After getting Tencent’s investment in May this year, Tim Hortons’ every move in China has become more eye-catching than before.
This evening, the coffee chain announced in a circular that its 100th store in the Chinese market will officially open in Shanghai on October 15. In the future, TIMS coffee will “cooperate” with Tencent to open stores. It is revealed that tims coffee has reached a strategic cooperation with Tencent e-sports, and will launch its theme store in Shanghai in November 2020.
This means that in about five months, TIMS doubled the number of its stores in Huamen. It said earlier that it hopes to open 1500 stores in China in the next 10 years.
In addition to the innovation of coffee format, TIMS coffee said today that Tencent’s favorable investment has also promoted its digital infrastructure. It is revealed that at present, TIMS coffee wechat app platform has more than 1 million members. “The number of consumer members on our app continues to grow.” Tims coffee told the snack stand today.
Now, let’s take a specific look at the latest trends of this foreign-funded chain coffee giant that tends to “play steadily” in China.
Key points of future layout
Compared with last year, TIMS coffee’s store expansion this year has accelerated.
As of October, it has opened more than 70 new stores this year, the company told the agency today. It has been revealed that since opening its first store in China in February 2019, the chain coffee brand has entered six cities, including Shanghai, Beijing, Zhengzhou, Dalian, Hangzhou and Chongqing.
Consistent with the previous strategy, TIMS coffee will still focus on Shanghai in terms of store layout. “We hope to further increase penetration in Shanghai by increasing stores. At the same time, focusing on first tier cities and new first tier cities, we have recently entered Hangzhou, Beijing and other cities The company said.
When asked about its plans for opening stores in the future, TIMS coffee today reiterated its goal of opening 100 new stores in 2020.
Tims coffee is the first shop in China in Shanghai
The company said in May that it plans to use the funds to speed up the opening of stores after it received Tencent investment. “Some store opening plans have been delayed during the epidemic, but with the improvement of the epidemic situation, we have started to accelerate the opening of stores since May. Tims originally planned to open 100 new stores this year, but now it still maintains this goal and may even accelerate. ” Lu Yongchen, chief executive of Tim Hortons China, told Mr. xiaoshidai at the time.
Now it’s going well. For the next action, the company said to the snack agent today, on the one hand, for the market it has entered, it plans to continue to open stores to open up the situation. According to the company, a total of 20 stores are planned to open in Beijing in 2020.
On the other hand, TIMS coffee is also planning to enter more cities. “Next, we will open stores in Chongqing. South China is also an important area for us to open stores in the next step. We will further share our plans. ” The company told the food agency.
“In the future, we will focus on the national market. Next year, we are expected to enter more cities in East and South China, and lay out markets such as Shenzhen.” Tims coffee said.
In terms of site selection, Lu Yongchen had previously told the snack agents that he would prefer to choose comprehensive shopping centers and shopping malls, and would also consider opening stores near office buildings, because white-collar workers are the largest user group of coffee. “In general, we will target customers based on data analysis and open stores around regions and consumer groups with the largest demand for coffee.” He said.
After looking through the industrial and commercial information today, the snack food agent learned that Tianhao (China) Investment Co., Ltd., established in April 2019, has four foreign investments, including Tim (Shanghai) Catering Management Co., Ltd., which is the main operating entity of tims China. In addition, an entity named “Tianhao coffee (Shenzhen) Co., Ltd.” was established in July last year with a registered capital of US $5 million. It is not clear whether the company will “operate” to open stores in Shenzhen.
More store styles
At the same time, TIMS coffee is trying to expand more store styles.
This year, in addition to standard stores, TIMS also launched tims go, which focuses more on taking out and delivering and small fast stores, and tims lab, which focuses more on testing innovative products. This is the type of store that tims currently only operates in China.
“So far, we have opened five tims go and one tims lab. We will continue to explore new forms to meet the needs of young people, but the future store form will still be dominated by conventional stores. ” Tims coffee told the snack stand today.
Tims go store
Lu Yongchen has previously told the snacks generation that tims go will tend to be opened in office buildings, street shops, subways and other places where the flow of people is relatively dense, many customers will not stay, and the more demand is to take them out. Tims lab will try some new designs and new products.
In the future, TIMS coffee will also try to open “theme stores” with different characteristics.
The company announced in its notice today that it has reached strategic cooperation with Tencent E-sports and will open its first tims coffee E-sports Theme Store in November this year. This is also a new idea for tims coffee to develop coffee drinking scenes. It is similar to and different from Starbucks’ concept of “third space” – it also emphasizes creating offline space experience, but the former has a more specific theme and main consumer groups.
“The theme store of E-sports adopts the color matching of black gold and tims red, which will integrate a lot of E-sports elements to create a cool image and competitive atmosphere.” The company said it hopes to create a new social and coffee experience scene of “coffee + E-sports life” and create more immersive offline experience space for users.
Tims coffee told the snack agent that the e-sports theme store will be a long-term theme store, and more theme stores may be opened in the future. “We have always stressed the culture of the community. In China, we also see more community circles based on interests and hobbies. E-sports Theme Store is a trial and start. We will continue to understand the preferences of young people and hope to launch more special theme stores in the future. ” The company said.
Effect picture of tims coffee E-sports Theme Store
In fact, similar to Starbucks, TIMS coffee will also have some “careful thinking” in the design of some stores when it enters different cities. For example, the Beijing store of tims coffee uses the giant red maple leaf logo made by Cloisonne technology, integrating elements such as the great wall and Peking Opera facial makeup, while its store in Hangzhou takes “ice hockey” as its design theme.
Tencent’s “blessing” what?
Tencent’s accession has also promoted the digitization of tims coffee.
In today’s announcement, TIMS coffee said that after obtaining Tencent’s investment, it has improved the omni channel member management, and at present, TIMS coffee has more than 1 million members on the platform. The company said it would also intelligently reward “the high-quality consumer behavior tims expects” in order to stimulate consumers’ purchase frequency.
“The number of consumer members on our app continues to grow.” The company told the snack agent that in addition to placing orders online, the tims applet also has functions such as shopping mall, gift certificate, activity and gift card, so as to realize the “marketing closed loop of brand exposure, coupon registration, order conversion and member retention”.
Tims coffee said that due to the lightweight, convenient and fast loading speed of small programs, the user retention rate is high and the back-end consumption conversion ability is also stronger. Today, TIMS provides users with more accurate online and offline data.
In addition, the company said that future digital construction will also be used in more scenarios, including site selection, product design, supply chain innovation, etc. “For example, in September this year, we launched an interactive communication app for store partners. This platform allows partners to immediately feedback on problems encountered in ordering.” Tims told xiaoshidai that the digital supply chain has promoted the process optimization of the company.
Interestingly, the snack generation noticed that in terms of product innovation, TIMS coffee has recently launched a “vegetable meat” product which has set off a small upsurge this year: the “farmer’s roll” with plant meat. In addition, the company recently launched a new autumn new pistachio latte, and it is reported that it will soon launch pure favona black chocolate latte and other new products.
According to the introduction of snack agents, TIMS coffee basically has 5-6 waves of new products coming on the market every two months. They are more localized and innovative products. At present, TIMS has three types of products: coffee, non coffee drinks, warm food and baking products. Basically, the three categories of products will be “new”, but mainly coffee.
“In the future, digitization can help us better understand customers and their consumption habits. We can see whether the setting of our stores and the structure of our products meet the needs of these customers through the different consumption frequency and product preference of customers in different regions. This is a long-term accumulation process, and we are constantly learning and exploring. ” Tims coffee told the snack stand.
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