Delivery costs for coffee roasters

[ambwinin]

Hello everyone!

I've been reading a lot of the information on this site, but haven't found any information on this topic yet. I'm wondering how coffee roasters keep from losing money on their delivery costs both from the importer to their door and also from their door to the buyer (cafe/restaurant)? Is the premise of coffee roasting only profitable if everything is local? I understand California and obviously Seattle, Washington seem to be the hot spot where importers and roasters are close together, however I live in the Midwest where everything is spread out. I have some major cities within an hour of me that will have a lot of buyers, but it looks like using Fedex or UPS will kill me on costs to getting it to them. Surely buyers don't accept these large delivery costs to be passed to them completely?

Thanks for all your advice and insight! :heart:

 

[JumpinJakJava]

A few past threads to check out.

http://www.coffeeforums.com/forum/coffee-industry-forum/12552-shipping.html

http://www.coffeeforums.com/forum/business-business-b2b/10755-shipping-solutions.html

http://www.coffeeforums.com/forum/coffee-websites/12155-best-practices-packaging-shipping.html

 

[ambwinin]

Thanks a lot for these threads. This was very helpful! It looks like a lot of people posting were shipping small quantities (less than 5 lbs) where the shipping rates wouldn't be extraordinary. Do most cafés/restaurants only buy small quantities such as these per week? I was expecting to be shipping more along the lines of 15 lbs. I know it's hard to say since it's of course based on store traffic but could anyone take a stab at the norm??

 

[slurp]

I buy in bulk, around 3000# per delivery. Shipping is cost averaged out for the beans and goes towards the cost of bean.

 

[ambwinin]

Interesting, thanks for the help!

 

[topher]

ambwinin..what is a store going to do with 15lbs of coffee? My small stores order 100 to 200 lbs a week. I am located in South Florida and my furthest customer is in Beverly Hills. I get great rates on my wholesale coffee through FedEx. At the moment I am buying green coffee by the month. I have a small roastery so I can not store many bags in it...I am actually going to a warehouse soon and my shipping drops from $.16 a pound to $.02 a pound. I will be buying once every 4 months instead of monthly