从九块九到五元，咖啡市场价格竞赛再升级？Is the price competition in the coffee market further upgraded from 9.9 to 5 yuan?

一、蜜雪把现磨咖啡卖到5元

二、蜜雪入局，咖啡大战要打5元价位了吗？

其次，蜜雪冰城正在倒闭咖啡行业进行成本重构。很多人觉得5元无利可图，这是典型的线性思维。如果单独只看一家咖啡经营连锁门店的价格体系，的确一杯咖啡的成本价估计已经到了五六元了，卖5元一杯咖啡，不赚钱的可能性会很大，稍不小心击破价格成本底线。

这对于其他咖啡品牌来说，是一道极高的门槛。如果你没有这么大的体量，没有这么深的供应链渗透力，根本玩不起这种游戏。所以，这场价格战表面上看是终端产品的厮杀，实际上却是整个上游供应链话语权的一次重新分配，那些无法实现规模化生产、无法在成本端做出反应的中小供应商，或者坚持高成本运营模式的门店，将被迫面临生存危机。这是一种强者恒强的马太效应，弱者如果不进化，就会被淘汰出局。

第三，蜜雪冰城的核心逻辑还是把咖啡作为引流产品。相比于单纯的咖啡品牌，其实蜜雪冰城的核心逻辑还是老本行，那就是把咖啡作为引流产品。这一点很多人看不懂，觉得卖5块钱能赚什么钱？甚至还要亏本赚吆喝。但你要是站在江瀚老师的视角去看，这就很好理解了。蜜雪冰城从来就不是靠卖某一样单品赚大钱的，它的核心逻辑是那个强大的全产业链布局，以及那个极其庞大的私域流量池。它利用低价咖啡、低价柠檬水、低价冰淇淋这些刚需、高频、低价的单品，把人流像吸铁石一样吸到店里来。只要你进了店，只要手里拿了那个雪王的咖啡杯，它的目的就达到了。

第四，咖啡市场的发展趋势到底在何方？长期来看，中国咖啡市场的终局形态，极有可能走向欧美那样的“大众化”格局，即平价咖啡将成为主流，价格可能会长期维持在1美元左右（即人民币7-8元左右）的水准。这是一个不可逆的趋势，随着年轻一代对咖啡文化的脱敏和日常化，咖啡将彻底褪去光环，成为像白开水一样的存在。

A few years ago, under the leadership of Kudi and Luckin Coffee, 9.9 yuan became a core price point in the coffee market price war. After years of 9.9 yuan competition, this time Meixue Ice City has once again lowered the price. Meixue sold freshly ground coffee for 5 yuan this time. Is Meixue entering the price war again?

1、 Mixue sells freshly ground coffee for 5 yuan

According to a report by Hushi, recently, a fully automatic coffee machine was added to the bar counter of a Meixue Ice City near Nanpu Metro Station in Panyu, Guangzhou.

After opening the store every day, the staff should first turn on the machine and perform a self check to see if there are enough coffee beans in the bean compartment. Someone ordered coffee, and the machine started grinding and extracting beans on site. The process has gone through a few more steps than before, and the store now has a fragrance that was not very noticeable in the past.

Assistant Xiaolin (pseudonym) said that now whenever someone orders coffee, "the whole store can smell the aroma of freshly ground coffee".

The changes are also reflected in sales volume. Before the replacement, this shop sold about 20-30 cups of coffee a day, and when it was good, it could reach 40-50 cups; After installing the new freshly ground coffee machine for a month, its daily sales increased to around 70 cups, and during holidays it could sell 100-160 cups.

It is worth noting that after using the freshly ground coffee machine, the standard iced Americano is 5 yuan and the espresso is 6 yuan. On social media platforms, there have been more reviews surrounding the 5-yuan freshly ground coffee from Meixue. Xiaolin observed that after about three weeks of replacing the machine, there was a significant increase in repeat purchases in the store.

2、 Honey Snow enters the game, is the coffee war going to be fought at a price of 5 yuan?

The most lively thing in the coffee circle recently is that the "Snow King" with a scepter is causing trouble again. Meixue Ice City has raised the price of freshly ground coffee to 5 yuan, which may seem like a simple promotion to many people, but it may not be that simple. How should we view this matter?

Firstly, the pricing of 5 yuan has a significant anchoring effect on the coffee market. For a long time in the past, the freshly ground coffee market in China has been labeled as a light luxury beverage, especially when American style coffee represented by Starbucks became popular in China in the early years. Consumers subconsciously thought that drinking a freshly ground coffee should be at a consumption level of 20-30 yuan. This price mentality was largely cultivated by early chain coffee brands and directly raised the threshold for ordinary consumers' consumption decisions. Many people have a demand for coffee, but they feel that the cost of consuming a cup of coffee is relatively high. If it's not for taking photos and posting on social media, they are generally not willing to try it easily.

Since the price competition between Luckin Coffee and Kudi, a cup of coffee priced at 9.9 yuan has become a common perception, and the price of 9.9 yuan for coffee has also become a significant price anchor. Honey Snow's direct increase of freshly ground coffee to 5 yuan this time is essentially breaking this inherent consumer perception. On the one hand, it completely tore off the label of light luxury and petty bourgeoisie attached to coffee, restoring it to a popular daily drink; On the other hand, it effectively reduces the decision-making cost for users, and they no longer have to worry about whether drinking a cup of coffee is a significant expense. They can just pass by the store and buy a cup.

When a large number of ordinary consumers begin to accept the price band of 5 yuan freshly ground coffee, the market's expectations for the price of freshly ground coffee will shift towards affordability and inclusiveness. This change in price mentality cannot be achieved through just one or two marketing activities, but rather through the gradual accumulation of store scale and real market transactions, which will directly change the underlying consumption logic of the entire industry. Of course, it should also be noted that the change in price perception does not mean that everyone will buy low-priced coffee. Some consumers who pursue experience and quality will still choose high priced products, but the price anchor of the mass market has been repositioned at a very low position by Meixue.

Secondly, Meixue Ice City is undergoing cost restructuring in the coffee industry due to its closure. Many people think that 5 yuan is not profitable, which is a typical linear thinking. If we only look at the price system of one coffee chain store alone, the cost price of a cup of coffee is estimated to have reached five or six yuan. Selling a cup of coffee for 5 yuan is highly likely to not make any profit, and a slight mistake may break the bottom line of price and cost.

But if you study it carefully, you will find that Meixue Ice City is playing a combination of punches: pushing upstream to the extreme. They do not rely on intermediaries or imported beans like other brands, but directly go deep into the production area, lock in raw material prices through large-scale orders, and even intervene in the planting process to compress production costs to the extreme. What about downstream? Their single store model is extremely streamlined, without large dining areas, focusing on takeaway and minimalist operations, which means low rental pressure, low labor costs, and fast cup serving speed. The ability to control costs across the entire industry chain is what gives them the confidence to shout out 5 yuan.

This is a very high threshold for other coffee brands. If you don't have such a large scale and deep supply chain penetration, you can't afford to play this game at all. So, this price war may seem like a battle for end products, but it is actually a redistribution of discourse power in the entire upstream supply chain. Small and medium-sized suppliers who cannot achieve scale production and cannot respond on the cost side, or stores that insist on high cost operation models, will be forced to face survival crises. This is a Matthew effect where the strong remain strong, and the weak will be eliminated if they do not evolve.

Thirdly, the core logic of Meixue Ice City is still to use coffee as a drainage product. Compared to pure coffee brands, the core logic of Meixue Ice City is still its old line, which is to use coffee as a drainage product. Many people don't understand this and think that selling for 5 yuan can make any money? Even at a loss to make noise. But if you look at it from the perspective of Teacher Jiang Han, it's easy to understand. Meixue Ice City has never made big money by selling a single product. Its core logic is the strong layout of the entire industry chain and the extremely large private domain traffic pool. It uses low-priced coffee, low-priced lemonade, low-priced ice cream and other essential, high-frequency, and low-priced items to attract people into the store like a magnet. As long as you enter the store and hold the Snow King coffee cup in your hand, its purpose will be achieved.

These low-priced products are its' hooks', after hooking you in, it has many other high profit products waiting for you. It may be the kind of fruit tea with higher profit margin, or it may be the Dim sum that is sold together, or even its co branded neighbors. This business model of "the wool is on the pig" is the most typical case of the combination of Internet thinking and the real economy. By offering coffee with the ultimate cost-effectiveness, we aim to minimize the barriers to entry. First, we aim to expand the user base and increase traffic, and then find ways to replenish it elsewhere. So, simply competing with Meixue Ice City for coffee prices is a tactical mistake in itself, because you're not hitting the point where it makes money, but the "hook" it attracts traffic to.

Fourthly, where is the development trend of the coffee market? In the long run, the ultimate form of China's coffee market is highly likely to move towards a "mass market" pattern similar to that of Europe and America, where affordable coffee will become mainstream and prices may remain at around 1 US dollar (7-8 RMB) for a long time. This is an irreversible trend, as the younger generation becomes desensitized and normalized to coffee culture, coffee will completely shed its halo and become a presence like plain water.

However, it must be soberly recognized that an indefinite price war is impossible to sustain, and neither capital nor the market will allow such behavior to exist forever. After the current chaos, the market is bound to experience a drastic 80/20 split. Some top brands with strong economies of scale and the ability to continuously reduce marginal costs, such as players like Mi Xue, will dominate the affordable market and live a prosperous and stable life. For the remaining 80%, especially those small and medium-sized brands that try to hover in the mid price range, cannot achieve extreme low prices, and cannot provide sufficient experience, life will be very difficult.

They have only two options to choose from: either being swallowed up by giants or being squeezed to death and forced to exit the mainstream track. Either transform into high-quality products, deeply cultivate niche fields, and take the high premium route of "small but beautiful", serving the extremely small group of people who have the ultimate requirements for quality. The disappearance of the sandwich layer is a sign of market maturity. In the future, the coffee industry in China will either be dominated by top players in the affordable world or a diverse range of boutique niche circles. The space in the middle zone will continue to be compressed.

Therefore, the crossover of Meixue Ice City is just a starting point, and the competition in the coffee market is expected to become more exciting and diverse in the future, which is also worth our continued attention.

(Image source for this article: UNsplash)

Source: Beijing Number

Author: Jiang Han's Perspective