While browsing through my classmates’ blogs, this interesting post “How Long Will “Wang Hong Store”–Heytea Stay Popular?” written by my friend Shujing Li caught my attention. In her blog, she decides to address a current prevailing phenomenon within the Chinese food industry called “Wang Hong Stores.” These stores use a type of online marketing strategy where numerous amount of appealing photos are posted on some of the biggest Chinese social media in order to attract customers and build strong brand recognition. I personally experience the craziness when I went to Shanghai where hundreds of people are lining up in front of the Heytea shop, waiting hours to get a cup of drink. However, in Shujing’s Blog, she claims that after people make their first purchase, they would not want to line up hours to get the product anymore and this trend will eventually vanish which I totally agree.

After reading this blog, I felt a connection between these Chinese stores and the trendy Muji stores around the world. Although they are not in the same industry, people are willing to line up for hours in both cases. Therefore, I decided to contrast these two types of business models and explain why in my opinion, Muji will keep its customers in long-term, unlike Heytea.

Long lineup at Muji Metrotown opening day

The first major difference between these two businesses is obviously the products they offer to their customers. What Heytea sells are essentially fancy drinks, they might be appealing to the customers at the beginning, but people will gradually lose interest in them because these are not necessities in our lives. On the other hand, Muji is a retail company that sells furniture, clothing and other consumer goods. These products are very essential for people and by providing a varied selection of good quality goods, it is easy for Muji to build up customer loyalty.

Muji’s high-quality products

The key element of Heytea’s early success is their online marketing strategy and strong brand recognition. One uniqueness about Muji is that they have little to none advertisement. Its name literally translates to “brandless quality goods,” so as you can imagine, they have no logo and no brand on their products. Nonetheless, this does not mean that Muji has no marketing strategy. They specifically choose cities like Toronto and Vancouver to launch their stores first because there is already a large Asian customer base who would support the brand and spread out the company’s name by word-of-mouth.

After contrasting these two companies, it is evident that Muji’s business model is much more effective in long-term. The underlying problem with Heytea’s marketing strategy taught me that maintaining the initial success that a company creates is often a more important and challenging task.

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Images:

http://www.thatsmags.com/shanghai/post/18627/we-tried-it-the-cheese-tea-with-a-cult-following-in-china

http://dailyhive.com/vancouver/muji-store-vancouver-metropolis-at-metrotown-lines-crowds-2017

https://www.pinterest.ca/pin/413064597055840092/