The Vivienne Westwood Cafe in Beijing's Sanlitun Taikoo Li, near the Vivienne Westwood clothing store. Photo: Chen Qingrui/ GT

High-end international brands have noticed the strong interest in cafes and pop-up coffee shops in China, boosting their confidence in Chinese consumption. Insiders noted that this popular trend is largely driven by young consumers and these businesses are expected to expand.

Miss Dior just opened a pop-up in partnership with Grid Coffee in Sanlitun Taikoo Li in Beijing, offering two co-branded coffee options for a limited time from Thursday to Sunday last week at Grid Coffee's shop. Also on Thursday, Vivienne Westwood Café opened a café in Sanlitun. 

One member of staff at Grid Coffee told the Global Times on Tuesday that the two kinds of coffee related to Miss Dior have been popular with consumers.

"Customers prefer to visit the café in the afternoon. The peak time is normally on the weekends, and the waiting line is very long," a representative from Vivienne Westwood Cafe surnamed Chi told the Global Times on Tuesday.

Given the positive feedback from the customers, Chi said there will be more café opening in Beijing soon. 

The Vivienne Westwood Cafe, located adjacent to and interconnected with their clothing store, features an elegant design and offers a selection of tea, coffee, cakes, and gelato, with prices ranging from 25 yuan ($3.49) to 79 yuan. 
 
Coffee products newly launched by high-end brands have received positive feedback in China, particularly among younger consumers. 

"It can spark my interest in fashion as the café is near the shop, and I shop there when I am waiting for the coffee," Wang Shuo, a Beijing-based consumer, told the Global Times on Tuesday.

High-end brands' offline stores are often exquisitely designed, which can attract young consumers who frequently take photos and share them on social media platforms such as Douyin or Xiaohongshu, said Li Shuangshuang, another consumer in the Vivienne Westwood Cafe in Beijing.

Insiders told the Global Times that the combination of high-end brands and coffee products may become a new trend in offline brand marketing, likely driven by the fact that many brands in the luxury sector have been reportedly struggling to make a profit in 2024.

China's coffee sector is rapidly expanding rather than reaching saturation, creating significant profit potential and attracting increased interest from high-end brands, Zhang Yi, CEO of iiMedia Research Institute, told the Global Times on Tuesday. 

"In such a dynamic market, even subpar performance is unlikely to seriously harm a brand's reputation, making the coffee business an appealing investment for luxury brands," Zhang added.

Coach's first cafe in China officially opened on July 28 in Shanghai's Huangpu district, an area with the highest concentration of cafes in the city. The cafe offers coffee products priced between 20 and 78 yuan. 
 
Market research from India-based Mordor Intelligence showed that coffee consumption has become increasingly popular among young people as an energy booster, leading to rapid growth in the coffee market, particularly in India, Italy, the US, China, Japan, and the Philippines. 

In addition, China's consumer base is becoming younger. A report from China Galaxy Securities showed that those born between the 1980s and 2000s now make up 46 percent of China's primary consumers, followed by those born after the 1990s at 17.3 percent and those born after the 2000s at 12.6 percent. 

High-end brands are increasingly pursuing coffee-related cross-sector expansion in China, primarily to boost brand awareness among younger consumers and to diversify their customer base by offering more affordable and popular products, Zhang said, adding that the primary consumers for their more expensive products tend to be affluent middle-aged individuals.