Loob Holding Sdn Bhd’s Tealive, is now set on opening its 1,000th outlet within three years. The brand had reached a significant 600th-store mark in Gelang Patah in Johor last week.
Loob founder and Chief Executive Officer, Bryan Loo expressed gratitude to Malaysian consumers for having supported the brand to reach 600 outlets in slightly over four years, despite the pandemic.
“We plan to open 130 to 150 outlets a year, mainly in Johor, East Coast and Sabah and Sarawak and we’ll have 1,000 stores within three years,” he said at a virtual launch of the 600th Store Celebrations.
“When the pandemic hit, we transformed ourselves quickly to launch our own bubble tea online e-commerce platform and was the first to market the DIY bubble tea kit. We later won Gold for the Asia e-Commerce Awards and silver for the Marketing Excellence Awards but this was actually a bonus. We did it for our Tealive consumers who were stuck at home during the first lockdown with time on their hands and missing their favourite drink,” he said.
Loo planned to continue focusing on digitalising the business and prioritising customer convenience including various cashless and contactless ordering channels – scan to order, order ahead and drive-in model across the store network.
Tealive now has 10 drive-through outlets and over 100 drive-in shops where customers can order ahead and park at dedicated bays for the drinks to be served to them in their cars.
Loo said convenience also meant accessing their consumers wherever they are from neighbourhood shops and community malls to transit terminals and petrol stations as well as through delivery partners FoodPanda and Grabfood to their homes.
The company had recently collaborated with Affin Bank for the first bubble-tea shop in a bank branch.
Loob has also been working together with Petronas Dagangan Bhd to set up Tealive stores inside Petronas Kedai Mesra shops since 2019.
At the store-level, convenience also extended to the current Tealive 3.0 format featuring a dedicated bakery corner, Tealive Eats, and self-order standees at the entrance where customers could order and pay online before going in to pick up their orders.
Central to the digital strategy is Tealive Club, a proprietary app which is a refreshed and refined version of integrated loyalty program equipped with various ordering functions from delivery to its own e-commerce.
In January, Tealive collaborated with Touch-n-Go, Malaysia’s largest e-wallet player, to provide an “app-in-app” platform integrated with the e-wallet. It quickly became the top drinks brand transacted on Touch-n-Go e-wallet with over 200,000 transactions completed.
Innovation, Loo said, was also through brand extension into fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG) segment as Tealive has shown its capabilities in extending beyond drinks. So far, it has collaborated with Walls to offer Boba Ice Cream and with Mamee Double Decker to bring the world’s first boba instant noodle.
Tealive has launched bubble tea mooncakes and offered the region’s first bubble tea strawless reusable cup. More recently, it has offered plant-based bubble tea options to keep the brand ahead of the trend and remain relevant in the eyes of the consumer.
“We have just embarked on an exclusive collaboration with Minor Figures, UK’s biggest oat milk brand, to elevate our brand proposition and become not just trendy but closer to global drink trends. We’re not only infusing oat milk into our drinks but also offering this wholesome alternative milk to customers who’re vegan or lactose intolerant,” he said.
