Chen Pingjiang ran to the sports academy and had dinner with Yan Yan.
When he returned to dormitory 603, everyone had already arrived.
After not seeing them for just a month, Chen Pingjiang was a little unaccustomed to suddenly having a few "sons" less in his life.
Seeing everyone enthusiastically bragging, it formed a sharp contrast to their usual silence when staying in the same room.
One by one, they took out local specialties from their hometowns, clamoring for Chen Pingjiang to try them.
Zhao Shaoyang also pulled out a bag of brined duck from his suitcase and tossed it onto Chen Pingjiang's desk, offering it like a treasure:
"Chen Ge, hurry and try it, it's really authentic."
Chen Pingjiang glanced at the stinky kid with a puzzled look, thinking,
"Does he have some serious illness?"
"I'm in Dongjiang, there's brined duck sold in the supermarket downstairs at school. But still, thank you."
Wang Lei had been cooped up at home for a month during the winter vacation, and his internet cafe addiction flared up.
He egged everyone on:
"Let's go online, CS five-on-five."
Dong Tinghui flicked his cigarette ash, shaking his head firmly:
"My mom said if I fail any more courses this semester, she'll remove my legs when I go back for summer vacation."
It would have been better if he hadn't said that; as soon as he did, the whole room was filled with complaints.
"Speaking of which, it makes me angry. I even squatted at the post office branch near my house, but the transcript just didn't arrive. The moment I left, it was delivered directly to my home in my absence. That night, my parents gave me a mixed doubles beating, and I didn't leave the house for the entire winter vacation."
Zhao Shaoyang grumbled, looking indignant.
Everyone burst out laughing.
Chen Pingjiang asked,
"What scores did you get?"
"Political Economy 42, Principles of Statistics 27, Computer Fundamentals 64, Mao Zedong Thought and Deng Xiaoping Theory 38, Management 51, Advanced Mathematics 18."
Wang Lei laughed heartily:
"Holy crap, I thought I was at the bottom, I didn't expect you to be there. At least I passed two subjects."
Zhao Shaoyang looked at him suspiciously:
"You damn hairball, you attended fewer classes than me, why did you pass two subjects?"
Wang Lei raised an eyebrow smugly:
"I went to the Management class where they highlighted key points."
"Damn it, you son of a bitch. You kept shouting happily in the dorm every day, saying 'whoever is found studying on their own has to treat everyone to a meal,' but you secretly studied yourself?"
Zhao Shaoyang immediately exploded, realizing he was the last in the dorm.
Wang Lei realized he had let slip, quickly turned his head away, and stopped speaking.
Zhao Shaoyang then looked at Chen Pingjiang:
"Chen Ge, you definitely... never mind, I won't ask."
He originally wanted to drag someone down with him, but thinking of Chen Pingjiang's capabilities, he was afraid he would get even angrier and spit blood.
The next morning, Chen Pingjiang eagerly took Shu Mang to look at storefronts for the milk tea shop.
He had to quickly get the milk tea shop into operation to cover the cost of renting servers before Renren.com's explosion.
It took almost two full days to finalize the locations for all five milk tea shops.
Two of them were direct acquisitions, and the other three were rented vacant storefronts.
Due to the existence of Renren.com and Renren Waimai, Chen Pingjiang wasn't too particular about location.
He preferred a more remote but larger space, which was far better than the two or three square meter "pigeon coops" near the school gate.
Since he was going to do it, Chen Pingjiang didn't just plan to open a milk tea shop but intended to make it a beverage bar, spending more effort on decoration to provide customers with a relaxing space.
Shu Mang froze on the spot:
"In that case, 100,000 yuan per shop might not be enough."
Chen Pingjiang waved his hand indifferently:
"If the money isn't enough, we can add more, but since we're doing it, we need to create a benchmark.
Not only must the taste be good, but the decor must also be stylish, forming differentiated competition with surrounding milk tea shops, giving competitors a lesson, and letting them know what true 'milk tea 2.0' is.
Iron must be hard itself; otherwise, no matter how good the promotional channels, if the product itself isn't outstanding, it will eventually fade into obscurity."
"Such a large initial investment, plus such good resources, can a small milk tea shop have such a large profit?"
Chen Pingjiang smiled at Shu Mang:
"It seems you know nothing about the huge profits of milk tea. For a 6-yuan milk tea, all the merchant's costs combined won't exceed 2 yuan, and that's even an overestimate. My first pot of gold came from making fruit juice milk tea."
Even in later generations, the common selling price for milk tea shops was 20-30 yuan/cup, while the cost price was only 3-5 yuan/cup.
This meant that for every cup of milk tea sold, merchants could earn a profit of more than 6 times.
Many milk tea brands even saw their market value soar to tens of billions.
"Then why didn't you open a milk tea shop at first last semester, but chose a BBQ shop instead?"
"At that time, I didn't have much capital or the current resource advantages, and I might not have been able to compete with other milk tea shops, so I chose the most conservative option, BBQ."
Chen Pingjiang spread his hands helplessly, explaining.
That same day, Chen Pingjiang contacted a decoration company, asking them to come up with design proposals, with one requirement: it must have a high-class feel.
For a big client like Chen Pingjiang, who was decorating five milk tea shops at once, the decoration company dared not neglect him and immediately had designers start drawing.
For the two acquired shops, Chen Pingjiang also took over the original staff.
For a new shop opening, these experienced old staff members are an invisible asset.
Chen Pingjiang obtained the recipes and proportions for the two different milk tea shops from them.
After comparing them, he reluctantly discovered that the milk tea of this era was frighteningly homogenous.
No wonder they were willing to be acquired by him, as they truly lacked distinguishing features compared to other shops and could only survive by price wars.
They mainly used highly concentrated fruit pulp, specially blended black tea, domestic creamer, flavored syrup, brown sugar, and fructose.
2007 was precisely a year of rapid development for milk tea, considered the inaugural year for milk tea entrepreneurship.
Many brands were growing wildly and expanding furiously.
Due to their high-profit gene, rapid expansion not only didn't lose money but even made money.
COCO Milk Tea already had hundreds of branches in China at this time, and milk tea also became more diverse, adding fresh milk series, fresh fruit tea series, and coffee series to traditional milk tea categories.
However, the area around the university town was a vacuum for big brands; they were busy expanding into densely populated commercial districts in first and second-tier cities at this time.
"Our milk tea brand needs to have a younger image, creating a trend exclusively for young people."
"Create exclusive milk tea flavors to avoid falling into homogenized competition."
"Build brand power."
Chen Pingjiang personally went through almost all the procedures required to open a milk tea shop.
From storefront selection, storefront decoration, product research and development to packaging design, every detail was meticulously handled, with the same drive he had when he first founded Little Chen BBQ and Renren.com.
For this, Chen Pingjiang practically emptied his "inventory" of ideas.
He provided some popular styles from later generations in terms of taste, asking R&D personnel to repeatedly try and improve them.
He paid more attention to the user's consumption experience, putting effort into product ingredients and brand building, introducing the concept of "light luxury," telling everyone that milk tea should not only taste good but also look good and have a sense of class.
Even Zhu Yuanlan, one of the first employees of Little Chen BBQ, couldn't help but shake her head:
"Starting a milk tea shop is a battle of abundance; it's not like how we started back then."
As she said, with the superposition of advantages in funds, concepts, and promotion channels, it would be difficult for the milk tea shop not to become popular.
Chen Pingjiang's initial plan was to have his milk tea brand follow the route of brands like Heytea, aiming for a Starbucks-like consumption experience but with lower unit prices than Starbucks.
In the future, there would be at least fifteen years of consumption upgrading; if it was a price war, who the hell could beat Mixue Ice City?
It not only rolled over the whole country but also reached Hong Kong and overseas.
Making people think,
"If you're spending 2-3 yuan to buy a bottle of mineral water, why not buy a flavored lemonade or something else?"
By the time Chen Pingjiang had finished everything, almost twenty days had passed since renting the storefronts.
Returning to the company that day, Chen Pingjiang specifically brought a large batch of milk tea that had just been produced at the R&D base.
"Huh? Miaotea? What brand is this? I've never heard of it."
"The packaging is so exquisite, unlike other milk tea shops with just a bare plastic cup."
"Yes, looking at this paper cup, it feels so high-end."
"What flavor is yours? Mine is taro ball boba."
"Mine is roasted brown sugar boba milk tea."
"This is cheesy grape with popping boba."
"These names are all so sophisticated, unlike the usual 'mixed milk tea' or 'silk stocking milk tea' we drink."
"..."
University students of this era hadn't tasted many good dishes; how could they have seen the "dimensionality reduction attack" from future milk tea?
As soon as Miaotea was seen, the office was filled with exclamations of surprise.
Wan Yuqian asked in surprise:
"Junior, are these products from the milk tea shop you've been working on recently?"
Chen Pingjiang nodded and said to everyone in the office:
"Everyone, try the taste and give your opinions."
"Mmm, Boss, from the first sip, I feel like I can't live without it. Can we drink one every day from now on?"
"Exactly, the packaging is so exquisite, I almost can't bear to drink it."
Chen Pingjiang said with a teasing smile:
"Of course you can drink one every day. The Caida store is not far from the school gate, it's just a few minutes to run an errand. If that doesn't work, you can always have a Blue Knight deliver it to your door."
The female employee showed a helpless expression, defeated by the dog boss's feigned ignorance.
Her point was free!
After the female employees tasted the first sip, they felt that all previous milk tea had been drunk in vain.
Even the male employees, who weren't particularly fond of milk tea before, found the taste good.
To make Miaotea an instant hit upon its launch, Chen Pingjiang had carefully selected new products, which were not only unbeatable in taste but also diverse in categories.
It was only natural for everyone to react this way.
It was simply a naked "dimensionality reduction attack."
"Boss, when will Miaotea open? I can drink one every day."
"Are you sure? Just by looking at the packaging, you can tell Boss's Miaotea isn't cheap."
Chen Pingjiang smiled:
"That medium cup of cheesy grape with popping boba in your hand is 12 yuan, large cup is 14 yuan. The roasted brown sugar boba milk tea is 10 yuan for a medium cup, 12 yuan for a large cup."
"It's a bit expensive, but the price is acceptable."
"I think the money saved from skipping one meal is enough to buy a cup of milk tea."
In the current Dongjiang milk tea market, especially in milk tea shops near universities, a typical milk tea costs about 5-6 yuan per cup, mostly traditional fruit tea, milk tea, and some pudding milk tea.
With an average price of 10-12 yuan, Miaotea was priced one cup higher than its surrounding competitors, and some individual items even exceeded this number.
But Chen Pingjiang himself didn't intend to engage in a price war with the surrounding milk tea shops; the brand positioning itself was not on the same level.
As for whether university students have purchasing power?
Does that even need to be asked?
Haven't you heard about saving meal money to drink milk tea?
Again, university students truly dare to spend money when they have it.
Even if the consumption level is low, the sheer number of people makes them all potential customers.
"Renren Waimai needs to give Miaotea the top ranking in its category and vigorously promote it on the homepage."
"Renren.com needs to prepare some promotional offensives to coincide with Miaotea's launch."
"Make the topic of Miaotea as hot as possible. If anyone comments that the price is high, don't block them, but respond immediately."
"Focus on brand building for Miaotea, giving it a high-end feel, distinguishing it from other milk tea brands near the schools."
"Make students from nearby universities where Miaotea branches haven't opened yet wish they could run to Caida to buy it."
"..."
One by one, instructions were forwarded by Chen Pingjiang.
The entire Renren.com and Renren Waimai systems were put into operation.
This was also Chen Pingjiang's first attempt to test the power of creating a hit brand when superimposed with promotional and sales channels.
The very next day, large banners appeared on the homepages of Renren.com and Renren Waimai.
"Nationally renowned milk tea brand — Miaotea enters Xianlin University Town, establishing an all-weather, comprehensive strategic partnership with Renren.com and Renren Waimai. Five new stores opening soon, stay tuned."
In addition, Renren.com specifically wrote a soft article introducing the current background of the domestic milk tea industry and the origin of Miaotea, which, of course, had been "processed."
Renren Waimai was even more extreme.
Miaotea hadn't even opened yet, but online stores were already set up, and it was directly parachuted to the top ranking, completely dumbfounding people.
"During the new store opening period, 50 discount coupons will be issued daily, first come, first served, and cannot be combined with Renren Waimai discount coupons."
A grand wave of marketing actions fully stirred up the curiosity of Renren.com users.
"Has anyone heard of Miaotea?"
"Never heard of it, but there are many milk tea brands now, so it's normal not to have heard of it."
"The packaging looks very exquisite, indeed different from other milk teas."
"More than that, I haven't even seen these flavors. The schools around here only have honey black tea, lemon honey tea, coconut milk tea, I'm tired of drinking them."
"You country bumpkins upstairs, haven't heard of Miaotea? It's very popular in Taiwan Island and Shanghai! It's only thanks to Renren.com this time, otherwise, they would have already opened in the city center when they first entered the Dongjiang market."
"I can confirm that the upstairs is correct. I am from Shanghai, and this brand has been very popular in Shanghai recently."
"Just by looking at the names and descriptions of these milk teas, I have an urge to try every single flavor."
"Delicious, highly recommended."
Even before sales began, Miaotea was already a big hit on Renren.com.
The milk tea shops in the five universities looked suspiciously at Miaotea, which hadn't even opened yet but was already at the top of the rankings, falling into contemplation or cursing loudly.
"There must be some shady business going on, right? It's not even open yet, and its ranking is higher than ours?"
"They must have paid a lot for cooperation, what else can you do? But looking at the packaging, the price should be more expensive than ours, so it probably won't affect us much."
"..."
(End of chapter)
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