Is it suitable to open a coffee shop in small towns and townships? How should coffee shop products be priced?

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The Rise of Small Town Cafés

My boss often tells me: "If you can't make good coffee, go back to the countryside." I never took this seriously until recently, when I saw more and more reports about cafés opening in rural areas. One café in a village became particularly popular, achieving single-day sales of 550+ cups and daily revenue of up to 10,000 yuan! Only then did I realize this was a significant trend.

Since this year, social media platforms have shown an increasing number of small town cafés. Related topics on Xiaohongshu have accumulated over 90,000+ posts. Seeing many small town café owners showcasing their daily revenues, ranging from three to four thousand yuan to over ten thousand, has made many onlookers quite tempted. With the pressure of the broader economic environment, waves of young people are choosing to return to their hometowns after graduation or resigning from their jobs. Could the "small town café" become a new opportunity?

Considerations for Opening a Small Town Café

In first and second-tier cities, coffee shops are common, but in some small towns, while milk tea shops are common, coffee shops remain relatively new phenomena, only slowly emerging in the past two to three years. If you're also tempted to return to a small town to open a café, there are some issues you must carefully consider. You need to be particularly cautious and conduct thorough research—never blindly follow trends.

While shop rents in small towns are indeed cheaper and labor costs are lower, the consumption level of people in small cities may not be as high as imagined, and coffee pricing needs careful consideration. In small towns, the coffee audience is smaller. Are there enough people willing to spend twenty to thirty yuan on a cup of coffee to support your store's daily operations? Is the demand for coffee really that high? These and other questions require careful consideration.

Financial Realities and Expectations

In the early stages of opening a business, you can't be too concerned with the return on investment period. This is also the biggest disadvantage of opening a coffee shop in a small town: the break-even period is long. You need sufficient financial resources to support all your living expenses and to maintain the store and employees. Being the first to open a shop before others have reacted and seizing the development opportunity might likely lead to success, but today the small town coffee trend has already spread widely.

It would be more feasible to treat opening a café as a side business while having a means to maintain cash flow. You shouldn't start thinking that the café can generate thousands or tens of thousands daily like the small town coffee owners you see online. Maintaining break-even in the early stages is already quite successful.

The Hidden Reality Behind Success Stories

Most of what we see online are success stories. We don't know how many failure cases exist behind these successes that haven't been reported. Don't get carried away by seeing success stories and a few words from others and impulsively decide to quit your job and return home. Data shows that in recent years, due to the broader environment and the impact of the pandemic, the ratio of coffee shops forced to close has reached as high as 83.3%. At this point, you might say that the pandemic trend is now developing in a positive direction.

But in reality, café closures are partly due to the impact of the pandemic and partly because people now prefer convenient instant coffee or canned coffee. Additionally, with the development of the online economy, coffee retail products have been rapidly launched, and more people are inclined to choose delivery coffee. Consumer demand for coffee remains strong, but they've shifted their purchasing channels from physical stores to online platforms. In small towns, delivery services are far less mature and advanced than in big cities. Developing into a café with an online channel would significantly increase investment costs.

Dream vs. Reality

Many people today have a dream of opening a shop, especially in fields they're interested in. Opening a shop often starts from passion and hobby—the feeling that "I love coffee, it's an elegant lifestyle, so I want to open a café."

But compared to dreams, reality might be much harsher, so you need to think carefully before opening a shop. Of course, if you have sufficient funds to invest in your dream, then these might not be major problems. Next time, when my boss tells me to go back to the countryside, I'll immediately go pack my bags.

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