瑞幸“失控”与星巴克“破价”：中国咖啡市场的冰与火Luckin Coffee 'Out of Control' and Starbucks' Price Breaks: Ice and Fire in the Chinese Coffee Market
文｜刘旷
八月初，济南一家瑞幸门店店员在操作区内使用制餐工具嬉笑打闹的视频在网上流出，引起公众对门店卫生状况的质疑。在立秋需求爆单时，河南省南阳市的一家瑞幸门店因出餐压力加大，店员又与外卖小哥发生了肢体冲突，舆论再次被点燃起来。这两件事表面上看是各自为政、互不相干，但是深入挖掘之后，会发现它们都是瑞幸在快速扩张中所出现的一些问题。
另外，在高端市场一直占据着领先地位的星巴克最近也因为“破价”而陷入了运营压力中。
一边是平价龙头快速扩张的同时事故不断，另一边是老牌高端品牌被迫降价应对压力。
但当我们把瑞幸和星巴克放在一起比较可以发现，国内咖啡市场的竞争规则正经历着重大改变。
规模扩张与品控管理的博弈
先从规模和管理来说，这是两家公司无法回避的一个主要矛盾。
瑞幸：快速扩大市场占有率后，管理和品控跟不上了。
瑞幸这次的卫生事件、骑手冲突，其本质都是万店模式下末端的管理不到位所导致的。在高性价比、爆品策略以及数字化系统的作用之下，瑞幸扩张速度很快，在2026年第二季度财报中显示其全球门店已经超过了三万六千家。庞大的渠道也给瑞幸带来了供应链成本上的好处，使其在市场占有率上遥遥领先。
但是门店数量增加到一定的规模之后，总部的管理制度和培训标准就很难在每一个店都得到落实了。打烊后拿食物器具嬉笑玩乐，爆单时压力之下情绪失控等等现象，就是在考核下所暴露出的问题。
星巴克：较高的定位下，价格体系抵御风险的能力较弱。
星巴克走了一条截然不同的道路，它在国内的门店数量远远少于瑞幸咖啡。长久以来都致力于打造标准化的操作体系，以稳定的品质来提升自己的品牌形象价值。但是即使有这样的护城河存在，它也无法避免被整个行业的内卷所影响。
在立秋这个时间节点上，一些外卖平台上的星巴克产品叠加多种优惠后，价格只有4-6元左右。尽管官方表示是由于平台进行补贴所导致的价格下降，但这也说明了在流量竞争的大背景下，即使是老字号的品牌，在保持自己的价格体系及品牌形象上也会遇难。
运营效率与空间体验的取舍
规模与品质之间存在矛盾，最后反映到门店的经营之中去。两种不同的扩张方式产生了两种不同的经营模式，在效率以及顾客体验方面做出了截然不同的选择。
瑞幸：用算法提高运营效率，工作人员承压过大。
南阳门店发生争执事件暴露了瑞幸一线高压运营的状态。瑞幸采用的是自取和外送的小店模式，减少了堂食的空间。系统的分解出产品生产的过程，并把每一个单杯的制作时间都分得很细，以此来达到极高的工作效率。但员工在长期的极致效率追求下，情绪容易变得紧张起来，一有催单之类的摩擦情况出现，极易导致冲突。
星巴克：以场景体验来获取品牌溢价，低价竞争压力下易受冲击。
相反，星巴克的核心卖点是“第三空间”，即为顾客提供一个除家以外可以休息放松的地方，在这里顾客能享受到一种宁静舒适的环境、轻松愉快的交流氛围以及惬意悠闲的生活感受。因此其营业速度比较缓慢，员工和顾客有效互动，可以避免大部分因催促而导致的服务纠纷。
但星巴克还面临着一个难题：当外卖低价补贴到来，作为加分项的环境所起到的作用就会减弱。可见，在性价比面前，饮品的体验溢价尤为脆弱。
财务增长与盈利能力的平衡
门店运营策略发生变化的原因就是业绩目标所导致的，模式之争其实就是关于怎样在增长与盈利之间取得平衡的问题，在这两家大公司光鲜的营业收入之后，它们各自的盈利能力问题也出现了。
瑞幸：扩张内卷后成本上升，急需开拓新的盈利点。
瑞幸在2025年全年的收入比去年增长了43%，这个增长率非常可观；但是它的净利润增长速度只有21.8%，明显慢于营业收入的增长速度。从今年第一季度开始，瑞幸的净利润就开始出现下降的趋势，并且增收不增利的现象也开始出现了。
一方面是因为持续性的折扣和平台补贴使得单品毛利率降低；另一方面是频繁开设新店，在某些地方出现了店面过多的情况，顾客之间产生了相互挤占市场的现象，单个店铺的盈利水平也逐渐走低，陷入了“开得多就越亏”的内卷困境中。
星巴克：价格进入进退两难处境，难以平衡流量和品牌调性。
星巴克的压力更大了，在瑞幸把9.9元的价格带入到大众的心理价位后，星巴克的日常消费吸引力下降了很多，很多消费者只是在休闲的时候才去购买它的产品。短期内依靠平台补贴可以增加一些订单量，但是长此以往会消耗掉它高端的品牌形象。品牌处在一种进退维谷的状态之中：如果保持较高的价格的话，那么日销就会变得很弱；而如果降低价格的话，则又
会对自己的品牌形象造成伤害。
品牌信任与危机公关的考验
盈利的压力会促使企业做出一些短期的行为，但若处理不当产生问题进而引起舆论危机，这会直接冲击到品牌的口碑上。
瑞幸：重拾信赖，需要建立一个长期有效的监督体系。
在奶油枪事件之后，瑞幸公关的标准是：马上做出回应，解雇相关责任人，销毁有问题的产品，并且保证以后要加强员工培训。这套措施看起来井然有序，但仍有很多人对规范为什么总是要在曝光之后才去执行表示怀疑。
整改大多是事后处理，缺少常态化的巡检和可以追查到源头的监管体系。一次性的罚款和整改只能治标不能治本，一而再地出现类似问题就会不断削弱消费者的信心。在此情况下，瑞幸需要建立一个长期有效的监督体系来代替一次性的危机公关。
星巴克：在流量下，也需坚定品牌调性的保持。
星巴克的问题就是价值锚点不稳定，在很长一段时间里它树立了高端的形象，但是不断降价促销的行为却在慢慢改变消费者的认知，使他们习惯了低价购买的习惯，在补贴消失之后价格回升的时候也很难再愿意为高溢价买单。
当品牌的高端形象不再存在时，品牌的价值就会遭受难以挽回的损失。因此，星巴克需要在流量与品牌之间找到新的平衡。
跨界茶饮与第二曲线的探索
不管是由于管理上的缺陷还是定位上的困惑，其背后的原因都有单一的咖啡赛道难以为继。为了打破困境，这两家公司跳出了单品咖啡的竞争，进入到了茶叶饮料这个赛道中去寻求新的增长点。
瑞幸：爆款打法进入新市场下，不可忽视自身咖啡的品牌认知。
瑞幸沿用爆款打造逻辑进入轻乳茶市场，并推出了轻轻茉莉和轻轻乌龙等新产品。依靠数据来分析消费者的需求，在很短的时间内就推出了新的产品并且不断更新换代，利用原有的供应链以及门店渠道来降低成本，以较低的价格吸引年轻人购买。但是也存在很大的风险：不断的扩大产品的种类，咖啡和茶饮同时发展，会使得品牌的核心定位变得模糊不清。
使用爆款打法进入奶茶市场，并且有着比较强的供应链能力，但是要注意不要因为产品种类太多而淡化掉品牌的印象。
星巴克：通过高端茶饮丰富产品线，但需要解决价格与市场竞争力的矛盾。
星巴克推出“茶开朵朵”茶咖、牛乳茶等一系列新产品来填充下午和晚上的空白市场，希望以此改善公司的收入结构。但是由于新式的茶饮已经成为了红海市场，在价格上很难做到过高，因此这款新产品是否能成功还需要打个问号。
小结
瑞幸卫生事故和员工冲突都是快速扩张中问题的暴露，规模优势到了后期就会出现精细化运营的问题；星巴克遇到的价格战危机则说明了老牌高端模式在流量时代竞争力减弱。两者并没有绝对的好坏之分，只是不同的发展时期和不同商业模式的选择。
未来，咖啡市场的竞争已经不再只是简单地依靠门店的数量或者低价促销来获取市场份额了，在新的竞争中，企业要做的就是如何在效率与体验、规模与品质控制、流量与品牌形象之间找到一个合适的点，并且通过不断改进自身的管理体系来提高盈利的质量，同时也要保持住自己品牌的独特性，对新产品的推出采取更加谨慎的态度。
Article | Liu Kuang
In early August, a video of a Luckin Coffee store employee using cooking tools to play and frolic in the operating area went viral online, raising public questions about the store's hygiene conditions. During the peak demand in the beginning of autumn, a Luckin store in Nanyang City, Henan Province, experienced increased pressure to serve and a physical altercation with a delivery guy, reigniting public opinion. On the surface, these two things seem to be independent and unrelated, but upon deeper exploration, it will be found that they are both problems that Luckin Coffee has encountered during its rapid expansion.
In addition, Starbucks, which has always held a leading position in the high-end market, has recently been under operational pressure due to price hikes.
On one hand, while low-priced leading brands are rapidly expanding, accidents continue to occur, and on the other hand, established high-end brands are forced to lower prices to cope with pressure.
But when we compare Luckin Coffee and Starbucks together, we can see that the competition rules in the domestic coffee market are undergoing significant changes.
The game between scale expansion and quality control management
From the perspective of scale and management, this is a major contradiction that the two companies cannot avoid.
Luckin Coffee: After rapidly expanding its market share, management and quality control cannot keep up.
The health incident and rider conflict at Luckin Coffee are essentially caused by inadequate management at the end of the chain under the Wandian model. Under the influence of high cost-effectiveness, explosive product strategy, and digital system, Luckin Coffee has expanded rapidly, with its global stores exceeding 36000 according to its Q2 2026 financial report. The vast channels have also brought benefits in terms of supply chain costs to Luckin, making it far ahead in market share.
However, once the number of stores increases to a certain scale, it becomes difficult to implement the management system and training standards of the headquarters in every store. The phenomenon of laughing and playing with food utensils after closing, losing control of emotions under pressure when orders are high, and so on, are the problems exposed during assessments.
Starbucks: Under a higher positioning, the price system has a weaker ability to resist risks.
Starbucks has taken a completely different path, with far fewer stores in China than Luckin Coffee. For a long time, we have been committed to creating a standardized operating system to enhance our brand image value with stable quality. But even if such a moat exists, it cannot avoid being affected by the internal competition of the entire industry.
At the beginning of autumn, some Starbucks products on delivery platforms, combined with various discounts, only cost around 4-6 yuan. Although the official statement states that the price drop is due to platform subsidies, it also indicates that in the context of traffic competition, even time-honored brands will face difficulties in maintaining their pricing system and brand image.
The trade-off between operational efficiency and spatial experience
There is a contradiction between scale and quality, which is ultimately reflected in the operation of the store. Two different expansion methods have resulted in two distinct business models, making vastly different choices in terms of efficiency and customer experience.
Luckin: Using algorithms to improve operational efficiency puts too much pressure on staff.
The dispute at the Nanyang store exposed the high-pressure operation status of Luckin Coffee's frontline. Luckin Coffee adopts a small shop model of self pickup and delivery, reducing the space for dine in. The system decomposes the production process of the product and divides the production time of each individual cup very finely, in order to achieve extremely high work efficiency. But under the long-term pursuit of ultimate efficiency, employees' emotions are prone to become tense, and friction situations such as reminders can easily lead to conflicts.
Starbucks: Obtaining brand premium through scene experience, easily impacted by low price competition pressure.
On the contrary, Starbucks' core selling point is the "third space", which provides customers with a place to rest and relax outside of home. Here, customers can enjoy a peaceful and comfortable environment, a relaxed and pleasant communication atmosphere, and a comfortable and leisurely living experience. Therefore, its business speed is relatively slow, and effective interaction between employees and customers can avoid most service disputes caused by urging.
But Starbucks still faces a challenge: when the low price subsidy for takeout arrives, the role of the environment as a bonus point will weaken. It can be seen that in the face of cost-effectiveness, the premium experience of beverages is particularly fragile.
Balance between financial growth and profitability
The reason for the change in store operation strategy is due to performance targets, and the model dispute is actually about how to strike a balance between growth and profitability. After these two large companies achieved impressive revenue, their respective profitability issues also emerged.
Luckin Coffee: After expanding its internal competition, costs have increased and there is an urgent need to explore new profit points.
Luckin Coffee's revenue for the whole year of 2025 has increased by 43% compared to last year, which is a very impressive growth rate; But its net profit growth rate is only 21.8%, significantly slower than the growth rate of operating income. Since the first quarter of this year, Luckin Coffee's net profit has shown a downward trend, and the phenomenon of increasing revenue without increasing profits has also begun to emerge.
On the one hand, the sustained discounts and platform subsidies have reduced the gross profit margin of individual products; On the other hand, frequent opening of new stores has led to an excessive number of storefronts in some areas, causing customers to compete with each other in the market. As a result, the profitability of individual stores has gradually declined, falling into an internal competition dilemma of "more stores, more losses".
Starbucks: Price is in a dilemma, struggling to balance traffic and brand tone.
The pressure on Starbucks has increased. After Luckin brought the price of 9.9 yuan into the psychological range of the public, Starbucks' daily consumer appeal has decreased significantly, and many consumers only purchase its products during leisure time. In the short term, relying on platform subsidies can increase some order volume, but in the long run, it will consume its high-end brand image. Brands are in a dilemma: if they maintain high prices, daily sales will become weak; If the price is lowered, then
It will cause damage to one's brand image.
The Test of Brand Trust and Crisis Public Relations
The pressure of profitability can prompt companies to take some short-term actions, but if not handled properly, it can lead to problems and cause a public opinion crisis, which can directly impact the brand's reputation.
Luckin: To regain trust, it is necessary to establish a long-term and effective supervision system.
After the butter gun incident, Luckin PR's standard was to respond immediately, dismiss the responsible personnel, destroy the problematic products, and ensure that employee training is strengthened in the future. This set of measures looks orderly, but there are still many people who doubt why regulations are always implemented after they are exposed.
Most of the rectification is done after the fact, lacking regular inspections and a regulatory system that can trace the source. A one-time fine and rectification can only treat the symptoms, not the root cause. Repeated occurrences of similar problems will continuously weaken consumer confidence. In this situation, Luckin needs to establish a long-term effective supervision system to replace one-time crisis public relations.
Starbucks: In the face of traffic, it is also necessary to maintain a firm brand tone.
The problem with Starbucks is that its value anchor is unstable. For a long time, it has established a high-end image, but its continuous price reduction and promotion behavior is slowly changing consumers' perception, making them accustomed to buying at low prices. When the subsidy disappears and the price rises, it is difficult for them to be willing to pay for high premiums anymore.
When the high-end image of a brand no longer exists, the value of the brand will suffer irreparable losses. Therefore, Starbucks needs to find a new balance between traffic and brand.
Cross border tea drinks and exploration of the second curve
Whether due to management deficiencies or confusion in positioning, the underlying reason is that a single coffee track is difficult to sustain. In order to break through the predicament, these two companies have jumped out of the competition of single product coffee and entered the tea beverage industry to seek new growth points.
Luckin Coffee: In the new market, we cannot ignore our own brand awareness of coffee.
Luckin Coffee has followed the logic of creating popular products to enter the light milk tea market and launched new products such as Qingqing Jasmine and Qingqing Oolong. By relying on data to analyze consumer needs, new products were launched in a short period of time and constantly updated, utilizing existing supply chains and store channels to reduce costs and attract young people to purchase at lower prices. However, there is also a significant risk: continuously expanding the variety of products and simultaneously developing coffee and tea drinks will make the core positioning of the brand unclear.
Enter the milk tea market using popular strategies and have strong supply chain capabilities, but be careful not to dilute the brand's impression due to the wide variety of products.
Starbucks: Enriching its product line with high-end tea drinks, but needs to address the contradiction between price and market competitiveness.
Starbucks has launched a series of new products such as "Tea Blooms" tea cafes and milk tea to fill the blank market in the afternoon and evening, hoping to improve the company's revenue structure. However, as new tea drinks have become a hot market, it is difficult to achieve high prices, so whether this new product can succeed still needs to be questioned.
Summary
The health accidents and employee conflicts of Luckin Coffee are both exposed problems during rapid expansion, and the problem of refined operation will arise in the later stage due to the scale advantage; The price war crisis encountered by Starbucks illustrates the weakening competitiveness of the old high-end model in the era of traffic. There is no absolute good or bad between the two, only different stages of development and choices of different business models.
In the future, competition in the coffee market will no longer simply rely on the number of stores or low-priced promotions to gain market share. In the new competition, what enterprises need to do is to find a suitable point between efficiency and experience, scale and quality control, traffic and brand image, and continuously improve their management system to enhance the quality of profits, while also maintaining the uniqueness of their brand and adopting a more cautious attitude towards the launch of new products.