How Manner Coffee Broke Through China’s Crowded Beverage Industry
The Manner Coffee x Beast collaboration has recently been one of the hottest topics among white collar workers in Shanghai. Manner is an up-and-coming Shanghai coffee brand and Beast… well Beast started as a flower store, and later, it expanded its business to home textile, furniture, beauty, fragrance and other categories.
The collaboration was to launch Beast’s new fragrance Panda Poo Poo (not sure who thought of that name…). Consumers who bought Manner’s Panda Latte and post its picture on WeChat can get a small bag, I mean tiny bag, with a sample of the fragrance.
I saw it on social media and decided to buy a cup of coffee and get the bag, because it is so cute! At first, I went to the Manner store close to my workplace, but I was told that they had run out of the gifts. I was so disappointed, but this made me even more motivated to get the gift. And I did it, at another store.
Why Was the Manner Coffee x Beast Campaign so Popular?
Why did this campaign become so viral both online and offline?
One reason is the drink itself. The Panda Latte is inspired by Beast’s new fragrance collection Panda Poo Poo (熊猫噗噗, maybe better translated as “a Puff of Panda” or “a Whiff of Panda”). The Manner coffee drink is a translation of the fragrance’s smell into flavors.
The scent of “Panda Latte” is divided into top, middle, and base:
- Top: Green apple, banana, and pear
- Middle: Elderberry and gooseberry leaf
- Base: Honey, vanilla, and wood
Another reason the campaign got so much buzz is that Manner Coffee is popular among white collar workers in top tier cities, and anything the brand does easily grabs people’s attention.
We’ve talked a bit about the brand in our previous article when mentioning competitive players in the beverage industry in China. Today, we want to dig more into the brand, and find out why white collars favor it so much.
About Manner Coffee
Manner was founded in 2015. Before that, its founder Han Yulong (韩玉龙) opened a coffee store in Nantong (南通), but it turns out that people in Nantong didn’t have that much passion for coffee, so Han moved to Shanghai.
With limited budget and considering the fact that the coffee business has a lower table turnover rate, Han’s first Shanghai coffee store was only 2 square meters, with very simple decoration.
But despite the small space, it did well. In 2019, Manner started marching aggressively, opening more stores in Shanghai as well as in other cities. Now the brand has 137 stores in Shanghai and 14 additional stores in Beijing, Suzhou, Chengdu, and Shenzhen.
Manner is getting noticed by investors. In 2018, it received its A round of financing. And just recently, it was financed by H Capital and Coatue, and Manner Coffee is now worth 1 billion USD.
What Makes Manner Coffee So Popular Among Chinese White Collars?
High quality and good taste of Manner Coffee
Though Manner’s stores are often tiny, Han has strict requirements for Manner’s products. Those stores are equipped with expensive coffee machines, such as La Marzocco gs3, Mahlkonig and Robur from Mazzer. They even have a professional water filter to provide clean and free drinking water for customers.
Manner launches seasonal drinks once a month. This makes sure that customers can always taste something new from the store and they won’t get bored with Manner and turn to other brands.
Affordable prices
Han does whatever he can to lower costs for his stores and products, so as to provide affordable prices for Manner’s customers.
To reduce the spending on coffee cups, Manner offers a 5 RMB discount if customers bring their own cups. That is a pretty motivating offer! And it also ties into young consumers’ growing interest in sustainability. And if you want to buy its coffee beans, which are mostly from Yunnan Province (云南), you can have an 18 RMB discounts on the beans.
The average price of Manner’s coffee is around 15-20 RMB. It is way lower than other players in the market such as Starbucks, Peet’s or Costa. One of the benefits of having a lower price is that it actually lowers consumers’ expectations so that then when they first try out the coffee they are pleasantly surprised that the quality is better than what they thought they would get for that price. And if they feel that the coffee is not tasty, it’s fine. After all, it only costs around 20 RMB.
No delivery service
Han knows clearly that as time goes by, the flavor of coffee changes. As the temperature decreases, the sour taste becomes stronger and the smoothness decreases. The cup of coffee is very likely to become bitter.
Though offering delivery service will definitely bring more sales for Manner Coffee, Han doesn’t feel the benefit of additional revenue is worth risking the reputation of the brand.
Plus, if a coffee store wants to have good delivery service, it must be equipped with fast logistics. For example, Starbucks has its own takeaway service called Zhuan Xing Song (专星送), which is the collaboration with Eleme (饿了么). From ordering to receiving coffee, it only takes 18 minutes. However, not every coffee house is capable of achieving this speed as it requires more capital investment.
Location & decoration
Most of Manner’s stores are small and they are located either near or inside office buildings. This allows white collars to order first on their phones and pick up their coffee on their way to work.
With its affordable prices and good taste, and attention-grabbing, convenient locations, Manner quickly became many people’s go-to choice.
Our Thoughts
While the coffee industry is still in a nascent stage in many other cities in China, it has already been incorporated many Shanghai city dwellers’ daily lives. Based on a Shanghai coffee report published by CBNData (上海咖啡消费指数), for every 10k people Shanghai has 2.85 coffee stores. The number has reached the coffee consumption level of London, New York and Tokyo.
While it seems ambitious to launch a new coffee brand in an already crowded market, Han knew from initially launching the store in Nantong that the brand would never succeed in a market where he also had to create demand and educate consumers. Instead, he made the right choice by going into a crowded market but then finding clear ways to differentiate his brand.
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