| Entrepreneurship forefront
author | Ruth
editor | Fang Fang
art editor | Li Yufei
review | Songwen
founder Lu Zhengyao was exposed to new arrest information, and news of Kudi's suspected withdrawal from the Dehua market followed. . The
public account "Dehua Shier" mentioned in its latest tweet, "I saw in Jinlong Central City that the Kudi Coffee store opened in April last year has been closed and the store sign has been removed. And in Quanzhou Arts and Crafts Occupation The Kudi Coffee store in the college’s student cafeteria is also closed. “At this point, there are no Kudi Coffee stores in operation in Dehua.
Regarding store closures, the February statistics from Jihai Brand Monitor show that in the past 90 days, Kudi Coffee opened 476 new stores, but closed 826 stores. At that time, Kudi’s official statement was that “the data of 826 stores was mainly due to the temporary closure of the university store during the winter vacation and will open normally after the start of school.”
However, Kudi’s store from Dehua School was still closed during the start of the school year. Judging from the current situation, the official statement of "temporarily closing the store due to the winter vacation" is somewhat questionable. As
coffee stores failed to escape the fate of being closed one after another, there were more and more complaints on social platforms about the new brand Chamao's "unstable cup delivery" and "unpalatable taste".
(Picture / Xiaohongshu)
Adding insult to injury, Cudi’s future is once again clouded with uncertainty.
1. High-tech milk tea, but “leek flavor”?
Although Cudi has high hopes for the new tea cat brand, judging from the feedback from consumers and associates at this stage, it does not seem to bring the surprises imagined.
The newly opened Chamao store has continued Kudi’s previous low-price strategy. The vigorous opening activities such as “buy one, get one free” and “all 9.9 yuan” have indeed attracted many consumers to try it out.
Unfortunately, everyone was not convinced by the low price. Social media platforms such as Xiaohongshu are full of negative comments from netizens such as "I can't buy it, but it doesn't taste good" and "I really can't drink it."
(Picture / Xiaohongshu)
However, it is difficult to conquer consumers in terms of taste, which is naturally not a good thing for Chamao, which is "late to the market" in the crowded milk tea track. During the opening period of
, the temptation of two cups for 9.9 yuan is great, but in order to ensure profit margins, the price will inevitably rise in the future. According to the pre-marked price of the product displayed in the Chamao mini program, it is still in the mid-range price range of around 15 yuan.
(Picture/Chamao Mini Program)
Even if Chamao will continue Kudi’s normal low-price strategy, the mid- to low-end price range is already crowded with strong brands such as Mixue Bingcheng, Shanghai Auntie, and Gu Ming. A strong competitor. In other words, it is difficult to retain consumers simply by relying on uncompetitive low prices.
Not only consumers are dissatisfied with the taste, but some associates who are interested in joining Chamao also say they are "disappointed."
After an inspection, a potential associate from Guizhou found that Chamao had many problems such as “not saving labor”, “unstable food delivery”, and “slow replenishment of materials during peak periods”, which made it difficult for him to open a tea store in Zunyi. He was "very disappointed" with the cat.
(Picture / Xiaohongshu)
It should be emphasized that although Chamao is positioned as affordable milk tea, its investment cost is not low.
According to the Tea Cat investment manual, if you purchase human-machine collaboration equipment, you need to invest about 300,000 yuan to open a standard Tea Cat store, and a brand store needs to invest 450,000 yuan; if you rent human-machine collaboration equipment, you need to invest 300,000 yuan to open a standard Tea Cat store The investment is about 200,000 yuan, and a brand store requires about 350,000 yuan.
This means that Chamao must show a certain profit potential in order to attract interested associates.
However, according to the aforementioned netizen, “the first batch of Tea Cat associates have already lost rent for several months, and the brand has not responded to the compensation plan.” If this information is true, it will undoubtedly increase the anxiety and anxiety of existing associates. Hesitation from potential associates.
Although Chamao does not yet have many stores, the controversy it has caused has also aggravated the "leek taste" of this "high-tech milk tea".
2. Multiple shackles are difficult to resolve. How far can Cudi go?
Whether it was forcing associates to sell alcohol at the end of last year or starting to persuade associates to join Chamao this year, it is not difficult to see that Kudi, which has reached 6,000 stores, is eager for cash flow. However, the liquor sales were collectively criticized by the associates, and Chamao also found it difficult to support the current situation, which has destined that the brand will most likely not be able to renew its health bar as expected.
Even if Cudi puts his hope in the existing coffee business, regular shortages caused by insufficient supply chain maturity, declining consumer reputation caused by insufficient product research and development, and high personnel mobility caused by internal management chaos Problems such as these are difficult to alleviate in a short period of time.
This can be seen from the dissatisfaction caused by the new joint name with SpongeBob SquarePants again.
is similar to last year's "The Legend of Zhen Huan" and "Spy's House". Spongebob Squarepants, Cudi's joint collaboration this time, are both popular IPs. This leads to the fact that even if some consumers are not old customers of Kudi, they are still willing to buy two cups for their favorite IP just to get peripherals.
can backfire. Someone bought 4 cups of co-branded drinks, thinking they would get two Patrick Star cups and two SpongeBob SquarePants cups as officially advertised. Instead, they got 4 Patrick Star cups and were told that there were no sponges in Kunming. Baby cups; some people placed orders with great expectations, but they couldn't even get the SpongeBob SquarePants packaging bag, and were even told that there was no one around.
(Picture/Xiaohongshu)
During the high-density co-branding period at the end of last year, Cudi was frequently complained about because the peripherals were always out of stock and the co-branded products tasted bad. Now it seems that its problems in the supply chain and research and development has not been relieved. At the internal management level of
, after last year's collective boycott by associates due to forced alcohol sales and forced automatic ordering, this year there have been negative incidents such as employees complaining about the unreasonable distribution of working hours, and store managers complaining that they were threatened with expulsion. It can be seen that Cudi still does not place internal management at an important level. If things go on like this, it will inevitably lead to dissatisfaction from associates to store clerks, which will affect the brand's reputation.
(Picture / Xiaohongshu)
But the market will not leave Cudi much time. Ever since the founder of , Lu Zhengyao, was once again exposed as a person subject to execution, there has been widespread speculation that this new coffee force has "strained cash flow and the brand is running out of time."
According to the Daily Economic News, people in the catering industry said last year that Kudi owed a lot of money in the supply chain, and "there are many accounts that have not been settled before the Spring Festival."
China Merchants Securities analysts Ding Zhechuan and Li Xiumin also pointed out that Cudi’s main income in the first half of 2023 cannot cover its main expenses. Its total expenditures in the first half of the year, including marketing expenses, subsidy expenses, and commissions from coupon sales on the Douyin platform, etc., totaled more than 650 million yuan, but the total funding sources such as one-time cash flow from new stores, profit from price increases in the raw material supply chain, and store gross profit sharing Only about 500 million yuan.
This shows to some extent that the outside world’s speculation about Cudi’s tight cash flow is not completely groundless.
At present, if Cudi cannot make up for his shortcomings as soon as possible and regain his lost reputation and market, once he encounters a cash flow crisis, he will most likely be unable to avoid the fate of becoming the second "Tongue Hero".
*Note: The title picture in this article comes from Photo Network, based on vrf protocol.
