Chapter 737: Chapter 737

It’s been a seismic few days in the milk tea industry!

Youu Tea has started an internal roll, and now they’re playing the price war game.

Ming Tea, normally so steady, is actually going to make fruit tea!

These two major events alone would make anyone think: this industry is becoming harder to navigate, with a worsening market environment.

But when these two events occur together, it’s no longer a question of whether the environment is good or bad.

This is not just a deteriorating market environment.

This is downright wilderness survival!

Chen Yue, fresh from a meeting, was completely dumbfounded.

The other emerging milk tea brands from the "Six Minor Factions" felt a profound sense of uncertainty, not knowing where to head next.

Chen Yue wasn’t the only one thinking of avoiding Youu Tea by expanding into medium-sized cities.

People like Yu Feng had similar thoughts.

They even thought, "Might as well avoid Yue Tea while we’re at it!"

It may seem like mere coincidence, but these six minor factions, though outwardly harmonious, actually share quite an understanding deep inside!

However, once the news from Ming Tea was announced, it felt like no one was left with any survival space.

"Where did Ming Tea get the money to make fruit tea?" Yu Feng was stunned.

"Have they sorted the supply chain and cold chain logistics?" Wu Han was similarly shocked.

As the old brands in the traditional milk tea industry have far too many national outlets, choosing to make fruit tea would mean burning a terrifying amount of money initially!

Updating hundreds of stores simultaneously would involve a massive initial investment.

And for venture capital firms, they’d rather back a new force in tea beverages.

The capital would also favor the direct management model pioneered by Cheng Zhu.

This model is, in fact, more conducive to capital operations compared to the franchise model.

At this stage, as the new force milk teas emerge, everyone is becoming increasingly pessimistic about traditional milk teas.

The once kings have fallen out of sync with the times and lagged behind!

So, they could not comprehend where Ming Tea was procuring their funds from.

How on earth could they afford to make fruit tea!!!

As for brands like Mo Tea that were giants in the traditional milk tea field, they felt a wave of despair.

Brother Xiong from Mo Tea was completely flabbergasted.

Everyone had anticipated this day would come, but no one expected it so soon!

"Can’t believe Wang Yunan would make such a big move silently!"

"Not even testing in pilot cities, he’s launching this new fruit tea nationwide straight away?"

"Has he lost his mind?"

"If anything goes wrong, it would render all his efforts over the years void and lead to complete bankruptcy!"

But deep down, Brother Xiong was actually quite envious.

Though I am older, I still wish for one more rise to glory!

Being able to grow from a small family-owned shop to a large strong business, and being among the first to follow the Black Sugar series, Brother Xiong is surely a person of great boldness and ambition.

Unfortunately, given Mo Tea’s current situation, they couldn’t even contemplate adopting the fruit tea model without going bankrupt.

Tonight, nearly all competitors in the milk tea industry were urgently holding meetings.

New brands were caught in a pincer attack.

As the industry leader, Youu Tea had already initiated the roll-in mode.

Ming Tea, known for their budget-friendly traditional milk teas, seemed poised to make an upward surge.

What’s dastardly is, Cheng Zhu, this marketing king, told Wang Yunan, "Today, just announce the launch of the fruit tea series, don’t announce the product pricing."

"These are marketing points, to be revealed bit by bit, not all at once."

Wang Yunan thought about it and realized his junior was making a lot of sense.

Now, the limelight is on the new power tea drinks, each selling at exorbitant prices, with the cheapest high-end viral milk tea priced within the 25-30 yuan range.

Brands like Youu Tea and Yue Tea mostly had products priced above 30 yuan!

The price of viral milk teas has always been a hot topic.

Now, Ming Tea, usually selling around 10 yuan, started launching fresh fruit-made teas, and naturally, the pricing would attract a lot of attention.

Yet, absolutely refusing to announce the prices early was about creating suspense and stimulating public curiosity, while internally causing peers to panic!

"Hey, just playing around!" Cheng Zhu intended to overwhelm them.

Whether new power internet-famous brands or traditional ones, all were desperately curious about Ming Tea’s pricing.

In their hearts, they all had an estimate.

"If the price really falls within this range... it would truly be the death of us!"

Ming Tea’s fruit tea pricing had long been agreed upon with Wang Yunan.

Most products would be priced around 15 yuan.

This was because Ming Tea’s costs would be lower than Youu Tea’s.

They would use a "Fresh Fruit + Jam" model.

The milk used would also be a notch lower in quality.

It would still follow the budget-friendly milk tea route, which indeed suits them better.

In fact, just the pricing of this new product might even draw curses from some long-time customers.

Ming Tea’s previous average price was around 10 yuan.

Now it was suddenly raised by several yuan.

Many old customers wouldn’t care about other factors; they’d complain if they found it expensive!

Fortunately, Ming Tea’s older variants would also continue to be sold.

This would relatively make things a bit better.

Indeed, the market for traditional milk teas was always there.

Like in Cheng Zhu’s previous life, after getting tired of fruit teas, he would occasionally opt to buy a bubble milk tea.

This was Ming Tea’s foundation, and Wang Yunan wasn’t foolish enough to just abandon it.

Right now, he was actually very nervous.

He wasn’t certain about the market response once Ming Tea’s fruit teas were launched.

But for the fifteenth of June, he was also very hopeful.

Because Cheng Zhu had once said to him,

"Senior, don’t panic. Trust me, as long as we get the fruit tea out early, as long as we dare to lead, with the ongoing growth of the delivery industry, Ming Tea will rapidly increase its franchise outlets to over 1,000."

He spoke these words with a light, breezy demeanor.

But upon hearing them, Wang Yunan’s heart raced.

"Franchise outlets reaching over a thousand?"

That was something he hadn’t even dared dream of in recent years.

What he didn’t know was that Cheng Zhu was being as conservative as possible while painting this picture.

Cheng Zhu’s aspirations for Ming Tea were not just about breaking a thousand franchises.

"I want global outlets to break ten thousand!"

After a day’s tiring work, Zhang Qiqi returned to the Xiyuan Apartment.

She had started her day taking two sets of photos for Weibo, then went to a studio for shooting two commercials.

Her day was bustling, frequently applying and removing makeup, but she felt fulfilled.

Once home, she immediately noticed the fresh flowers in the vase on the dining table.

Then, glancing at the living room, she saw more flowers there.

Zhang Qiqi knew these were specially bought by Yiyi and felt a certain appreciation for her cousin’s thoughtfulness.

Girls, after all, feel uplifted seeing lovely flowers around the house.

In her pajamas, Yiyi emerged from the guest room, "Sister, you’re back."

Zhang Qiqi observed her cousin, envying her skin.

Among all the girls Cheng Zhu had encountered, Yiyi’s skin was by far one of the best.

Many girls look exquisite with makeup, but plain without.

It’s not necessarily their features, but because their skin tone and texture might not be the best.

There might be dullness or some uneven skin tone issues.

But Yiyi was genuinely a beauty without makeup.

The difference before and after her makeup wasn’t much.

Her skin was truly like baby skin, giving off a delicate allure.

And, it was like that from head to toe.

Cheng Zhu loved to wrap his arms around her, caressing her back.

The girl would always whisper timidly, "Ticklish."

Then, she’d snuggle closer into his embrace.

At that moment, while Zhang Qiqi admired her cousin’s skin condition, she jokingly critiqued, "Isn’t your pajama a bit too childish?"

"Is it?" Yiyi glanced down at her cartoon pajamas adorned with puppies.

"A little," she admitted.

After sitting down on the couch, Yiyi asked with concern, "Sister, are you tired from working all day?"

"That’s a given," Zhang Qiqi smiled and added, "But in Hang City, where there are so many internet celebrities, some people wish they could get tired!"

Right then, she was feeling quite superior.

She quickly followed with, "I could have arranged for the company’s nanny car to pick you up from the train station today."

"But my schedule was so packed today, with three places to run, so the car was needed elsewhere."

Yiyi understood the bragging implicit in her words.

At a company like Ancient Mountain Culture, which caters to internet celebrities, surely there would be more than one nanny car available.

Some big internet celebrities might have a whole entourage with them, like makeup artists, assistants, photographers, etc.

But she had arrived in a vehicle arranged by Cheng Zhu, specifically a four-seater business car meant for hosting VIPs, so naturally, she wouldn’t envy Zhang Qiqi’s current situation.

But Yiyi, always good at delivering emotional value, promptly responded, "Wow! Sister, has the company assigned you a car directly? That’s impressive!"

"What are you talking about? It’s still the company’s car, I just can use it anytime," Zhang Qiqi’s lips curled slightly.

After chatting more, Zhang Qiqi glanced at the time, leaned towards Yiyi, and asked, "Yiyi, do I look like my makeup has come off?"

"No, it looks perfect, just like you’re not wearing any," she replied.

"That’s good, then I won’t redo my makeup. I’ll just take a quick shower and change my clothes. It was really hot today during the outdoor shoot, and I sweated quite a bit," Zhang Qiqi stood up.

Yiyi quickly sensed something, "Sister, are you going out again?"

"Yes," Zhang Qiqi nodded, "I had agreed earlier to treat Cheng Zhu to supper, but he wasn’t free these past few days, so we scheduled it for tonight."

(ps: The renovation noise next door was too loud, I didn’t rest well, my head hurts, so today’s update is shorter, aiming for 8000 words tomorrow.)