As we all know, as an imported product, coffee is very common and popular abroad. Many people cannot live without coffee every day. From breakfast to afternoon tea, coffee can appear. There are not many people drinking coffee in China, and they are basically concentrated in first-tier cities, with Shanghai as the most. When coffee first entered China, it was labeled as a "high-end beverage". In addition to the relatively expensive price, a cup costs dozens of yuan, another reason is that the audience is basically business white-collar workers, and coffee has become one of the helps them to demonstrate their identity and improve their personal taste.
Six or seven years ago, coffee was not so timely in China. I often saw many white-collar workers holding laptops, ordering a cup of Starbucks, and then sitting in the store for an afternoon. Maybe they are really working hard, or maybe they are just using the Starbucks atmosphere to improve themselves. But it is undeniable that it is precisely because of this trend that the positioning of coffee "high-end beverages" is pushing higher and higher, and the distance between them and ordinary consumers is getting farther and farther away. Therefore, many users who simply like to drink coffee and do not have such high requirements for taste have gradually turned their targets to products such as instant coffee and capsule coffee , which has also made the capsule coffee machine popular for a long time.
(Photo source: Onecup official)
However, in recent years, a large number of coffee stores have emerged in China, and a number of brands led by Luckin have lowered the price of coffee to less than 20 yuan, which has threatened the development of capsule coffee machines and other products to a certain extent. Recently, Onecup, an independent sub-brand under Joyoung, focused on the research and development of capsule coffee machines and beverages, announced its delisting. , a brand that has existed for nearly ten years, has also launched four popular capsule coffee machines, but has now quietly delisted. Does this mean that the era of capsule coffee machines has ended, and how should we develop next?
capsule coffee machine market is shrinking
Before coffee became popular in China, there were not so many coffee stores on the market, mainly based on brands such as Starbucks and Shangdao Coffee. The relatively high-end store decoration and the price of coffee itself are not cheap, making coffee the first to become popular among the upper class, which is the scene of many white-collar workers drinking coffee at Starbucks with their laptops on their hands. However, as consumers' awareness of coffee deepens and coffee drinks continue to appear on the market, more and more people also want to try this "foreign Chinese medicine". Therefore, in order to allow the public to drink coffee at a lower cost, capsule coffee machines came into being.
(Photo source: Luckin Official)
capsule coffee machine also flowed into China from abroad, and brands such as Nespresso and Delonghi under Nestlé were the first to bring their products to China. For a time, a number of brands such as Xiaomi Ecological Chain Thought and Joyoung's Onecup have joined, setting off a capsule coffee craze in China. In the first half of 2019, the sales volume of the domestic coffee machine market was 630,000 units and sales of 700 million yuan. Among them, the retail volume and retail volume of capsule coffee machines increased by 23% and 27.1% year-on-year respectively. In the first 10 months of 2021, the market share of capsule coffee machines online coffee machines reached 28.2%, and the offline market share reached 35.6%, showing extremely strong development potential.
capsule coffee is so popular and developing rapidly, and there are three main reasons: First, its production cost is quite cheap. Compared with Starbucks' price of about 40 yuan per cup, capsule coffee only costs 4 to 6 yuan per cup; Second, the production process is very simple and convenient. For example, the capsule coffee machine launched by Joyo Onecup supports one-click production, 30 seconds of drinking, automatic cleaning and other functions, which is almost fool-like operation; Third, the taste of coffee is quite rich, which can meet the choice needs of different users. For example, Nespresso has more than a dozen types, including Apecio, Kasha, Lifando, etc., and has many choices of flavors.
(Photo source: Onecup official)
However, the development of capsule coffee machines is not smooth. With the gradual decline of the price threshold of fully automatic high-pressure extraction and semi-automatic high-pressure extraction coffee machines, this high-end coffee machine that can make pure flavors is gradually replacing the market share of concentrated capsule coffee machines. The market structure in the first half of this year shows that the sales volume of fully automatic high-pressure extraction coffee machines is about 60% due to their convenience and stability, while the semi-automatic high-pressure extraction and capsule coffee machines each account for about 20%. From the data, it was found that high-end coffee machines have seriously threatened the living space of capsule coffee machines, which may be the reason why Onecup chose to delist at this time. Xiao Lei believes that there are two reasons why
capsule coffee machine is replaced by other products so quickly. First, although the coffee capsules have a rich taste, their taste is fixed and may not meet the preferences of most people. Moreover, the taste of espresso and extract coffee is quite different. People who are used to drinking extract generally do not like concentrated ones. Therefore, capsule coffee machines can only meet the needs of a small number of people and are not a popular choice.
(Photo source: Onecup official)
Second, the emergence of a number of coffee brands such as Luckin has brought coffee from high-end beverages to the mainstream beverage ranks, and the prices are mostly within 20 yuan. Moreover, the offline stores and convenient takeaway platforms everywhere make drinking coffee more convenient and cheaper than before, and the taste is quite rich and diverse. The emergence of cheap coffee in has made consumers no longer demand for capsule coffee machines and is also an important reason for the gradual decline in sales.
The shortcomings of the product itself and the change in consumer demand have led to a gradual decline in the sales and market share of capsule coffee machines. This may not have much impact on the development of the entire coffee machine market, after all, high-end coffee machines are still in a period of growth. However, there is really not much time left for capsule coffee machines. To recover the decline and achieve growth, you may need to make greater changes in your products. How to transform the capsule coffee machine? In fact, the biggest difference between capsule coffee machines and traditional coffee machines and high-pressure extraction coffee machines is still in terms of taste. Therefore, if you want to increase the sales of capsule coffee machines, you may have to improve the taste or taste. (Photo source: Dongling official) Xiao Lei thinks that the capsule coffee machine brand can understand the most popular flavors in the market through market research, and mainly promote several products to make it a hit. As long as one or two flavors can successfully make consumers pay for it, it can easily drive the sales of the machine to grow. Just like Green Mountain Coffee in the United States, it was originally just an old-fashioned coffee machine manufacturer with a rather bleak sales. Later, it transformed into selling coffee only, while coffee machines were given for free, and focused on making fine coffee. By selling coffee capsules alone, it made its market value soar 150 times in 6 years, and even surpassed Starbucks at one point. coffee machine is not an easy consumable, but for those who like to drink coffee, they may consume 2 to 3 coffee capsules every day. You can’t rely on selling coffee machines to drive the sales of capsules, but you should turn your thinking around and launch some popular flavors or high reputation coffee capsules to attract consumers to buy your capsules and coffee machines. is like Luckin. The velvet latte and raw coconut latte launched by Luckin have successfully become popular products and are still the highest-selling flavors. If you want to support the coffee machine brand to survive, the taste choice of coffee capsules is really important. (Photo source: Luckin Official) Of course, there is another way to improve the taste of coffee capsules, that is, choose to cooperate with coffee brands such as Starbucks, Miswell , Nestlé. They have deeper market experience and user accumulation, know better how to make flavors that are acceptable to the public, and are more experienced in improving the taste of coffee. Therefore, cooperating with traditional coffee brands is also one of the effective means to help them survive. Joyo Onecup once cooperated with the Costa brand, but the cooperation came too late and did not successfully rescue the brand again. But this should be a more feasible approach, and perhaps the coffee maker brand needs to continue to try it. In addition, the brand can also start from the coffee machine itself, giving capsule coffee machines more intelligent and automated functions, making the product more high-end, easy to use, and brewing coffee with a more mellow export feel. The positioning of capsule coffee machines is to be friendly and convenient. It is difficult to be as perfect and thoughtful as a high-end coffee machine. However, can it also further improve the product functions, such as adding a function of milk brewing to make brewing coffee more ritual, and allowing users to fine-tune the taste of coffee by adding milk. According to the current market conditions, capsule coffee machines still have certain consumer demand, but their share is constantly being eroded by high-end coffee machines. Therefore, capsule coffee machines should still seek effective ways to break through the deadlock as soon as possible in order to get rid of the fate of being gradually marginalized.
