Any Ideas to increase sales volume????

[vanjait]

Hi Coffeejunky,
you said that you from a small town, maybe what you have got is a maximal in your town. my suggestion is you will do expansion to neighbor town or other place, i think.

good luck!

 

[JLew]

What about point of sale items....gum, or mints right by the register? A few years ago we ordered oral fixation mints, mainly because I liked how the products looked, but in our drive thru it didn't go over so well, not like if someone was standing right there at the register needing some mints! I agree with the unusual stuff comment, find quirky stuff that people can't get somewhere else...I say stay true to you if you love stuff that has "smart ass" stuff on it, buy that kinda stuff, if you like more subtle calming stuff do that, I think it's easier to sell stuff to people if you honestly love it. What about working on a small display of seasonal stuff??? Like chocolates and cards and pink heart notebooks for valentines day....chocolate eggs and bunny ears and little coloring books or something for Easter.

 

[Mr Shave]

Hey CoffeeJunky, I just have a suggestion for different way to approach your problem. Instead of trying to think about your average ticket sales and how many cups you sale each day, ask yourself what the total value is on your customers and you’ll have to decide what time period to look at. You could look at a month, 3 months or a year. The reason for doing this is that essentially you’re looking to figure out of how much of my sales are coming from regulars.

The reason to do this is because if you have 375 average ticket sale (this might be an extreme case) 300 to 330 cups average per day. If most of these are coming from regulars that means you actually have a very high value per individual. And when you understand what that value is over a certain amount of time, then that means you understand how much you can invest to bring another individual to the door.

And the reason that I'm suggesting that you look at this way is that maybe you don’t need to increase your ticket sales, but maybe what you need to do is change your marketing’s that bring more people into the door and create more regular customers. But until you know how much value you’re getting for your marketing, that is if you pay a dollar to bring someone in the door and then they return 3x a week for the next year, then you know that a dollar brings a huge amount of value you can leverage that . So that’s just a different way of approaching your problem.

--transcribed and posted for Joseph @ JRmobile.co by Mark

Great point
boiled down. more customers x high frequency = loyalty = value

 

[CoffeeJunky]

The reason I started this thread is to know what others doing besides selling our normal stuff like coffee, espresso base drinks, some sweets that goes with coffee... Since then I have added oatmeal and small bake goods.

My coffee house is located in very small town and most of my customers are repeat customers. (lilke 80 percent of them)
I rarely do outside promotions other then local events... I am the only coffee house in two block stretch of downtown and there really isn't anymore room for another coffee house.

I have done more research about our business but we are keep coming back to way to increase the average ticket sales instead of getting more customer to our business.... Our current business volume is very impressive for this small town with around 10,000 in population and if we can't find the way to increase our average ticket volume, we need to go out and start promoting our business in fairs, trade shows and other public events. That is our next step...

Thanks for all your help....

 

[graham]

CoffeeJunky, a lot of independent coffee shops are having success selling our Kifa Bars. They are unique, made from whole food, super delicious and filling. Our customers are also experiencing a lot of repeat business for the bars. You can visit kifabars.com to see pics and reviews of our 10 flavors or email me directly at [email protected] for a wholesale price list. We're also happy to offer FREE samples that you and your staff can enjoy and use as a trial on your customers.

Good luck!

 

[CoffeeJunky]

CoffeeJunky, a lot of independent coffee shops are having success selling our Kifa Bars. They are unique, made from whole food, super delicious and filling. Our customers are also experiencing a lot of repeat business for the bars. You can visit kifabars.com to see pics and reviews of our 10 flavors or email me directly at [email protected] for a wholesale price list. We're also happy to offer FREE samples that you and your staff can enjoy and use as a trial on your customers.

Good luck!

I like the bars but I don't like the prices.
I don't know the weight of the bars but being 2.25(wholesale price) per bar is pretty expensive for people to simply just pick one up on the way to work.

 

[graham]

I like the bars but I don't like the prices.
I don't know the weight of the bars but being 2.25(wholesale price) per bar is pretty expensive for people to simply just pick one up on the way to work.

Hi CoffeeJunky,

Thanks for checking out our site! Just so you know the selling prices listed on the site are not wholesale (feel free to email me directly for wholesale prices). Yes, you're right, we sell a premium product, however, we find that customers love our bars and are pleased with the premium quality and taste that they paid for.

Let me know if you'd like some free samples to test for yourself.

Thanks!

Graham

 

[ensoluna]

Since you said "any help would be appreciated", let me give you my thoughts on this.

a. bring in very exotic specialty coffees (got to be really fresh and good) and market them at higher pricing with double the margin than others. Do some inventive coffee seminars in your place. Invite friends, relatives or someone in the press..etc. When people knows that you have the best coffee around, they will come to check it out. Either buy that expensive coffee (at least once) or buy other stuff from you.

b. Might think about Roasting some green beans and sell them to customers at reasonable pricing WITH YOUR OWN BRAND NAME. IT SHOULD NOT COST MUCH at all to do this. you can start with small roaster to roast.

c. Source out and buy green or roasted beans at as low pricing as possible. You might think about making some sort of partnership with overseas coffee farms or factories (doing Cross marketing with them). You can even import green beans or roasted beans and distribute to other shops or to individuals, as separate business to your retail shop.

d. when you have decided to do your own brands of roasted coffee (which we can sell in your retail shop / on line / distribution...etc), you can even import your own branded coffee mugs, T-shirts, plates...etc. Believe it or not, coffee mug cost less than $1.00 in china. which sells here for $12.99 or more. T-shirts, same thing. I used to buy t-shirts at $2.00 (four color printed front and back) and sell them at $9.99. If you look for Hong Kong or China trading company who deal with this, you do not need to buy so many of them at a time.

having a retail shop can be fun and manageable, but it certainly has the limit how much you can grow. if you want to grow your business big, you got to think differently than adding few muffins or chai tea..etc. I think that you must have your own brand of coffee and other related products. And market them slowly and steady. When you have on-line business or other distribution business, it does not matter how small town you live at. As long as there are UPS, Postal service, you can do whatever you want.

A lot of retail store owners become Coffee distributors, Roasters, importers & exporters. That is exactly how colombe, intelligentsia and handsome coffee became what they are. They all started from retail shops, but think big and think globally. Key thing is finding best sources and making your own brand name as exclusive as possible.

This reply might not be what you are expecting, but I am giving you "Any Help".
thanks