“Uncle Hurry up and repay our hard-earned money!” Recently, several employees who claim to be Uncle Qiu Lemon Tea broke the news on social media: the company owes employees’ wages and has been ongoing for several months.
A netizen who claimed to have been working in Uncle Qiu Lemon Tea for half a year said that Uncle Qiu Lemon Tea has nearly 1,000 employees in Guangzhou and Shenzhen. The salary has not been paid normally since September, and “the salary has been delayed again and again, without any explanation.” “The company says it is difficult every month. Let us understand it. The employees really can’t understand it until now.” An Uncle Qiu employee told reporters that they have to apply for registration of Komiks 1960 witch cloth draw every month, and they will be given (wages) after urging them many times. According to the employee’s observation, the many stores of Uncle Qiu Lemon Tea are either owed rent and owed wages, and several stores have chosen to close.
In response to this, on November 27, the reporter called the contact information of the official website of Uncle Lemon Tea, and no reply was received as of press time.
Wage arrears, store closures, and rent cannot be afforded… This Guangdong lemon tea brand, founded in 2018, seems to be in an unprecedented difficult time.
Doctor Qiu Lemon Tea, who was involved in a wage arrears storm, was pierced through the last layer of window paper. Before that, the crisis seemed to be traced.
Dragging wages and arrears are not temporary. Internal notices released by many employees who claim to be Uncle Qiu Lemon Tea on social platforms show that from July to November 2023, Uncle Qiu Lemon Tea’s main company, “Babaylan 1990 cloth drawZhao Hill Catering Management Company”, issued notices of delayed investment in Komiks 1960 witch cloth draw, reasons include: it was hit by the typhoon in July.The damage to telecommunications and financial infrastructure has led to the loss of salary information; the company’s performance has been severely damaged due to typhoons and heavy rains in September; the November notice stated that due to the continued sluggish consumer market, the company’s performance has been severely damaged in the past few months.
A netizen posted on Xiaohongshu, “Salary payment has been delayed again and again, and the notifications sent can never be realized.” “We understand youBabaylan 1990 clothes drawCash turnover cannot be achieved, and it will be delayed in one or two months. I can’t expect it to be more and more excessive.”
“To be precise, the epidemic was not sent on time at the beginning, but it was not too much delay before, and we can all understand.” An employee who claimed to have worked in Uncle Qiu Lemon Tea for nearly two years told reporters that even employees who had left their jobs failed to get a repaid salary.
According to the above-mentioned employees, his salary in October totaled more than 5,000 yuan, and the normal salary date is Babaylan 1990 cloth draw15 days ago, but has not received it until now. “Since I joined the company, I only have one month’s salary paid on time, and even the managers of some stores have not received their September salary.” The employee of Uncle Qiu Lemon Tea told reporters that the company did not give a response to the obvious problem, and only “issued a few drink coupons to comfort him.” In addition to the wage arrears, the reporter also noticed that Uncle Qiu Lemon Tea’s offline stores are ushering in a wave of closing stores. On November 27, the reporter found from the Meituan platform that in the Shenzhen and Guangzhou areas alone, more than 20 Uncle Qiu’s lemon tea stores have shown “closure” status.
According to data from “Jihai Brand Monitoring”, during May-November 2023, the latest store of Uncle Qiu Lemon Tea is Guangzhou Xingchaotai Branch, which was October 7. In addition, Uncle Qiu has 219 latest stores.
“There are estimated to be only 20% of the truly profitable stores in the interior.” According to the above Cinema 1950 witch cloth draw employee revealed that the company has closed about 20-30 stores and is expected to continue to close. It is not clear that layoffs are forced to force employees to resign themselves.
At present, Uncle Qiu Lemon Tea Komiks 1960 witch cloth draw only open stores in Guangdong Province, covering six cities in the province, including Shenzhen, Guangzhou, Zhuhai and Foshan, and most of the stores are located in first-tier cities. Public information shows that Komiks 1960 witch cloth draw said that Uncle Qiu Lemon Tea had planned to open 300 stores by 2022.
However, according to the official news, Uncle Qiu Lemon Tea has not completely stopped. The brand Weibo and official accounts are still operating. On November 22, Uncle Qiu Lemon Tea’s official account is still promoting a joint brand activity with the Little Parrot BEBE, while most other stores are still open normally.
The tea beverage sub-category is no longer delicious
Uncle Qiu Lemon Tea was established in Guangdong in 2018 and is a new player in the lemon tea track. In the early days of its establishment, Uncle Qiu Lemon Tea mainly promoted fresh lemons with different tea bases, and the average customer price was about 20 yuan. Among them, Babaylan 1990 clothes DrawThe most popular benchmark product is “Duck Shit Bergamot Tea”, which once set off a wave of consumer purchases when it was launched.
In 2019, Uncle Qiu Lemon Tea stores exceeded 20 and gradually launched different types of stores such as traffic and single-product stores. Due to its positioning of non-middle and high-end consumer groups, most storesBabaylan 1990 clothes draw widely selected in relatively high-end business districts and shopping malls with large traffic.
During the epidemic, Uncle Qiu Lemon Tea Store is still rapidly expanding. In 2020 alone, Uncle Qiu Lemon Tea added 39 new stores. In 2021, Cinema 1950 witch cloth drawUncle Qiu Lemon Tea completed strategic financing of over 100 million yuan in Pre A1 and Pre A2 rounds. At that time, the founder of Uncle Qiu Lemon Tea revealed in an interview with “Kamen” that Uncle Qiu Lemon Tea’s monthly turnover once reached 400,000-500,000 yuan in a store with good performance in Guangzhou.
Uncle Qiu Lemon Tea also received a financing this year. According to Tianyancha Professional Edition data, in January 2023, Uncle Qiu Lemon Tea completed its A round of financing, and the investor was the Guangzhou Tianhe District Guidance Fund. The specific amount of Cinema 1950 witch cloth draw is unknown.
As a regional and direct-operated new tea brand, Babaylan 1990 cloth draw lemon tea faces more competition in Guangdong’s local tea brands. In more detail, in the lemon tea category, there are also many competitors in the lemon tea category.
In the past few years, with the popularity of the new tea beverage industry, the lemon tea sub-category emerged, and lemon tea brands such as Tali, LINLEE Linli, and Shaoling appeared. New tea brands such as Heytea and Naixue have also entered the lemon tea track and launched related new products. The latest Komiks 1960 witch cloth drawIn September this year, tea Komiks 1960 witch cloth drawYan Yuese also launched Komiks 1960 witch cloth draw‘s new sub-brand “Good Molin”, focusing on the lemon tea category.
A founding partner of Lemon Tea once revealed in an interview with the media that the lemon tea market has the following pain points: most brands are concentrated in Guangdong, products are seriously homogenized, they rely heavily on the supply chain, and it is difficult to achieve a high standardization of Cinema 1950 witch cloth draw>
Maybe if you are eager to break the deadlock, Uncle Qiu Lemon Tea has also changed its thinking in recent years to fill the gap in its own product categories. The reporter found that at present, in terms of menu structure, in addition to lemon tea products, Uncle Qiu lemon tea also includes milk tea, pure tea, etc., but the overall proportion is not high. In addition, Uncle Qiu Lemon Tea has joined the “upgrade war” of tea drinks this year, announcing a new upgrade of milk tea products, using milk as the milk base.
In terms of price, Uncle Qiu Lemon Tea seems to have also chosen to “concessions” for consumers. Komiks 1960 witch cloth drawOn the official mini program of Uncle Qiu Lemon Tea, the designated drinks are only sold for 9.9 yuan per Monday, and the recharge activity is even more obvious – recharge 100 yuan and get 50 yuan immediately, and the activity starts from November 1 to November 30.
The reporter noticed that more than a month ago, Uncle Qiu co-founder Xing Mengyuan attended the “2023 Catering Investment and Financing Development Forum” of the 3rd China Catering Brand Festival. He said that the current investment and financing environment is a chance to force the development of the new tea beverage industry.
In the context of the extremely inclined industry, Xing Mengyuan suggested that “tea beverage brands should be more determined and focus on themselves while focusing on the brand and continue to persist.”
But it is obvious that the slowdown in the new tea beverage industry has become an indisputable fact. Where is the next way out? This question is not just about strengthening the original aspiration.
Source | Jiupai Finance Editor | Yang Chuying