LIANJIA TO DRIVE HOME SALES WITH NEW COFFEE SHOP
Property brokerage teams up with Manner chain to open cafe at Shanghai outlet to boost traffic by creating cosy environment for customers
Lianjia, the mainland’s largest property brokerage, has teamed up with coffee chain operator Manner to open a cafe in one of its outlets in Shanghai, as part of efforts to launch a crossover marketing campaign to drive transactions amid a lack of homebuying interest.
The property agency opened the Manner coffee shop in its Zhongtan Road outlet in northwestern Putuo district last weekend and invited other consumer brands to form tie-ups as a way of expanding their customer bases, Lianjia said on its official WeChat social media account.
At its Zhongtan Road outlet, customers “are able to enjoy coffee and pursue dream homes at the same time”, Lianjia said.
The brokerage would revamp more outlets across the city in the coming months, with the aim of attracting more traffic by serving customers coffee, tea or food in a cosy environment, a Lianjia official said.
Lianjia is a subsidiary of New York- and Hong Kong-listed KE Holdings, which is also known as Beike Zhaofang on the mainland. The nation’s biggest online property listings and transactions platform operates more than 8,000 stores across mainland cities.
Manner, which focuses on younger customers, offers coffee at prices 30 to 40 per cent lower than foreign competitors such as Starbucks. It runs more than 1,000 stores in China.
Lianjia’s move reflects renewed efforts by property agencies to spur the take-up of lived-in homes amid an industry slump that has knocked down housing prices by more than 20 per cent in Shanghai since mid-2022.
The prices of second-hand homes across 100 mainland cities fell by 4.8 per cent to 15,088 yuan (HK$16,350) per square metre on average last month from a year earlier, according to China Index Academy, a property research firm. They declined by 0.56 per cent from a month ago, extending a drop that started in April 2022.
“In the face of falling prices, buyers are reluctant to increase their leverage to own a flat,” said Sam Xie, head of research at CBRE China. “But some customers with a strong need for flats now have the chance to hunt for bargains in some prime locations in Shanghai.”
He added it was now a buyers’ market and homeseekers were in a better bargaining position to request huge price cuts.
You Liangzhou, owner of Baonuo, a property agency in Shanghai, said most people remained cautious about buying flats and were taking a wait-andsee approach amid expectations that home prices could drop further.
This is not the first time a mainland firm has opened a coffee shop to draw customers to its outlets. In February 2022, state-owned China Post opened its first coffee shop in the coastal city of Xiamen. In Shanghai, the postal services provider serves Qiao Jia Shan coffee, which it has developed with the namesake Shanghai restaurant brand. These coffees are priced at 20 to 30 yuan per cup.
International brands have been promoting a cafe culture among Chinese customers and have been the top beneficiaries of the rising popularity of coffee among the middle class, which sees it as a status symbol.
According to research conducted by financial and business media outlet Jiemian News in 2021, China’s coffee market was valued at 300 billion yuan in 2020, which could jump to 1 trillion yuan next year.