Coffee in Hand After Hours of Waiting at Tims Harbin

Canadian coffee brand Tims opened its first Harbin store over the weekend and drew long queues, but the launch turned chaotic. Some customers waited several hours for their food, and complaints about serving efficiency and store management spread widely online, leaving many fans disappointed with the brand's first location in the city.

The crowd was driven by buy-one-get-one-free coupons and a queue gift scheme: the first 200 customers received prizes after any purchase, with different tiers such as coffee monthly cards for the top three and limited-edition city mugs for ranks four to ten. With coffee in hand after hours of waiting, many customers voiced frustration over the store's organization.

Canadian coffee brand Tims' first Harbin store opened over the weekend. The brand had attracted a large number of consumers in advance through buy-one-get-one-free coupons and queue giveaway activities, with the first 200 people to arrive able to receive different tiers of gifts such as coffee monthly cards and city mugs. However, on opening day the scene was chaotic, with some customers waiting several hours before getting their food, and the meal-serving efficiency and store management drew widespread complaints. Although the queue's popularity demonstrated the brand's appeal, the lack of organizational capability also left many fans disappointed, affecting the impression of the brand's first store.

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Early on a weekend morning, most office workers were still curled up in bed enjoying a rare moment of rest. But just before 9:30 yesterday morning, a long line had already formed in front of a coffee shop at Harbin Xicheng Red Square, with many customers yawning as they waited for the opening speech to end.

According to netizens at the scene, this newly opened store is the first Harbin location of the Canadian brand Tims. Before the hoarding was even removed, the brand had already launched intensive promotion across major platforms and, a week before opening, issued buy-one-get-one-free drink coupons to attract the attention of local consumers.

However, people in the queue said they were not all there for the promotional coupons; more of them were there to compete for ranking and collect prizes. It turned out that Tims had launched an opening queue gift: the first 200 consumers could receive a gift after any purchase, and the gifts differed by ranking. For example, the top 3 could get a coffee monthly card, while those ranked 4th to 10th could get a limited-edition city mug, and so on, which made many freebie hunters eager to try.

(Image from Tims' official Xiaohongshu account)

It was precisely because Tims had prepared generous gifts and discounts that many fans were willing to leave their warm beds early on a Saturday morning and rush to the store entrance as soon as the mall doors opened. However, when the necessary opening procedures were completed and the store officially began welcoming customers, the scene was full of disruptions and became chaotic for a time, prompting netizens to joke that it was a "shoddy amateur operation."

One customer reported that he arrived to line up around 9:30, quickly received a number tag handed out one by one by staff, and placed an order as instructed by the employees. But in fact, it was not until 12:30 that he finally got to eat the bagel he had originally planned to have for breakfast.

In the view of some netizens, long lines on opening day and waiting a while to get products count as normal operations. But customers standing at the bar waiting to pick up their orders believed there was a reason they had to wait one or two hours.

She said that the number of employees making drinks and bagels behind the bar was not small, and the production speed was faster than expected, but these employees seemed insufficiently skilled and failed to promptly package the products on the counter according to orders and hand them to customers. This was what caused many people to wait several hours before getting their food even though they had ordered very early.

Many netizens believed that Tims had already opened first stores in multiple cities, so it should have known how attractive an opening event plus free gifts would be to residents who enjoy joining the excitement, and it should also have been able to foresee the queueing spectacle that day.

But the long waits on site and the shortcomings in store service exhausted fans' expectations and goodwill, and also made people question the brand's event organization ability. Comments such as "They promoted it too heavily but didn't organize it well," "Management is really poor, the queue is bound to be chaotic," "Efficiency is too bad," and "It's too chaotic" emerged one after another.

It is understandable that Tims wanted to create a lively atmosphere with high popularity when opening a city's first store, but local residents believed the brand should also manage it well and organize the event properly, so as to avoid leaving a bad first impression and damaging consumers' goodwill toward the brand.

Image source: Xiaohongshu

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