How Does a Delivery Subsidy War Affect Coffee Culture?

On the night of July 5, Meituan and Alibaba released large numbers of milk tea vouchers, and orders surged at chains such as Mixue Bingcheng, ChaPanda, Guming, and Shanghai Auntie. Receipt printers ran continuously, evening shifts stretched past midnight, and off-duty staff were called back. Customers paid 0 yuan, while frontline workers faced a night of relentless backlog.

The episode shows how platform promotions can redirect demand overnight, shifting pressure onto store crews. For specialty coffee, the lesson is operational: limited-time deals can strain staffing, equipment, and fulfillment. Tea chains absorbed the shock with recalled workers and crowded pickup areas, while industry observers watched how subsidy-driven rushes affect daily coffee culture and service quality.

Food delivery platforms have once again sparked a subsidy war, with Meituan and Alibaba distributing large numbers of milk tea redemption vouchers to users, causing a surge of orders at chain stores including Mixue Bingcheng, ChaPanda, Guming, and Shanghai Auntie. On the night of July 5, orders flooded into tea beverage stores across many cities like a tidal wave, receipt printers nearly broke down, and employees worked from the evening shift until the early hours of the morning but still could not clear the backlog. Some stores urgently called back employees who had already clocked off to help, while delivery riders and customers surrounded the stores so tightly that not a drop could get through. While consumers got milk tea for 0 yuan, the workers behind the counter experienced a night akin to "doomsday." This battle between platforms ultimately shifted the pressure onto the frontline tea beverage workers.

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The night of July 5 felt like a doomsday-level disaster for frontline employees at many chain tea beverage brands.

It is understood that on that night, Meituan and Alibaba once again launched a food delivery subsidy war, quietly releasing a large number of milk tea discount coupons to platform users, involving multiple chain brands such as Mixue Bingcheng, ChaPanda, Guming, and Shanghai Auntie. Free milk tea fell from the sky, and consumers, naturally holding the mindset of "why not take advantage of a free deal," rushed to use the redemption coupons issued by the platforms to buy their favorite drinks for 0 yuan.

As a result, last night many Mixue Bingcheng, ChaPanda, and other stores in multiple cities fell into a state of order explosions, with in-store receipt printers seemingly malfunctioning as they endlessly spat out one order after another. Many employees on the evening shift had originally thought they only needed to finish cleaning and tidying up before closing and going home, but never expected this sudden "0 yuan milk tea" campaign to completely disrupt their rhythm.

Many milk tea workers captured scenes on-site during breaks: the stores were hung with rows upon rows of "label curtains," the work counters were covered with packaged cups already filled with toppings, and the pickup area was piled high with bags of completed delivery orders. They admitted that from the moment the store's orders exploded, they felt like a perpetual motion machine, barely able to find a moment to breathe. Some store managers, in order to cope with the unexpected surge of orders, had to call colleagues who had already clocked off to come back and reinforce.

However, even with temporarily added manpower, everyone in the store was running nonstop, and the massive influx of orders from the platforms still could not all be completed before the stores closed. Therefore, around eleven or twelve last night, milk tea shops like Mixue Bingcheng and ChaPanda became the most eye-catching presence on the streets, with delivery riders and customers surrounding the brightly lit stores, constantly urging staff to complete their orders as quickly as possible.

Glancing down at the mountain of order receipts piled on the floor, then looking up at the crowd refusing to leave in front of the counter, the milk tea workers doing unpaid overtime broke down emotionally amid the urging, with wails rising one after another: "So busy I don't even know what's happening in the world," "There are really so many orders, busy from afternoon all the way to the early morning," "What Japanese doomsday, it's Guming's doomsday..." "Packing at the front counter, my voice has gone hoarse from shouting," "I really can't keep up," "Please stop drinking, I wish I could hang myself by a rope at the door."

Seeing the tea shops running so hard that both people and equipment were about to smoke, passersby could not help but feel sympathy for the tea beverage workers behind the counter: "How devastated and helpless the ChaPanda employees must be today," "I went to Mixue Bingcheng, and their four employees were working like crazy, laughing while they worked," "The staff really have it rough, I heard a young woman crying from breaking down while making milk tea," "Milk tea shop employees will be dreaming of quitting tonight."

However, when night passed and day came, the order explosion nightmare for tea beverage workers was far from over. Many milk tea workers posted photos of the pre-order slips plastered all over the walls before closing last night, and said that because the platforms offered extremely large discounts this time, some consumers holding redemption vouchers, worried that drinking milk tea late at night would affect their sleep, placed pre-orders for the coming days.

Workers who were busy until the early morning before closing and getting off work said they had less than five or six hours to rest at home before having to return to the store to continue working. The morning shift workers, especially, felt overwhelmed at the thought of preparing ingredients while handling the backlog of pre-orders in the system, and pleaded one after another for the food delivery platforms to stop their immortal battles and dragging innocent workers into it.

Image source: Xiaohongshu

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