How Much Does It Cost to Franchise CoCo Milk Tea? 21 Counterfeit CoCo Milk Tea Stores in Shanghai Were Investigated

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CoCo Fresh Tea & Juice is a beverage brand founded by Yiding International Co., Ltd. on April 28, 2010. In recent years, the brand has expanded into overseas markets. As early as 2011, CoCo Fresh Tea & Juice opened stores in New York, allowing overseas Chinese to taste the flavors of their hometown thousands of miles away, alleviating homesickness. It is said that CoCo Fresh Tea & Juice's status overseas is equivalent to Starbucks' status in China. The overseas prices of CoCo Fresh Tea & Juice have already exceeded twice its domestic prices. A few years ago, CoCo Fresh Tea & Juice was listed on the New York Stock Exchange.

With the growing demand for bubble tea in recent years, the bubble tea industry has been continuously expanding, with those born in the 1990s and 2000s becoming the main consumer force in this market. As demand has increased, so have counterfeiters. Among them are copies of the bubble tea industry giant "CoCo Fresh Tea & Juice."

In early 2021, consumers purchased counterfeit "CoCo Fresh Tea & Juice" products on food delivery platforms and filed complaints with the Shanghai Putuo District Market Supervision Administration. In April 2021, the Shanghai Putuo District Market Supervision Administration investigated 21 fake CoCo Fresh Tea & Juice stores, of which 19 business entities obtained the trademark usage rights of "CoCo&Lucky" through franchising. These 21 fake CoCo Fresh Tea & Juice stores were exposed, with individual stores generating as much as 1.78 million yuan in revenue in less than half a year.

However, during the actual investigation, it was found that these 19 business entities did not use the "CoCo&Lucky" trademark in compliance with regulations. The "CoCo" lettering was prominently displayed through shop signs, as well as on bubble tea cups and straws, leading consumers to mistakenly believe that their products had certain connections with "CoCo Fresh Tea & Juice," violating Article 57, Item 2 of the Trademark Law of the People's Republic of China.

In this investigation operation, law enforcement officers seized and destroyed over 90,000 infringing bubble tea cups, 79 rolls of sealing film, over 50,000 straws, and over 60,000 handbags. According to the provisions of Article 60, Item 2 of the Trademark Law of the People's Republic of China, the parties of these 21 counterfeit bubble tea stores were given a total administrative fine of 1.0647 million yuan.

In February of this year, reporters reported that the counterfeit bubble tea "CoCo&Lucky" opened more than a dozen stores in Shanghai, using a business model of reducing costs and increasing marketing investment to create blockbuster stores with monthly sales of over 3,000 items on food delivery platforms, disrupting the market.

The brand manager of "CoCo&Lucky" once stated that a bubble tea priced at 11 yuan would not lose money even after giving 8.5 yuan to the food delivery platform, as their cost per bubble tea is only between 3 to 4 yuan. They are not afraid of being labeled as counterfeit, nor are they afraid of having no business in physical stores. As long as costs are low enough, they can use marketing means to capture the online market.

This incident also made it to the trending topics on Sina Weibo, attracting heated discussions among numerous netizens.

When an industry's cake gets bigger, it will inevitably attract more people who want to share this cake. The bubble tea market is ultimately growing larger and larger, and those counterfeit brands that want to ride on the fame of well-known ones are also increasing. For ordinary consumers, it's difficult to distinguish at a glance, and they just want to drink a cup of bubble tea. So, have you been deceived?

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