It is now popular to open small stores, and it is rare to see such a "big deal".
Not long ago, the "ADDICTEA" (hereinafter referred to as "ADDICTEA") flagship store with a six-story building and an investment of up to 18 million yuan officially opened on Wuhan Jianghan Road Pedestrian Street, attracting many peers to check in and explore the store.
What exactly does this store with a business area of over 1,200 square meters sell?
This year, the growth of tea drinks is generally difficult. Is the idea of opening a "super store" still feasible?
floors, investment 18 million
What kind of tea shop is this?
During this period, a tea shop in Wuhan was popular in WeChat Moments, and many drink friends came to check in.
html In early July, Wuhan Jianghan Road Pedestrian Street, a landmark business district, was where Nantou’s first flagship store opened. The building has a unique shape, with 6 floors of tea space. The products are also the innovation and extension of tea.
It is reported that , a store with a business area of more than 1,200 square meters, has invested as much as 18 million yuan. Let’s take a look at the store visit record of a drinking friend:
From the outside, this is an independent building with a modern technological style. Looking from a distance, the building is silver-white in color and is made of light aluminum plates with staggered lines and scattered mirrors of different shapes. It is the kind of building that is unforgettable.
Picture source naughty person
Entering the store, there are 6 floors in total, with the theme of "The Return of the Great Sage" from Journey to the West. The overall style is simple and bright, mainly black and white and gray, and the wall and top designs are mostly mirrors, which adds to the overall A sense of technology.
Picture source: Naughty
A sci-fi style store, the products are also very ornamental:
On the products, customers can also observe the tea making process on the spot, such as a black tea called "Stealing Master", the clerk uses mortar , Beaker, Erlenmeyer flask , filter funnel, cream bottle and ice cup and other tools, perilla leaves and oolong tea are blended to extract a cup of pink drink.
html The space design on the 16th floor also meets the various tea experience segments:
- The first floor is mainly made of freshly made tea drinks, including pure tea and blended tea, and sells coffee, milk, etc. The base provides choices of ice blog and oat milk . Most of the single product prices range from 26 yuan to 50 yuan. The most expensive one, "Pharaoh Cinnamon", sells for 128 yuan and is a must-have item for current Internet celebrities;
Pharaoh Cinnamon, Picture source naughty member
- The second floor has a transitional space for guests to take a rest, and also provides a shooting venue for customers who come to check in;
- The third floor serves as a brand culture display area, highlighting the concept of "Journey to the West". The concept film of "Boundless Journey to the West" is played on a rolling basis, and there is also retail of tea culture peripheral products (the fourth and fifth floors are currently not open);
- The sixth floor is more like "selling tea in the form of creative coffee", using quarterly flash mobs It sells creative tea drinks in the form of menu, and also adopts the "daily tea and night wine" business model, turning it into a tavern at night.
Picture source naughty disciple
Brand new products and eye-catching space have surprised many customers who come to check in.
Before this store, people in the industry were still relatively unfamiliar with the name "Naughty Tu". In fact, this brand was established in 2018, and its development model is the opposite of that of most tea drink brands.
For example, in terms of store opening strategy, "first overseas and then domestic", the first store was opened in Australia, and it has opened 6 stores in Australia and South Korea. It recently opened its first domestic store in Wuhan.
In the context of the current pursuit of "light store opening", Nian Tu invested 18 million yuan to open a 1,200-square-meter store, which made me think:
- A "super space experience" similar to Wenheyou's in Xinchayin Does it make sense?
- What other directions can be taken for the current “space exploration” of new tea drinks?
Is Wenheyou’s “super space”
feasible in the current tea market?
To a certain extent, the brand significance of opening a large store is greater than the profit significance.
What new tea brands have been following is the model of concept store + standard store: uses "ultimate experience" to continuously output brand potential, while using "standard store type" to bring profits and income.
For example, Heytea’s handmade store
At important points such as brand upgrading and transformation, opening a large store can help to focus on displaying brand culture and future vision, raise the brand’s height, and bring consumers a deeper experience and understanding. .
But looking at the beverage field, building large stores, especially super large stores, often occurs after the brand potential has accumulated to a certain extent.
For example, Starbucks had opened more than 600 stores in Shanghai before opening a 2,700-square-meter roastery in Shanghai. This number had already exceeded New York and Los Angeles at the time.
and Naixue’s tea . The Shenzhen Naixue Dream Factory store officially opened in 2019. At that time, Naixue had been founded for 4 years and had opened 330 stores as a leading brand.
Naixue Dream Factory
However, these background conditions do not seem to be met by the stubborn disciples. From this perspective, the opening of the Wuhan store by Niandu seems to have higher store opening risks and non-replicability.
In addition, with the development of new tea drinks, in most cases, brand development has been tied to scale.
Starting from the consumer side, the success of Mixue Bingcheng and Chabaidao is inseparable from the Amway of opening stores all over the country and gaining access to many Internet taps.
A direct feeling is that when I return to my hometown during the Chinese New Year, the 50-year-old aunts in the county begin to use Mixue Bingcheng instead of bottled drinks.
Under the super scale, the operation system has been continuously improved, and it has more say in the supply chain. Therefore, it is not difficult for us to feel that in recent years, chain tea drink brands have been weakening their space, increasing the speed of opening stores, and using scale to increase their voice.
So, should New Tea Drink have a space experience now?
What are the other opportunities for tea drinks?
Any tea shop business is a set of balance between "cost, efficiency and experience". To provide a good space experience, most of the time, we still have to consider whether the cost is low enough and the efficiency is high enough. Specifically:
On the one hand, compared with the cost of land in first- and second-tier cities, the lower rent and labor costs in the lower market make the cost of a store lower. The area has increased too much. Compared with first-tier cities, profitability is relatively easy to achieve.
Opening large stores in sinking markets has become the choice of many brands.
Of course, what really gave rise to the intensive birth of large stores in county towns was the demand of young people in small towns for the third space . The sinking market The acquaintance society has obvious characteristics. Consumption behavior is also closely related to social activities. Young people need a place to meet. The third space is a rigid need, but there are not many places that can provide it.
Judging from Kamen’s past interview cases, the logic of building brand culture is slightly different from that of first- and second-tier cities. The commonality of “large county stores” is that space design is more practical.
The emergence of large stores in county towns competes with local cafes and fast food restaurants, providing customers with a place where they can go on dates, talk, and do homework.
. Efficiency and convenience in first- and second-tier markets
In first- and second-tier cities, it is difficult to reduce the cost of rent, but labor costs become a variable and are included in brand considerations. The essence of labor cost is efficiency.
Even if you are a stickler for "spending money", a major feature of the Wuhan store is the control of labor costs. Perhaps because Nantui’s main market is overseas, overseas labor costs are generally higher than domestic ones, so it was explored earlier.
I learned that nantu has tea extracting machines, tea grinding cans, shakers, condensing tea making machines, etc. in the store, and has been working hard to realize semi-automatic tea extraction , using a large number of machines and equipment to break through pure tea production Standardized difficulty. This can both reduce labor costs and facilitate standardization.
Picture source naughty disciple
It has to be said that the appearance of naughty disciple has triggered a lot of discussion within the tea drinking circle.
We often say that new tea drinks are facing a mid-life crisis, and the products are becoming more and more popular. Even if they practice 18 martial arts and have various marketing activities, the excitement among young people is not what it used to be.
A brand development model that goes against the grain like Nian Tui is a new “stimulus” to the industry.
It is not only a cup of drink, but also the imagination of young people about summer; in the store check-in photos, what people hold in their hands is not just milk tea, but the pursuit of urban trends.
But from a business perspective, we still need time and the market to verify whether "super space" can work.
