China’s Coffee Wars鏖战中国咖啡市场

克莱尔·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 “level 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.

与其他在华外企相比，星巴克的发展可谓独树一帜。

中国是传统茶饮大国。1999年，咖啡连锁品牌星巴克在中国主要城市开设了首批门店，中国自此开始接触精品咖啡文化。在进入中国之初，星巴克基本上没有遭遇什么真正的竞争，很快站稳脚跟，成为白领日常光顾之所。星巴克曾一度占有中国80%的咖啡市场。

将近20年后，星巴克已在中国开设了3300家门店，中国有望在几年后超越美国成为星巴克最大的市场。星巴克在华门店销售额在2017年达到300亿元人民币（预计于2025年达到1万亿元人民币），同比增长15%到20%，远超其在国际市场的2%。

而现在星巴克一家独大的局面难再维持，两家中国本土咖啡创业公司迅速崛起，加入到这场昂贵的市场争夺战中，以最快的速度从市场上攫取尽可能大的份额。

瑞幸咖啡：从10亿元人民币投资到10亿美元估值

仅在北京一地，无论是地铁上，还是三环内的电梯间，都很有可能看见瑞幸咖啡蓝白两色广告;广告海报中，一线明星张震、汤唯手捧瑞幸咖啡为其代言。

瑞幸的定位为“新零售”咖啡运营商，体验瑞幸仅需一部智能手机。在瑞幸极简主义、蓝白两色装潢的咖啡店内，不设收银员，顾客通过手机应用下单、付款，可外送也可堂食。

瑞幸咖啡创立于2017年11月，创始人钱治亚是叫车平台神州优车集团前首席运营官。“我们有充足的现金储备。”钱治亚在2018年5月召开的一次新闻发布会上如是说。她在发布会上同时公布，被新闻媒体炒得热火朝天的瑞幸咖啡创业公司进入市场的首轮投资即超过10亿元人民币。

投资的大头主要花费在请明星代言、在城市中悬挂广告牌、为吸引新客户投入的高额首单补贴及大幅折扣以及在全国开设门店上。瑞幸似乎已做好在相当长的一段时间内亏损运营的准备了。

瑞幸门店扩张速度惊人，主要开设在城市中心商业区，目标客户为白领。截至2018年7月，距其进入市场不足8个月，该公司已在全国13个主要城市开设了809家门店。瑞幸大力推进外卖服务——为完成来自写字楼或家庭住户的订单，大约40%的门店基本上都用作外卖厨房。

快速扩张的瑞幸宣称已向约350万客户卖出超过1800万杯咖啡。瑞幸计划至2018年年底在全国开设2000家门店，其中15%为外卖厨房，其余的则为堂食咖啡馆。

瑞幸的核心产品、美式咖啡及烘焙类产品打折力度通常非常大。新顾客每在手机应用上邀请一位朋友注册就能获得一杯免费咖啡;瑞幸还定期开展买2送1、买5送5活动;外卖订单保证30分钟内送达，如若超时，下一单免费;至少2018全年，门店内所有轻食5折优惠。此外，对于大部分中国人来说，星巴克咖啡的价位仍然过高，而瑞幸咖啡的价位比星巴克要低20%左右：一杯美式21元，一杯拿铁24元。

瑞幸投资人包括大钲资本和新加坡主权财富基金新加坡政府投资公司。瑞幸的烧钱策略是经他们批准才得以实施。年轻的瑞幸于2018年6月筹得2亿美元资金，估值达到10亿美元，这使得它在不足一年的时间内成长为一家独角兽企业。

连咖啡，病毒式营销高手

连咖啡成立于2012年，早期是一家咖啡外卖应用，在中国提供星巴克、高乐雅、咖世家等热门外资品牌咖啡外送服务，积累了多年关于网络深度消费用户的习惯和需求的数据，在此基础上，2016年转型做自有品牌，2017年年初开始通过微信小程序提供自有品牌咖啡外卖服务。

这种软入门策略为其咖啡实体门店的超快扩张铺平了道路。2018年，连咖啡在3月份融资1.58亿元人民币，到7月份已开设200家门店，单日最高卖出40万杯咖啡，客户群达到300万。

瑞幸咖啡的扩张之快令人咋舌，背后秘诀并不新鲜：依赖按需服务以及高额首单补贴。而连咖啡则胜在其营销创意上。

2018年8月1日，连咖啡上线了“口袋咖啡馆”活动。用户可在自己的微信小程序中开设店面，自己选择虚拟店面的装饰和风格，上架限选的几款连咖啡饮品。每卖出一杯饮品，店主可以得到 0.1 杯成长咖啡奖励（也就是说，每卖出10杯，连咖啡就会免费送店主1杯）。

卖得越多，就会“解锁”越多连咖啡特饮，你也就能上架更多款式的饮品。连咖啡竭尽所能激励店主将自己的咖啡店推荐给朋友、分享到朋友圈，不仅仅是为了卖饮品，还为了吸引更多用户开店，为获取免费咖啡而做好销售和推广工作。

在连咖啡的成长中，社交电商功不可没。我们必须要为程序设计者点赞：讨喜的页面图形、流畅的用户体验，用户可以天马行空地布置和装饰自己的店面，让人忍不住分享。另外，用户可不断“升级”的游戏化模式（用户在达到一定销售目标后可解锁并售卖特制饮品）也有助于增加这种分散销售结构的用户黏性。

口袋咖啡馆程序上线仅几个小时，就收获了超过10万的页面浏览量，远超其官网其他页面平均2—5万的浏览量。

定期推出团购是连咖啡增加销售和关注的另一主要驱动力。任何用户只要拉来两位朋友一起拼团购买，就可以1元价格购买精选饮品，例如防弹咖啡或者招牌牛油果雪昔。

连咖啡的饮品也值得肯定。普通饮品的名字好听易记，装饰诱人。除了常规的浓缩咖啡系列，连咖啡还提供花式饮品，例如起泡粉红柠檬水、水果雪昔、时令鸡尾酒。

压力之下，星巴克也要做外卖

星巴克逐步培育中国市场并实现本地化，提升了中国消费者的咖啡品鉴能力。多年来，星巴克提供的奢华产品不仅包含高品质的咖啡，同时还有高品位的咖啡馆体验。

不提供外卖，也没有花过多心思在广告上，星巴克仍然保持着其市场领先者的地位，而随着两家中国本土咖啡連锁店的崛起，特别是考虑到星巴克财报显示其在华利润突然下降的情况，这一局面恐将改变。

为适应中国人已习惯的上门服务的生活方式，就像其快速成长的竞争者们那样，星巴克携手阿里巴巴旗下外卖平台“饿了么”开始尝试提供外卖服务。

在中国，如果你现在还要自己走路去买咖啡，那就太过时了：连咖啡在美团上提供外卖，瑞幸联合顺丰外卖保证30分钟必达，不久后，点杯星巴克咖啡也仅需在智能手机上按几个键而已。

中国咖啡消费平均为每人每年5杯（一线城市例如北京、上海、广州则为每人每年20杯）。与此相比，美国为每人每年300杯，日本则为360杯。中国咖啡消费市场有着惊人的利润和巨大的增长空间，能轻松容纳的成功零售连锁商不止3家。而最终也不会是3家企业之间的相互竞争。为促进中国的咖啡消费，无论是本土创业公司还是跨国巨头，竞争者需要不断创新，把咖啡市场的蛋糕做大。                               □

（译者单位：北京理工大学）