Introduction:The opening of the first Canadian coffee brand Tims store in Harbin sparked a craze, attracting a large number of consumers through a "buy one get one free" promotion and a gift-giving campaign for the first 200 people in line. However, slow food service and chaotic management led many customers to wait for hours just to get their orders, even impacting the impression of the brand’s first store. This article analyzes the incident and provides tips and suggestions for consumers participating in similar events.

This weekend, the well-known Canadian coffee chain Tims opened its first store at Harbin’s West City Red Square. To attract local customers, the brand released promotions in advance, including "buy one get one free" drink vouchers, and gifts for the first 200 customers on opening day based on queue ranking—such as a coffee monthly card for the top three, and limited-edition city mugs for ranks 4 to 10—successfully triggering a long queue.

According to eyewitnesses, as early as 9:30 AM, before the store had officially opened, a long line had already formed outside. Even though most people were still asleep, many consumers braved the early morning chill to wait in line in order to claim limited gifts and try the new store. However, what should have been an exciting opening event ended up receiving a lot of negative feedback due to chaos and poor service on-site.

Although Tims prepared a variety of giveaways including coffee monthly cards and city mugs, and used coupons to attract crowds, many customers reported that the actual experience fell far short of expectations.One customer pointed out that they arrived before 9:30 AM to queue and collect a number, but didn’t receive their originally planned breakfast bagel until 12:30 PM, resulting in a total wait time of three hours.

Many netizens on-site observed that there were no shortage of staff making drinks and baking bagels behind the counter, and the service speed seemed normal—the main issue lay inprocess management and product delivery. Some customers mentioned that although the employees worked quickly, they failed to promptly package and hand over completed orders in sequence, causing many who had already ordered to wait for extended periods, further exacerbating the chaos on-site.

Many netizens questioned Tims’ organizational capabilities for this event, arguing that the brand has opened first stores in multiple cities before and should have adequately anticipated the crowd and the appeal of giveaways, yet failed to implement proper on-site flow planning and staff scheduling. Comments frequently included phrases such as “the management is really poor, the queue was a complete mess,” “the efficiency is terrible,” and “the promotion was huge, but they didn’t organize it well,” showing that the brand still has significant room for improvement in customer service and event execution.

In fact, similar first-store opening events are quite common in the beverage and food industry, using limited-time offers and giveaways to draw crowds, but they often become uncontrollable due to inadequate preparation. For consumers, when participating in such events, it is recommended to familiarize yourself with the event rules in advance, assess your own time costs, and try to avoid peak opening hours to reduce unnecessary waiting and disappointment.

Based on overall feedback, although Tims’ first store in Harbin successfully generated buzz and attention, if it wants to build a positive long-term brand image locally, in addition to promotions and products themselves, it must also strengthen event planning, on-site management, and the quality of customer service in order to truly earn consumer trust and support.

The above content is compiled by CoffeeHunters, a coffee news website.