Why Does High Price Coffee Merchandise Draw Crowds?

Heytea's city-exclusive fridge magnets, free gifts for new store openings, are being resold on second-hand platforms for 40 to 100 yuan. The collectible accessories, tied to local culture, sparked cross-city proxy drinking and swaps. Heytea said it does not encourage high-priced purchases and will add monthly points-redemption events so more consumers can collect magnets from different cities.

The magnets first appeared last July at Heytea's first Changchun store, and about two months ago the company released more than 50 designs at once, some for cities without a store yet. Buy a drink at a new local store and the magnet is free, but collecting other cities requires going there, which fueled resale at high price coffee levels. Some buyers waited up to two and a half hours.

Heytea's city-exclusive fridge magnets, launched to celebrate new store openings, quickly sparked a collecting craze thanks to designs that incorporate local characteristics and cultural history. Since they could only be obtained at newly opened stores in the corresponding cities, social platforms saw a wave of cross-city proxy drinking, swaps, and even high-priced purchases. The free merchandise was resold on second-hand platforms for 40 to 100 yuan. Heytea later responded that it does not encourage high-priced purchases and plans to launch monthly points-redemption events so more consumers have a chance to collect fridge magnets from different cities.

The city fridge magnets that have become the focus of discussion are limited-edition accessories Heytea created for new store opening events, first appearing last July when its first Changchun store opened. Inspired by each city's local characteristics and cultural history, these fridge magnets incorporate related elements into Heytea's brand identity. Two months ago, Heytea released more than 50 new city fridge magnets at once, some corresponding to cities where Heytea had not even opened a store yet.

The redemption rules are not complicated: buy a drink at a newly opened Heytea store in your city and you can get the corresponding city fridge magnet for free.

Heytea has long been jokingly called a "design company" by netizens, and this series of fridge magnets precisely hit everyone's urge to collect. Some people queued for as long as two and a half hours just to get one. However, if you want to collect designs from other cities, you must go to the new stores there in person. As a result, a large number of posts appeared on social platforms "looking for someone to drink Heytea on my behalf and get the fridge magnet"—essentially asking local netizens to drink Heytea for them, collect the fridge magnet, and then mail it to them.

Other netizens chose to post swap threads, exchanging their own city's fridge magnet for designs from other cities, essentially turning the fridge magnets into a "trading card game." Some people, unwilling to spend a lot of time queuing or wait endlessly for a willing proxy drinker, simply used their "money power" to buy fridge magnets from other netizens. Some even listed the fridge magnets for sale on second-hand platforms. On one second-hand platform, typing "Heytea" brings up "fridge magnet" as a suggested term, and clicking through shows free fridge magnets priced from 40 to 100 yuan.

As the hashtag #HeyteaCityFridgeMagnetsTriggerCrossCityProxyDrinking continued to gain traction, Heytea quickly responded via Weibo: "Thank you so, so much for everyone's recognition and love for Heytea city fridge magnets! But collecting this merchandise by buying it at high prices is really unnecessary—A-xi also feels heartache over everyone's money TAT."

Heytea also said that subsequently, at a frequency of once or twice a month, it will launch points-redemption events for city-limited fridge magnets on the WeChat mini program "Heytea GO," where members can use points to redeem fridge magnets from different cities.

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