Shulou(Shulou.com)12/24 Report--

CTOnews.com, December 19 (Xinhua) according to a report by Chinese Entrepreneur Magazine official account, About Time Coffee, a coffee chain opened by ofo founder Dai Wei in the United States, has suffered a business crisis. Only one store on Madison Avenue in New York is open, while the other four show that they are "permanently closed." the last tweet on the About Time Coffee account of Instagram platform stayed in September, while consumers last posted pictures last year.

As early as the end of May this year, there was news that the operation of About Time Coffee had been in trouble, the capital chain encountered a bottleneck, and the whole project was close to the brink of shutdown. At that time, About Time Coffee still had four stores operating in New York, but now CTOnews.com inquired about the company's website and learned that About Time Coffee Cafe did have only one "Grand Central" store left.

▲ source About Time Coffee official website (the same below) it is reported that About Time Coffee is a "technology-driven business" startup, users can place orders for their favorite categories in App in advance, and they can pick them up or eat in a restaurant.

The price of the cafe is mainly cost-effective, with a unit price between $3 and $6 (CTOnews.com Note: currently about 21-43 yuan), which is lower than Starbucks; the products feature innovative products such as pearl coffee and taro coffee, with tastes between coffee and milk tea; and unique sealed cans are used in the take-out package. It can be seen that the main target groups are young people.

▲ About Time Coffee's early subsidies for products such as Pearl Coffee and Taro Coffee draw lessons from Lucky's "money-burning" routine-relying on subsidies from real money to drive App downloads, send text messages to the public to promote sales, and advertise on the billboard in front of the coffee shop: "sign up for App to place an order online, and we will buy the first five cups."

However, in the United States, mobile payments currently account for only 15% of the total sales of chain stores, and Americans still prefer to pay with cash and credit cards. The premise for About Time Coffee to expand massively is to turn American payment habits into mobile App before it can continue to plan for the next step as a traffic portal to drive business online.

In addition, there is also a big problem in the location of About Time Coffee. An American user once complained, "all five stores are open in tourist areas. Not only are the cafes out of business in the busiest mornings, but tourists will not go to an unnamed shop to buy coffee. If you go to Greenwich or the East Village, you may still have some customer stickiness."

When starting a business to do ofo, Dai Wei tasted the sweetness of capital expansion, but fell down because he failed to make a profit. And now the "second venture" coffee project, it is clear that Dai Wei has not escaped from his own logic circle.

Related reading: "it is reported that the second venture of ofo founder Dai Wei in the United States is in trouble: the capital chain is blocked and the expansion is completely stagnant."

"has your ofo deposit been refunded? Ofo founder Dai Wei has gone to the United States to sell pearl coffee. "

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