different price ranges.
Cudi has the attitude of being a latecomer.
In addition, other catering brands such as McDonald's, Mixue Bingcheng, and Nayuki's Tea have launched coffee categories, laying out stores while carving up the sinking coffee market.
What can steal business from Starbucks in the county is probably the coffee and decoration that incorporates local characteristics, and it is probably the Internet celebrity store next door.
For local specialty coffee shops, they are entrepreneurial opportunities and also have fan cultural expressions.
The young entrepreneurs in Chaozhou did not expect that the ancient city, where everyone has a cup of tea, would be so enthusiastic about coffee.
The Spring Festival holiday is over and the crowds have receded. Kitao Coffee and Lehao Coffee are still busy. Customers come in waves. Some are students who have just graduated from cram schools, some are nearby store owners, neighbors, and some just come to check in. of city dwellers.
The reporter opened the catering search platform and found that in cities below the second tier in the east, west and north of Guangdong, the proportion of independent specialty coffee shops is increasing, with preliminary estimates accounting for more than half.
The top five in the star ranking are mostly these exquisite shops.
Among these coffee armies "going to the countryside", independent specialty coffee shops run by young people who have returned from first- and second-tier cities have begun to take shape.
They know how to take advantage of the biggest advantages of starting a business in the low-tier market - low rent and labor costs, and have a keen awareness of digitalization. They can open up online platforms as "second stores" to further expand customer acquisition and achieve "traffic" to "sales" transformation.
Coffee around, a well-known coffee shop in Jiangmen, is one of the popular queue players.
Coffee around usually opens at 2pm, but around 1:30, a group of coffee lovers will gather in line at the door.
On one side, consumers queue up in long lines in front of coffee shops in Jiangmen. On the other side, new coffee shops are springing up like mushrooms after a rain.
The surge in demand for coffee has led to more and more people dreaming of opening a coffee shop here, leading to the emergence of coffee shops everywhere.
For consumers, Starbucks and Coffee around have different functions.
White-collar workers in big cities pay for caffeine because they want to "sustain life" in a fast-paced, high-stress life, as well as "chat and make friends" and "check in and take photos". They have both needs.
But the sinking market is different. Young people in small towns are not so busy that they rely on coffee to refresh themselves. The core driving force that drives them to enter a coffee shop for the first time is more of their needs such as "replacing milk tea", "chatting and making friends", and "taking photos and checking in".
"It is not easy for local specialty coffee shops to successfully get a share of the market from chain giants. It tests quality control, positioning and the comprehensive capabilities of the managers." Dongguan Chain Catering Development Promotion Association Secretary-General Xu Bo said this.
Fight for the lead
Who is the first coffee city?
The game in the streets brought people in and kept their hearts.
The development of the city requires them.
What many people don’t know is that China’s first coffee shop was born in Guangzhou, Guangdong.
At that time, Guangzhou was the only treaty port in the country.
Before the Opium War, the Qing Dynasty implemented a policy of seclusion, leaving only Guangzhou as a treaty port. When foreign businessmen arrived in Guangzhou, they found that they could not find a place to drink coffee.
Around 1836, a Dane saw business opportunities and opened a coffee shop, roughly located in the area of today's Shisanhang Clothing Wholesale Market in Guangzhou. This was the first coffee shop in Guangzhou and the first coffee shop in China. pavilion.
At the same time, according to data from Tianyancha, by 2023, in terms of the number of coffee-related registered companies, the cities with the largest number of registered coffee-related companies in the country will be Guangzhou, Shenzhen and Pu'er, Yunnan. According to data from Qizhacha, this ranking will be Shenzhen, Pu'er, Yunnan and Guangzhou.
In terms of absolute numbers, the difference between the three is very small.
Speaking of Yunnan Pu'er, in 1988, Nestlé, the earliest coffee-related foreign-funded enterprise to enter China, built coffee planting bases in Yunnan Pu'er and Xishuangbanna. From this perspective, Yunnan Pu'er also has strong competitiveness in the city of coffee.
Interestingly, Shenzhen was neither the first city to have coffee shops nor the first city to have a coffee planting base in domestic history. Shenzhen once published an article "Shenzhen: Ignored" on Shenzhen's official Weibo "Shenzhen Release" "City of Coffee", analyzing the dynamic coffee industry.
Jiangmen also posted such articles on the same city’s official WeChat account.
"Jiangmen Release" once published an article "Is Jiangmen the next coffee city?"
》.
Data shows that Jiangmen has many local coffee shops, with the total number reaching 1,580 by the end of 2023.
Previously, relevant associations had just announced that the second Lantern Festival of Coffee Culture Week in the Overseas Chinese Capital of China (Jiangmen) will be launched on February 23 and will last until March.
According to Tianyancha data, in terms of the number of new registrations and existing registrations of coffee-related companies in 2023, Zhuhai and Dongguan respectively entered the top 20 lists in the country.
In terms of the number of coffee shops per capita, Zhuhai has a significant advantage.
In recent years, Jiangmen, Zhuhai, Dongguan and other places have held various forms of coffee festivals to attract tourists and create new business cards for the city.
For such second- and third-tier cities, the creation and promotion of coffee culture has greater significance in attracting and retaining tourists than in Guangzhou and Shenzhen.
"The booming coffee market in small towns can attract young people to return to work." Chen Hongbo, founder of Red Food Network, believes.
Nowadays, returning to hometown to start a business is becoming a new choice for many young people and even migrant workers.
51job conducted surveys and interviews with more than 3,000 young people (aged 22-40) whose hometowns are in second-tier cities and below. The "Insights on Career Choice Trends of Youth in Small Towns in 2022" report released shows that more and more young people are no longer blindly obsessed with big cities. In cities, 41.4% of the respondents who have just graduated have chosen second-tier cities and below as their first choice for employment, and those who have worked for more than ten years have chosen second-tier and below cities as their first choice for employment, rising to 53.8%.
The aroma and concentration of coffee have brought about "urban events" that everyone talks about, and it has also become an index of economic vitality in some cities.
extend
Under the "fragrance"
New Year consumption keywords
Although many tourists have returned to work, the cup of coffee in their hometown retains their hearts.
Behind the constant flow of people in city cafes during the New Year is the surging consumer vitality.
Data show that during the Spring Festival holiday, the country's railways carried a total of 99.46 million passengers, and the country's domestic tourism trips reached 474 million, a year-on-year increase of 34.3%, and a comparable increase of 19.0% from the same period in 2019; domestic tourists spent a total of 632.687 billion yuan on travel, a year-on-year increase 47.3%, an increase of 7.7% from the same period in 2019 on a comparable basis.
Taking Guangdong as an example, the province received a total of 76.069 million tourists during the 2024 Spring Festival holiday, an increase of 68.4% compared with the 2023 Spring Festival (New Year's Eve to the sixth day) and an increase of 20.2% compared with the 2019 Spring Festival (New Year's Eve to the sixth day); tourism revenue was 693.6 billion, an increase of 160.8% compared to the Spring Festival in 2023 (New Year's Eve to the sixth day) and an increase of 40.2% compared to the Spring Festival in 2019 (New Year's Eve to the sixth day).
Guangzhou’s Beijing Road neighborhood has become one of the top ten commercial districts in terms of passenger flow in the country.
In this case, "full house" has become the first keyword for consumption during the New Year this year.
With the help of multiple demands such as returning home to visit relatives and leisure travel, as well as cultural and tourism promotion activities in various places, the accommodation industry in various places from first- and second-tier cities to small counties has experienced significant growth.
Meituan data shows that accommodation orders for families with children have increased by more than 70% year-on-year. With the improvement of infrastructure, more and more delicious and fun niche places have been discovered. The hotel industry in counties is booming, with Guilin Yangshuo County and Huizhou County. Huidong County, Jinzhong Pingyao County and other places are examples. The number of accommodation orders ranks among the top ten counties in the country.
Accommodation is booming in small towns. In communities and on the streets, "checking out hotels" has become the first thing many consumers do to help "full rooms".
Therefore, “exploring stores” has become the second keyword for New Year consumption.
It is in all kinds of "shop exploration" that Xiaocheng Coffee is constantly found and liked.
The "2024 Spring Festival Consumption Data Report" released by Douyin shows that during this holiday, online and offline consumption vitality continues to be released.
The average daily consumption of food, drink, entertainment and other life service industries increased by 153% year-on-year.
Returning to their hometowns for the New Year has ignited the small town's economy. 3.19 million people returned to their hometowns to visit stores. The videos of store visits they released brought economic income of 1.185 billion yuan to their hometowns.
Wear new clothes during the Spring Festival. This year, many young consumers visiting stores are wearing Hanfu.
This is the third key word for consumption during the New Year this year.
Qichacha data shows that in 2023, there will be 70 new Hanfu-related companies in Guangdong Province, a year-on-year increase of 105.88%.
Since January this year, the number of searches for Hanfu has skyrocketed. Among them, the horse-faced skirt has become the most popular item in the Hanfu category, with sales of many hot-selling items exceeding one million yuan.
Especially in small towns, many young people have started to wear hairpins and horse-faced skirts to celebrate the New Year.
This reflects that currently, Chinese culture has become an important label for young consumption.
Link
coffee in china
development milestones
The emergence of coffee in China can be traced back to the Qing Dynasty.
Before the Opium War, the Qing Dynasty implemented a policy of seclusion, leaving only Guangzhou as a treaty port. All foreign merchant ships were allowed to dock and trade in Guangzhou. Political, economic, trade, and cultural exchanges between China and the West were concentrated in Guangzhou, which was very prosperous.
When foreign businessmen arrived in Guangzhou, they found that there was no place to drink coffee.
Around 1836, a Dane saw business opportunities and opened a coffee shop, roughly located in the area of today's Shisanhang Clothing Wholesale Market in Guangzhou. This was the first coffee shop in Guangzhou and the first coffee shop in China. pavilion.
"Guangdong General Chronicles" compiled during the Jiaqing period of the Qing Dynasty, Volume 95 "Products and Cereals" records: "There is black wine, and Fangui drinks it after meals, saying that this wine can digest food." The "black wine" mentioned here It was coffee. At that time, most Chinese people did not know coffee and thought it was black wine.
The paper "Analysis of Shanghai Cafes from 1920 to 1940" written by Chen Wenwen of Shanghai Normal University pointed out that in 1886, a Hongkou Cafe was opened in the Hongkou District of the Shanghai Public Settlement to supply coffee and beer to sailors. This was the earliest recorded cafe in Shanghai. .
In 1988, Nestlé built coffee planting bases in Pu'er and Xishuangbanna areas of Yunnan. In 1992, Nestlé's Dongguan factory officially opened.
It can be said that from the late 1980s to the 1990s, with the strong promotion of Nestlé coffee, instant coffee and flavored coffee were the mainstream of Chinese coffee culture.
In 1997, Shangdao Coffee entered Haikou.
Starbucks, which is now very familiar to Chinese people, opened its first store in China in 1999 in Beijing.
In May 2000, Shanghai's first Starbucks opened in Lippo Plaza, Huaihai Road.
Since 2000, freshly ground coffee has begun to change Chinese people’s understanding of coffee.
In the 10 years from 2000 to 2010, European and American coffees represented by Starbucks, Costa, and Pacific; Taiwanese brands represented by Shangdao Coffee and Mingdian Coffee; Korean coffee brands represented by "Man Coffee" and "Coffee Accompany You" They entered China one after another, forming a three-part world pattern.
Since 2010, domestic coffee has gradually begun to have its own stage.
In many cities, personalized coffee shops have begun to appear. In June 2017, Luckin Coffee was established in Xiamen, and in 2022, the Kudi Coffee brand was established.
Interviewed and written by Nanfang Daily reporters Li Jie, Yao Chong, Huang Xiaoyun, Ye Qihan, Cai Huafeng
Coordinator Yao Chong