Sitting on 27,000 convenience stores across the country, Sinopec Yijie thought of a new business - selling coffee.

    On September 3, Sinopec said that the gas station coffee was officially launched, and the first store of the new brand "Easy Coffee" settled in Suzhou.

  "92#, 95#, 98#", in Sinopec's gas stations in the future, these three names will not only represent the type of gasoline, but also the types of coffee you can choose from.

Image source: Sinopec

    Why are the giants interested in the coffee business? Probably because the number of people  drinking coffee has really increased, and in addition, selling coffee is really profitable.

Would you like a cup of coffee on the 98th?

   China Petrochemical Corporation (hereinafter referred to as Sinopec) said that this is an innovation of the new retail model of "delivery + in-store consumption" for its convenience store business in gas stations.

   According to the staff of Sinopec, Yijie Coffee has created three series of products with different positioning, namely 92# (black and white coffee), 95# (fashion special drink), and 98# (boutique series).  

    The partner chosen by Sinopec Yijie this time is "Link Coffee", the creator of the Internet coffee category. In 2014, "Lian Coffee" was founded in Shanghai, maintaining an average annual product development pace of more than 40 new products, and has advantages in online marketing.

    According to the 2018 China Convenience Store TOP100 list released by the China Chain Store & Franchise Association, Sinopec Yijie ranked first with 27,259 stores, Kunlun Hospitality, a subsidiary of PetroChina, ranked second with 19,700 stores, and Meiyijia ranked third with 15,559 stores. The familiar family and 7-11 only ranked 7th and 10th.

     As early as last year, when the second-generation upgrade of EasyJet convenience store was carried out, Luckin Coffee was introduced into its stores, allowing Luckin Coffee to open a "shop-in-shop" of about 10 square meters in EasyJet Hangzhou's first new image store. ”, and the store adopts the dual-brand store sign of “Easy Jie Convenience Store + Luckin Coffee”.

    This time, Sinopec Yijie chose the Internet coffee brand "Lian Coffee" as its partner, and created three series of products with different positioning, namely 92# (black and white coffee), 95# (fashion special drink), 98# (Gifts Series).

    In terms of price, the EasyJet coffee applet shows that the product is priced from 12 yuan to 28 yuan, including coffee, tea, pot drinks and other categories.

    According to Jiemian News, the preferred convenience store of international oil giant Royal Dutch Shell Group can sell 250 million cups of coffee every year. Ke Yifan, executive vice president of Shell Group and president of retail business, said, "The profit margin of coffee is much higher than that of oil. ".

    It is understood that the number of Yijie convenience stores in the country exceeds 27,000, and it has the most powerful front-end warehouse network in China. Widespread promotion is possible.

   Data shows that Starbucks currently has about 3,700 stores in China. If calculated on this basis, the market share of the leading coffee chain company is only 2.6%. The emergence of new coffee retail has not only popularized the coffee culture, but also enriched the consumption scene of coffee, further intensifying the competition in the coffee market.

   It is worth mentioning that in Taiwan, where coffee culture and convenience store culture are more developed, the “cafe” with the largest market share is actually 7-11, which has more than 5,000 stores, and sold 320 million cups in 2017.

   According to data from Coffee Finance.com, with more than 2,000 offline convenience stores, the sales volume of Family Paike Coffee has doubled for 4 consecutive years. It is expected to sell 50 million cups in fiscal year 2018, and the goal is to sell it in fiscal year 2019. 100 million cups of coffee.

   According to the "2019-2025 China Coffee Industry Market Supply and Demand Forecast and Development Prospect Forecast Report" released by Zhiyan Consulting, China's per capita coffee consumption in 2018 was 6.2 cups. Compared with developed countries, China's per capita coffee consumption is only the United States. of 1.6%. With the improvement of Chinese people's living standards and the growing awareness of coffee culture, coupled with the huge demographic dividend, domestic coffee consumption is stimulated. It is estimated that by the end of 2019, the consumption scale of my country's coffee market will exceed 70 billion yuan, and the per capita coffee consumption will reach 7.2 cups; by 2023, China's per capita coffee consumption will be 10.8 cups, and the coffee market will be 180.6 billion yuan.

    Analysts from Essence Securities believe that my country's coffee market has entered a stage of high growth, and the future industry space will mainly come from the release of consumer demand. The number of cups consumed per capita has room for 150% growth in the next five years. With its natural geographical advantages, convenience store coffee may become the main competitor of new coffee retail.