Tea price reduction cannot reduce quality

Duck Xixiang Light Milk Tea 12 yuan, Duck Xixiang Lime Tea 13 yuan, Luyan Light Milk Tea 12 yuan.
.
.
Since the beginning of the year, the new tea brand Heytea has reduced its price many times, and at present, nearly eighty percent
of the ready-made drinks on the regular menu of Heytea stores are below 19 yuan.
In addition, Nai Xue's tea products fell by 10 yuan, and the price of some drinks of Lele Tea was basically reduced to less than
20 yuan.
The prices of many new tea brands have been significantly reduced
.

Why have the price of new tea drinks been reduced one after another? Cost reduction is an important reason
.
Industry experts believe that at present, the concentration of high-end new tea brands is high, and the head enterprises Heytea and Naixue's tea have formed a large brand scale and have greater bargaining power, which can reduce costs
by forcing the upstream fruit supply chain to reduce prices.
At the same time, with the acceleration of brand digital construction, the front-end and back-end efficiency of enterprises is not what it used to be, and the efficiency of store operation continues to improve
.
Zhang Yi, an analyst at iMedia Consulting, said: "From the perspective of cost, the current price of new tea drinks has decreased compared with before, but it does not mean that enterprises will lose money
.
”

From a marketing point of view, "small profits but quick sales" is a classic marketing strategy
of fast-moving consumer goods.
According to the "2021 New Tea Research Report" released by the China Chain Store and Franchise Association, in the next 2-3 years, although the scale of the tea market is still in the upside, the growth rate is expected to slow down
in stages.
This means that new teas have entered a stage
of stock competition.
If related brand enterprises want to survive and get more revenue, they must attract more consumers, and draining traffic through price reduction is undoubtedly an available means
.

In addition, in the context of fierce competition in the industry, in order to cater to more mass consumer groups, new tea brands continue to sink into third- and fourth-tier cities, seeking a larger market scale and effect, and also need to make certain concessions in price
.

However, while the price of new tea brands is being reduced, some consumers have not responded well
.
For example, some merchants have changed the product pricing rules, and products that originally had milk caps are now uniformly not covered by default
.
If you add a milk cap, the price may be higher
than before the price reduction.
Some merchants "work hard" on packaging, for example, the original drink basically uses a capacity of 650mL, and now a standard cup (500mL) and a large cup (650mL) are added to the packaging, if you want to order a larger cup, you need to add a few yuan
on the basis of the standard cup.
Some consumers reported that when they used the drink coupons they purchased on the platform in stores, they were told that some raw materials were missing and there was no way to produce
them.
Or consumers snapped up drink group purchase coupons in the live broadcast room, but when they used them offline, they were told that they were franchised stores and did not participate in brand activities
.

Has the price of "milk tea" been reduced, and the "quality" of tea brands has also declined? In this regard, Zhu Danpeng, vice president of the Guangdong Food Safety Promotion Association, said: "The price reduction of new tea drinks is an independent adjustment under market competition, and from the perspective of the industry as a whole, the above situation reflected by consumers belongs to the case of individual brands and is not universal.

”

Zhu Danpeng believes that in the face of fierce market competition, whether the price is reduced or not, merchants must provide high-quality products and services
.
As an important part of the food industry, ensuring food safety is the bottom line, and most of the new tea drinks use fresh fruits, dairy products, etc.
for on-site production, whether it is raw material control or store production, we must keep the red line
of safety.
Not only that, new tea companies should also control product quality through digital transformation, enhance user experience, and continuously meet the diversified needs
of offline and online consumers through means other than price reduction.

China Food News(November 07, 2022 07th Edition)

(Editor: Luo Chen)