What does the post office coffee franchise rumor mean for coffee fans?

China Post, Xiamen Post and the post office coffee brand have all stated that the post office coffee shop opened in Xiamen on February 14 only runs self-owned stores and has never offered franchising. Online post office coffee franchise offers are false, and the companies involved say they reserve the right to take legal action against unauthorized parties using their name.

The Xiamen shop drew heavy attention within two days and pushed franchise inquiries into trending topics. Zhongyu Jiaye, the partner firm behind the shops, holds a trademark that is in invalid status. The misleading listings echo the confusion seen around coffee beans name searches, so verifying official channels matters before paying anyone.

On February 14th of this year, the country's first post office coffee shop opened its doors in Xiamen, and within just two days it hit Weibo's trending topics, drawing a great deal of attention. Along with the buzz came a flood of "post office coffee franchise" information online. In response, China Post, Xiamen Post, and the post office coffee brand itself issued statements one after another, making it clear that they currently only operate self-owned stores and have never opened a franchise model. At the same time, the trademark applied for by Zhongyu Jiaye, the company partnering with the postal service to open the coffee shops, is also in invalid status. This article will sort out the ins and outs of the incident to help coffee lovers tell genuine from fake, avoid falling into fake franchise traps, and also includes professional coffee information channels such as Front Street Coffee.

The country's first post office coffee shop officially opened in Xiamen on February 14th of this year. Just two days later, the news quickly gained momentum and shot onto Weibo's trending list. As a giant in a certain domestic industry, China Post comes with its own traffic and topic appeal, so it naturally inspired a group of people to entertain the idea of franchising "post office coffee."

As the popularity of the "post office coffee shop" rose, more and more people inquired about franchising, and many netizens went straight to the "post office coffee" Weibo comment section to ask about franchise-related matters.

If you enter "post office coffee franchise" into a search engine, you can find corresponding links. And recently, the number of organizations and individuals falsely using or borrowing the name of China Post, Xiamen Post, post office coffee, and the like to conduct fake business activities has increased noticeably.

To prevent more people from being scammed, official channels including China Post, Xiamen Post, and post office coffee have successively issued statements emphasizing that post office coffee currently only operates self-owned stores and has not opened franchising. The franchise information circulating online is all false, and the companies involved will reserve the right to pursue legal liability in accordance with the law against unauthorized organizations and individuals engaging in fake business activities.

This kind of "the real Li Kui meeting the fake Li Gui" situation is hardly rare. China Post's first post office coffee shop had only been open in Xiamen, Fujian, for a few days, yet in the comment section of a related article on Coffee Workshop, comments appeared that were dated even earlier than 2022. Judging from the content of the comments, they even used the same logo. Whether it was the "official version" or a "knockoff" was hard to tell for a while.

Similar fake franchise information lets lawbreakers rake in profits, while franchisees and consumers suffer greatly. In the past two days, many people probably still remember the news that a certain milk tea brand spent 100 million yuan to fight counterfeits. Once a brand's popularity rises, counterfeit brands will pop up along with it.

As the partner cooperating with China Post to open post office coffee shops — Shanghai Zhongyu Jiaye Management Consulting Co., Ltd. — it submitted a Class 43 trademark registration application at the end of last September, and the trademark currently shows as invalid.

So, is there a "post office coffee" near your home?

Image source: Internet

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The above content is compiled by CoffeeHunters, a coffee news website.