Sudden Order Surges and How Do You Use a Coffee Maker Capacity?

An unannounced JD.com subsidy cut four CoCo drinks from 9.9 yuan to 1.9 yuan, and stores across many parts of the country were hit with more than half a day's normal drink volume within an hour. Staff could not keep up, delivery riders crowded the pickup counters, some orders came out wrong, and late riders had pay docked, leaving employees, riders and customers all worse off.

Stores had staffed and stocked ingredients for an ordinary day's pace, so the platform price cut, made without notice to the shops, overwhelmed their capacity. The incident points to a communication gap between the delivery platform and store operators. In broader coffee culture terms, it is a reminder that equipment and crew throughput set a real ceiling on how fast any beverage operation can fill orders.

An unannounced JD.com platform subsidy campaign plunged CoCo milk tea shops across many parts of the country into a whirlwind of chaos. Four drinks originally priced at 9.9 yuan were suddenly slashed by the platform itself to 1.9 yuan, instantly triggering a flood of online orders. Stores had prepared staffing and ingredients according to a normal day's pace, yet within one hour they were hit with more than half a day's worth of drink volume. Staff were thrown into a frenzy, delivery riders crowded around grabbing orders, customers received drinks that did not match what they ordered, and even the delivery workers had their pay docked for being late. What looked like a promotion benefiting consumers ultimately turned into a lose-lose-lose situation: staff complaining bitterly, riders arguing, and customers disappointed. What exactly went wrong with the communication mechanism between the platform and the stores? Why did the sudden surge in traffic become such a hot potato? This article reconstructs the entire incident and explores the operational hidden concerns behind delivery promotions.

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The afternoon before yesterday, large numbers of delivery riders suddenly gathered in front of CoCo milk tea shops in many parts of the country. They crowded around the pickup counter and kept urging the staff inside, and passersby at first assumed it was the recent competition among delivery platforms bringing a concentrated surge of traffic to the tea beverage industry.

However, as more and more riders gathered, the staff still could not get the drinks out, and at some stores arguments even broke out. This scene left onlookers puzzled: what on earth had happened to CoCo, which is usually not especially busy?

The CoCo employees at the center of the chaos, however, had grievances they could not voice, and could only take advantage of work breaks to post on social platforms, saying outright that the stores had been "stabbed in the back" by the JD platform.

From the employees' descriptions and leaked internal chat records, it appears that the afternoon before yesterday, JD, without giving any notice in advance, directly subsidized four discounted drinks originally set at 9.9 yuan on the platform down to 1.9 yuan. Because the price cut was extremely large and came without any warning, large numbers of CoCo stores nationwide were overwhelmed in a short period by a massive wave of delivery orders, catching the milk tea makers completely off guard.

Many employees, recalling that frantic afternoon, remember only the endless sound of receipt printers churning out orders, with the backend system flooded by hundreds of delivery orders within just a few minutes. For stores staffed by only one or two people, the situation instantly spun out of control, and they could only urgently call colleagues to come and help.

Even so, this wave of "heaven-sent traffic" still left workers crying out that they could not handle it. Many stores had no choice but to remove the promotion and disable the order-taking function on the JD channel. When consumers accused them of "not being able to play the game," the staff were full of grievances: "Orders are exploding, what are we supposed to do? Then call the police."

They explained that the platform had not informed them in advance, and the stores had prepared staffing and ingredients based on sales for an ordinary weekday. Who would have expected that once the promotion started, the order volume in one hour would exceed the total for half a day normally? Everyone could only shake milk tea in a fluster while rushing to replenish ingredients, and at the same time still had to serve orders, pack them, and soothe waiting customers. Each of them wished they could become Nezha and grow enough hands, feet, and heads to deal with the surging orders.

But this delivery chaos triggered by JD affected far more than the milk tea staff; riders and customers were dragged into it as well.

Many delivery workers who took orders reported that after rushing to the stores, they discovered that milk tea production was far from keeping up with demand, and they advised customers to cancel their orders themselves, saying, "I'm afraid they won't be able to make them all tonight." Some netizens filmed the scene of riders besieging the milk tea shop and shared it, saying: "Your orders all depend on riders grabbing them, and some riders even started fighting!" Such scenes left onlookers dumbfounded, exclaiming that the milk tea shop had become an offline battlefield for riders fighting over orders.

Consumers who had intended to take advantage of this round of heavy discounts were also quite resentful. They said helplessly that not only was delivery of the drinks they ordered slow, but the milk tea the riders grabbed was often not the cup they had ordered. It did not taste as good as usual, and it was missing toppings. It was truly "one sip and you say nothing."

The only thing that offered a bit of comfort, perhaps, was JD's promised "free order if late" policy. Many customers who did not receive their delivery within the stipulated time received refund notices, which amounted to drinking milk tea without spending a cent.

When a delivery platform launches a promotion, milk tea prices fall and store orders surge, which by rights should be a win-win-win situation. But the actual situation was this: this unexpected discount left tea shops in disarray, workers complaining endlessly, consumers unsatisfied with the drinks they received, and riders who accepted orders actually having their pay docked. None of the parties involved had a good experience.

Image source: online screenshots

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