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Text｜Hu Yiting

Editor: Yuan Silai

During the Olympics, not only the stadiums were crowded with people, but also the pop-up stores of Chinese brands in Paris.

In July this year, Bawang Cha Ji and Heytea took advantage of the Olympic Games to open pop-up stores in Paris, France, receiving more than a thousand tourists a day and entering the European market in a strong manner.

Chinese brands are not relenting in their efforts to enter the local market. Bawang Chaji opened its pop-up store at one of the three busiest train stations in Europe, Paris Saint-Lazare. According to estimates by store staff, the store may receive tens of thousands of visitors during the 20-day pop-up event.

Brands such as HEYTEA and MINISO flocked to the Champs-Elysées. Among them, HEYTEA launched the "HEYTEA Paris Games Tea Room" in the 11th district facing the street, combining Olympic elements. On the first day of opening, more than 1,000 cups of tea were sold, with sales exceeding 10,000 euros, and two peripheral products, sports badges, were also sold out.

Ying Zhe, the head of Vbrandin Integrated Marketing Agency, who has decades of experience in online and offline marketing overseas, told Hard Krypton that this year, at least dozens of Chinese brands, including Pop Mart, White Elephant, and Alibaba, went to Paris for offline and online marketing. Among them, the overall marketing investment of brands such as Heytea and Bawang Chaji is in the tens of millions.

In fact, consumer brands such as Heytea, Bawang Chaji, Pop Mart and Miniso have already gone overseas in a high-profile manner. As of now, Bawang Chaji has nearly 100 stores overseas, and Miniso has more than 2,000 stores overseas. At present, consumer brands have begun to compete for markets with greater consumption power.

Entering the European market

In Europe, where it has not yet penetrated deeply, Heytea and Bawangchaji have taken advantage of the Olympics to launch a marketing war, with pop-up stores being the core of their offline operations.

In terms of store location, HEYTEA has a clear goal. Its pop-up store is located on the right bank of the Seine River, adjacent to many famous attractions in Paris and a gathering area for local young people, which can attract tourists and also be close to the main consumer group.

In terms of product selection, Heytea launched four first-of-its-kind classic products that have been proven in the domestic market: Succulent Grapes, Mango Dew, Roasted Brown Sugar Milk, and Zhizhi Green Tea. It also designed packaging and peripherals with the Olympic theme. Its products are priced at 5.5-7.5 euros, which is close to the local milk tea consumption level.

In fact, this is not the first time that Heytea has entered the European market. In August last year, Heytea came to the UK, opening its second overseas stop after Singapore. The store is located in London's Soho district, close to Chinatown, and is clustered with Chinese tea brands that have already settled in, such as Coco, Happy Lemon, and Yifang.

According to Heytea’s overseas ordering app, it currently has 49 stores opened or to be opened in the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia and other places.

In comparison, although Bawang Cha Ji started to expand overseas in 2018, it has not yet opened any stores in the European market and its base is still in Southeast Asia.

In order to make full use of this offline opportunity and expand its local popularity, Bawang Tea Princess not only launched various interactive activities for the general consumer group, but also cooperated with the local leading food delivery platform HungryPanda and invited local Parisian companies and organizations to experience the products offline.

With the participation of multiple parties and investment in online marketing at home and abroad, Bawang Tea Princess' Olympic marketing campaign is massive and may also reveal its next choice of overseas destination.

Heytea and Bawangchaji are mainly promoting their own brands this time, but Chinese tea and milk tea are not new to Europe. Even in France, where coffee culture is stronger, Taiwanese milk tea brand Machimachi, Xiamen milk tea brand SEVENBUS, and Yifang Taiwanese fruit tea are already quite popular.

However, from the perspective of product categories, tea brands are obviously not as fast as fast-moving consumer goods brands in going overseas. Among them, MINISO tried the European retail market in 2019. As of last year, it had about 230 stores in Europe, distributed in countries such as France, Germany, Spain, Italy and the United Kingdom.

The lagging overseas expansion of tea beverages may be related to the higher requirements on the supply chain compared with general commodities. The raw materials of Chinese tea beverages include tea leaves, dairy products, fruits, sugar and packaging materials. At present, most tea beverage brands have not yet built factories overseas, and the raw materials need to be imported from domestic suppliers. After long-distance transportation, the stability of quality control and delivery time becomes a problem.

Southeast Asia as the first stop

Due to factors such as consumer habits, tastes and supply chains, Southeast Asia has become the first stop for tea brands.

The wave of tea brands going overseas to Southeast Asia can be traced back to 2018. At that time, Heytea took the lead in opening its first overseas store in Singapore, followed by Mixue Ice City and Bawang Chaji in Vietnam and Malaysia.

Later, Heytea expanded from its Southeast Asian center to more countries. When drive-in restaurants became popular in Malaysia, Heytea launched "drive-in stores" in 2023 and developed special drinks such as "Durian Cheese Tea" by combining local ingredients.

Bawang Chaji is not willing to lag behind. In August this year, it opened three direct-operated stores in crowded areas in downtown Singapore. The first store is quite large, covering an area of ​​about 250 square meters, and is located in Orchard Gateway, Singapore.

Currently, Bawang Cha Ji has opened more than 100 overseas stores in Malaysia, Singapore and Thailand, with the largest number of stores in Malaysia.

Going deep into Southeast Asia has become a clear plan for Bawang Chaji. Previously, it revealed plans to open stores in eight Asian countries and regions, including Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, Indonesia, Vietnam, the Philippines, Japan, and South Korea. In order to increase investment, Bawang Chaji has established a Southeast Asia team in Singapore.

HEYTEA and BAWANG CHEA are the first entrants in the mid-to-high-price range, but in terms of the number of stores, MICHELE ICE CITY can be called the "dominant player" in Southeast Asia.

Mixue Ice City submitted an IPO application in January this year and plans to go public in Hong Kong. The prospectus shows that by September 2023, Mixue Ice City has opened about 4,000 stores in Southeast Asia, entering countries such as Vietnam, Indonesia, the Philippines, Singapore and Malaysia, becoming the number one freshly brewed tea brand in Southeast Asia in terms of the number of stores.

In terms of supply chain, Mixue Ice City has also made extensive arrangements. During its expansion, it established a localized warehousing system in four countries in Southeast Asia, including 11 self-operated warehouses with a total area of ​​about 66,000 square meters.

Tea brands may have multiple reasons for attaching importance to Southeast Asia and the entire Asian market. Ying Zhe believes that brands choose Southeast Asia not only for their own brand positioning, but also for supply chain, local culture and market penetration. The entry threshold of the Southeast Asian market is relatively low, and the entry of automobiles and consumer electronics products into the local market has increased consumers' acceptance of Chinese brands. In addition, the local logistics cycle, turnover rate and national policies are relatively friendly.

However, after entering neighboring markets, tea beverage brands also need to constantly adapt their models to local conditions.

In January this year, it was reported that Bawang Cha Ji encountered a franchisee in Singapore who "set up a new business". Local consumers reported that the store was renamed "amps tea and tea", but the staff and menu in the store did not change much, which seemed to be due to the unsatisfactory cooperation in the franchise link. However, within a year, Bawang Cha Ji opened 3 direct-operated stores, responding to the importance of the local market in action.

After trials and adjustments, Chinese tea brands have begun to sink into the Southeast Asian market, seeing it as a battleground. However, the more distant European and American markets still have significant differences in consumer habits, cultural identity, sales costs, etc. Conquering discerning European consumers may be more difficult than brands imagine.