Introduction:In 2023, the coffee market saw a wave of affordability, with brands from CoCo to Luckin Coffee rolling out astonishing discounts. Now, "Tiger Scent Coffee," built by the core team behind Tiger Sugar, has also entered the fray, targeting the market with two price points—10 and 13 yuan—and leveraging its existing overseas distribution network to prioritize expansion in Southeast Asia. What is this new brand’s strategy? Can it replicate the success of Mixue Ice Cream & Tea? The following breaks it down from brand background, product positioning, to market strategy.
Entering 2023, the global coffee market was quickly swept up in a storm of low-price competition. Not only did CoCo launch Americanos for just 3.9 yuan across its more than 2,200 stores nationwide, but Luckin Coffee soon followed with its “Hundred Cities, Thousand Stores Coffee Carnival,” slashing the prices of over 60 popular drinks to start at 9.9 yuan, employing marketing tactics reminiscent of Luckin’s past style.
Amid this price war, another emerging brand, “Ao Tiger Tiger Scent Coffee,” has surfaced, backed by the original core team behind the once wildly popular Tiger Sugar. Tiger Sugar had captivated the Chinese-speaking market with its brown sugar fresh milk series, but after long being embroiled in trademark and brand image disputes with copycat shops, it ultimately chose to pivot to the coffee sector in search of a breakthrough.
From its inception, Tiger Scent Coffee secured funding and planned to utilize Tiger Sugar’s pre-existing overseas agency and partner networks to prioritize expansion in Southeast Asia, demonstrating a clear “go global first” strategic mindset rather than being confined to the fierce domestic market competition.
Currently, Tiger Scent Coffee’s store expansion strategy focuses on precise placement. Its first store was opened in Japan in 2018 (now closed), while its Taiwan market debut chose Hangzhou. As of recently, there are 4 officially operating stores in the Hangzhou area, with 2 more listed as “coming soon.” The stores are mostly located near office buildings, shopping malls, and universities, with sizes ranging between 20 and 50 square meters, aiming for efficiency per unit area and convenience.
To maintain consistent beverage flavor and improve service speed, each Tiger Scent Coffee store is equipped with fully automatic coffee machines and a digital management system to ensure standardized operations. This not only helps reduce staff training costs but also maintains a consistent brand experience across different locations.
In terms of product planning, Tiger Scent Coffee focuses on lattes as its main offering, providing both dark and light roast espresso blend options, along with regular specialty coffee, creative fruit coffees, and some fruit tea selections. Notably, all coffee products are priced at just 10 and 13 yuan, clearly targeting the budget-conscious consumer segment and aligning with the current market trend for “high cost-performance coffee.”
Although the brand currently has limited exposure and interaction on social platforms like Xiaohongshu, with its official account having not yet reached 100 followers and customer check-ins being relatively sporadic, existing reviews indicate that most customers give positive feedback on its “affordable prices” and “high cost-performance,” showing its appeal in price-sensitive markets.
In fact, the affordable coffee market that Tiger Scent Coffee is focusing on has already become a key battleground for major brands in recent years. In addition to top-tier chain brands launching discount promotions, independent coffee shops in second- and third-tier cities including Nanning, Suzhou, Wuxi, and Nanjing have also joined the competition, with some product prices even dropping to as low as 3 to 5 yuan, setting a new market low.
With continued capital investment and consumers’ ongoing price sensitivity, this wave of affordable coffee is expected to continue for some time, intensifying market competition while also offering consumers more opportunities to try new things and “snag a bargain.” For Tiger Scent Coffee, finding the right balance between brand visibility, product differentiation, and overseas expansion will be key to establishing a solid foothold in the market.
The above content is compiled by CoffeeHunters, a coffee news website.
