China’s Coffee Wars鏖戰(zhàn)中國咖啡市場

克萊爾·朱 曹莉

As foreign companies in China go， Starbucks is a unique case.

Traditionally a land of tea， China was exposed to the specialty coffee culture in 1999 when Starbucks opened their first shops in China’s larger cities. The coffee chain essentially faced no serious competition in China in the early years， and effectively established itself as a daily routine for white-collar consumers. At one point Starbucks controlled 80% of the market.

Nearly two decades later， Starbucks has 3，300 shops in China， as the country expects to surpass the US as the cafe chain’s biggest market in a few years. Coffee shop sales reached some 30 billion RMB in 2017 （and is expected to reach 1 trillion RMB in 2025）， with a year-on-year growth of 15% to 20%， far exceeding the international market’s 2%.

It is getting too big to let a single giant dominate， and two homegrown coffee startups are running as fast as they can in this expensive fight for the market， grabbing as big a share of the pie as quickly as possible.

Luckin： from 1 billion RMB investment to 1 billion USD valuation

In Beijing alone， if you have taken the subway， or even walked into an elevator anywhere within the third ring， chances are you have noticed the omnipresence of blue-and-white ads featuring tier 1 celebrities like Zhang Zhen and Tang Wei posing with a Luckin coffee.

“New retail” is often used to describe Luckin. The experience revolves around the smartphone. There are no cashiers in their minimalist blue-and-white coffee shops， where customers order and pay on their app， for both delivery and dining in.

Luckin was founded in November 2017 by Jenny Qian Zhiya. “We have plenty of cash，” said the former COO of car-hailing platform UCAR at a press briefing in May， when she revealed that her hyped1 coffee startup entered the market with an initial investment of over 1 billion CNY.

The bulk of it was spent on celebrity endorsement， plastering cities with billboards， waging heavy initial subsidies and discounts to court new customers， and setting up shops across the country. You’d have to presume that they are prepared to run at a loss for quite a while.

Luckin is amazing at opening locations fast， primarily in central business districts to target white-collar customers. As of July 2018， the company has 809 outlets across 13 higher-tier cities2 in China， less than 8 months after its launch. Their delivery service is aggressively promoted—About 40% of the outlets essentially serve as kitchens to fulfill orders placed in offices and homes.

The rapidly expanding company claimed to have sold more than 18 million cups to a customer base of some 3.5 million. Luckin plans to reach 2，000 shop-fronts nation-wide by end of the year， 15% of which will be delivery kitchens and the rest sit-down cafes.

Luckin often heavily discount their core offerings， American-style coffee， and bakery items. Newcomers get a free drink for every referral to the app. The two-for-three and five-for-ten deals are regular. For delivery orders， if your courier doesn’t arrive within 30 minutes as promised， the next drink is on them. And at least through 2018， all food is half price. Compared to Starbucks， whose prices are still expensive for most of China， Luckin offers a lower price point about 20% cheaper， with an Americano at 21 CNY and 24 CNY for a latte.

Luckin’s investors， including Centurium Capital and Singapore’s sovereign wealth fund GIC， must approve the cash-burning strategy. Luckin closed a USD 200 million funding in June 2018， giving the young company a 1 billion USD valuation， which makes it a unicorn3 in less than a year.

Coffee Box， the viral marketing powerhouse4

Lian Coffee， AKA Coffee Box， has been around since 2012， first as a coffee delivery app that offers popular foreign brands like Starbucks， Gloria Jean’s and Costa to customers in China. This means when they set up their own brand Coffee Box in 2016， and started taking delivery orders via their WeChat mini program in early 2017， they did it with years of data on digital-savvy users’ habits and needs under their belt5.

This soft-entry approach paved the way for their espresso-charged brick-and-mortar expansion. In 2018， they raised 158 million CNY in March and have 200 shops as of July， reporting a peak daily sales of 400，000 cups and a user base of 3 million.

The recipe behind Luckin’s dizzying expansion is not something entirely new， relying on on-demand services6 and heavy initial subsidies. But Coffee Box wins major creative points for their marketing.

On 1 August 2018， they rolled out a “pocket cafe” campaign. Users can open a shopfront on their WeChat mini program， choose the look and feel of the virtual shop and stock the “cafe” with a limited selection of drink. For every cup sold via your shopfront， you will get 0.1 cups of coffee reward （i.e. you get one free drink for every 10 sold）.

As you sell more， you get to “unlock” more special drinks and thus stock and sell a wider variety of drinks. They push hard to motivate cafe “owners” to share their shops to friends and on their Moments， not only to sell drinks but also to get more users to open shops and effectively do their sales and promotion work for them， in exchange for free coffees.

Social e-commerce plays a big part in their growth. You have to give credit to their designers for the cutesy7 graphics and smooth user experience， letting users customize their shopfront with whimsical8 furnishings and decor for irresistible sharability. Also， the gamified model that lets users “l(fā)evel up” （i.e. unlock and sell special drinks after reaching certain sales goals） helps create stickiness for this decentralized sales structure.

Merely hours after the pocket cafe program was rolled out， the post has garnered over 100，000+ views， far exceeding the average 20，000-50，000 of the other posts on their official account.

Regular group-buying deals make for another major driver of their sales and following. Select drinks like bulletproof coffee and their signature avocado smoothie are sold at 1 CNY when a user gets two friends to buy with them.

The beverage offerings deserve some props9 too. Ordinary drinks are tweaked with catchy names and enticing decoration. In addition to the usual range of espresso coffees， they also have such gimmicky products as sparkling pink lemonade， fruit-themed smoothie， and seasonal cocktails.

Starbucks is pressed to do delivery， too

Chinese consumers developed a growing taste of java thanks to Starbucks， who took their time to educate and localize to the market. For years， they have provided a luxury product that is as much about the coffee as the cafe experience.

Without offering delivery or spending major efforts in advertising， Starbucks has secured its sweet spot as the market leader10， while the rise of these two homegrown coffee chains may be changing that， especially given the report11 of a sudden slowdown in China’s growth.

They begin testing delivery service with Alibaba’s delivery service Ele.me， embracing the lifestyle ritual of on-demand services in China， just like their rapidly growing competitors.

If you are still walking to get a cup of coffee in China， that is so 2017. Coffee Box delivers with Meituan; Luckin’s orders promise to arrive within 30 minutes with SF Express， and Starbucks will soon be just a few smartphone taps away too.

The average coffee consumption in China is only 5 cups per person and per year （20 in first-tier cities like Beijing， Shanghai， and Guangzhou）， compared to 300 in the US and 360 in Japan. So immensely profitable and with so much room for growth， the Chinese coffee market can easily accommodate more than three successful retail chains. The end game12 here is not to compete with each other. To boost coffee consumption in China， we shall see much more of the innovative efforts to grow the “coffee pie” from these players， homegrown startups and multi-national giants alike.

與其他在華外企相比，星巴克的發(fā)展可謂獨(dú)樹一幟。

中國是傳統(tǒng)茶飲大國。1999年，咖啡連鎖品牌星巴克在中國主要城市開設(shè)了首批門店，中國自此開始接觸精品咖啡文化。在進(jìn)入中國之初，星巴克基本上沒有遭遇什么真正的競爭，很快站穩(wěn)腳跟，成為白領(lǐng)日常光顧之所。星巴克曾一度占有中國80%的咖啡市場。

將近20年后，星巴克已在中國開設(shè)了3300家門店，中國有望在幾年后超越美國成為星巴克最大的市場。星巴克在華門店銷售額在2017年達(dá)到300億元人民幣（預(yù)計(jì)于2025年達(dá)到1萬億元人民幣），同比增長15%到20%，遠(yuǎn)超其在國際市場的2%。

而現(xiàn)在星巴克一家獨(dú)大的局面難再維持，兩家中國本土咖啡創(chuàng)業(yè)公司迅速崛起，加入到這場昂貴的市場爭奪戰(zhàn)中，以最快的速度從市場上攫取盡可能大的份額。

瑞幸咖啡：從10億元人民幣投資到10億美元估值

僅在北京一地，無論是地鐵上，還是三環(huán)內(nèi)的電梯間，都很有可能看見瑞幸咖啡藍(lán)白兩色廣告;廣告海報(bào)中，一線明星張震、湯唯手捧瑞幸咖啡為其代言。

瑞幸的定位為“新零售”咖啡運(yùn)營商，體驗(yàn)瑞幸僅需一部智能手機(jī)。在瑞幸極簡主義、藍(lán)白兩色裝潢的咖啡店內(nèi)，不設(shè)收銀員，顧客通過手機(jī)應(yīng)用下單、付款，可外送也可堂食。

瑞幸咖啡創(chuàng)立于2017年11月，創(chuàng)始人錢治亞是叫車平臺神州優(yōu)車集團(tuán)前首席運(yùn)營官?！拔覀冇谐渥愕默F(xiàn)金儲備。”錢治亞在2018年5月召開的一次新聞發(fā)布會上如是說。她在發(fā)布會上同時公布，被新聞媒體炒得熱火朝天的瑞幸咖啡創(chuàng)業(yè)公司進(jìn)入市場的首輪投資即超過10億元人民幣。

投資的大頭主要花費(fèi)在請明星代言、在城市中懸掛廣告牌、為吸引新客戶投入的高額首單補(bǔ)貼及大幅折扣以及在全國開設(shè)門店上。瑞幸似乎已做好在相當(dāng)長的一段時間內(nèi)虧損運(yùn)營的準(zhǔn)備了。

瑞幸門店擴(kuò)張速度驚人，主要開設(shè)在城市中心商業(yè)區(qū)，目標(biāo)客戶為白領(lǐng)。截至2018年7月，距其進(jìn)入市場不足8個月，該公司已在全國13個主要城市開設(shè)了809家門店。瑞幸大力推進(jìn)外賣服務(wù)——為完成來自寫字樓或家庭住戶的訂單，大約40%的門店基本上都用作外賣廚房。

快速擴(kuò)張的瑞幸宣稱已向約350萬客戶賣出超過1800萬杯咖啡。瑞幸計(jì)劃至2018年年底在全國開設(shè)2000家門店，其中15%為外賣廚房，其余的則為堂食咖啡館。

瑞幸的核心產(chǎn)品、美式咖啡及烘焙類產(chǎn)品打折力度通常非常大。新顧客每在手機(jī)應(yīng)用上邀請一位朋友注冊就能獲得一杯免費(fèi)咖啡;瑞幸還定期開展買2送1、買5送5活動;外賣訂單保證30分鐘內(nèi)送達(dá)，如若超時，下一單免費(fèi);至少2018全年，門店內(nèi)所有輕食5折優(yōu)惠。此外，對于大部分中國人來說，星巴克咖啡的價(jià)位仍然過高，而瑞幸咖啡的價(jià)位比星巴克要低20%左右：一杯美式21元，一杯拿鐵24元。

瑞幸投資人包括大鉦資本和新加坡主權(quán)財(cái)富基金新加坡政府投資公司。瑞幸的燒錢策略是經(jīng)他們批準(zhǔn)才得以實(shí)施。年輕的瑞幸于2018年6月籌得2億美元資金，估值達(dá)到10億美元，這使得它在不足一年的時間內(nèi)成長為一家獨(dú)角獸企業(yè)。

連咖啡，病毒式營銷高手

連咖啡成立于2012年，早期是一家咖啡外賣應(yīng)用，在中國提供星巴克、高樂雅、咖世家等熱門外資品牌咖啡外送服務(wù)，積累了多年關(guān)于網(wǎng)絡(luò)深度消費(fèi)用戶的習(xí)慣和需求的數(shù)據(jù)，在此基礎(chǔ)上，2016年轉(zhuǎn)型做自有品牌，2017年年初開始通過微信小程序提供自有品牌咖啡外賣服務(wù)。

這種軟入門策略為其咖啡實(shí)體門店的超快擴(kuò)張鋪平了道路。2018年，連咖啡在3月份融資1.58億元人民幣，到7月份已開設(shè)200家門店，單日最高賣出40萬杯咖啡，客戶群達(dá)到300萬。

瑞幸咖啡的擴(kuò)張之快令人咋舌，背后秘訣并不新鮮：依賴按需服務(wù)以及高額首單補(bǔ)貼。而連咖啡則勝在其營銷創(chuàng)意上。

2018年8月1日，連咖啡上線了“口袋咖啡館”活動。用戶可在自己的微信小程序中開設(shè)店面，自己選擇虛擬店面的裝飾和風(fēng)格，上架限選的幾款連咖啡飲品。每賣出一杯飲品，店主可以得到 0.1 杯成長咖啡獎勵（也就是說，每賣出10杯，連咖啡就會免費(fèi)送店主1杯）。

賣得越多，就會“解鎖”越多連咖啡特飲，你也就能上架更多款式的飲品。連咖啡竭盡所能激勵店主將自己的咖啡店推薦給朋友、分享到朋友圈，不僅僅是為了賣飲品，還為了吸引更多用戶開店，為獲取免費(fèi)咖啡而做好銷售和推廣工作。

在連咖啡的成長中，社交電商功不可沒。我們必須要為程序設(shè)計(jì)者點(diǎn)贊：討喜的頁面圖形、流暢的用戶體驗(yàn)，用戶可以天馬行空地布置和裝飾自己的店面，讓人忍不住分享。另外，用戶可不斷“升級”的游戲化模式（用戶在達(dá)到一定銷售目標(biāo)后可解鎖并售賣特制飲品）也有助于增加這種分散銷售結(jié)構(gòu)的用戶黏性。

口袋咖啡館程序上線僅幾個小時，就收獲了超過10萬的頁面瀏覽量，遠(yuǎn)超其官網(wǎng)其他頁面平均2—5萬的瀏覽量。

定期推出團(tuán)購是連咖啡增加銷售和關(guān)注的另一主要驅(qū)動力。任何用戶只要拉來兩位朋友一起拼團(tuán)購買，就可以1元價(jià)格購買精選飲品，例如防彈咖啡或者招牌牛油果雪昔。

連咖啡的飲品也值得肯定。普通飲品的名字好聽易記，裝飾誘人。除了常規(guī)的濃縮咖啡系列，連咖啡還提供花式飲品，例如起泡粉紅檸檬水、水果雪昔、時令雞尾酒。

壓力之下，星巴克也要做外賣

星巴克逐步培育中國市場并實(shí)現(xiàn)本地化，提升了中國消費(fèi)者的咖啡品鑒能力。多年來，星巴克提供的奢華產(chǎn)品不僅包含高品質(zhì)的咖啡，同時還有高品位的咖啡館體驗(yàn)。

不提供外賣，也沒有花過多心思在廣告上，星巴克仍然保持著其市場領(lǐng)先者的地位，而隨著兩家中國本土咖啡連鎖店的崛起，特別是考慮到星巴克財(cái)報(bào)顯示其在華利潤突然下降的情況，這一局面恐將改變。

為適應(yīng)中國人已習(xí)慣的上門服務(wù)的生活方式，就像其快速成長的競爭者們那樣，星巴克攜手阿里巴巴旗下外賣平臺“餓了么”開始嘗試提供外賣服務(wù)。

在中國，如果你現(xiàn)在還要自己走路去買咖啡，那就太過時了：連咖啡在美團(tuán)上提供外賣，瑞幸聯(lián)合順豐外賣保證30分鐘必達(dá)，不久后，點(diǎn)杯星巴克咖啡也僅需在智能手機(jī)上按幾個鍵而已。

中國咖啡消費(fèi)平均為每人每年5杯（一線城市例如北京、上海、廣州則為每人每年20杯）。與此相比，美國為每人每年300杯，日本則為360杯。中國咖啡消費(fèi)市場有著驚人的利潤和巨大的增長空間，能輕松容納的成功零售連鎖商不止3家。而最終也不會是3家企業(yè)之間的相互競爭。為促進(jìn)中國的咖啡消費(fèi)，無論是本土創(chuàng)業(yè)公司還是跨國巨頭，競爭者需要不斷創(chuàng)新，把咖啡市場的蛋糕做大。? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ?□

（譯者單位：北京理工大學(xué)）