A crowded, dimly-lit coffee shop
Source: Pixabay
Peter of Joyful Source teaches us how to launch a unique and successful coffee shop.
In almost every part of the world, people begin their day by making a pot of fresh coffee to give them an energy boost. It also serves as a source of sensual delight before they immerse themselves in chores.
But if you’re in a hurry on your way to work, what do you do? Stop by to your local coffee shop to grab a cup of steaming java. Otherwise, you haven’t started your morning right.
It seems that our love for coffee has turned this beverage into quite a profitable possibility for businesses all over the globe.
Naturally, if you’re looking for a niche that always manages to earn quite a massive audience and a following, selling coffee is a no-brainer.
However, the desire for coffee comes not just with the opportunity to make people happy with your own take on this brew, but with a high level of saturation, too.
Simply put, you’ll not just have many customers to please, but also many competitors to tackle on your way to the top. That’s why so many coffee shops fail before they ever manage to kick off their brand at all.
To help you prevent any business-busting issues and make the most of your business idea, here are a few suggestions to keep in mind before you open up your cafe.
Location, Location, Location
A bustling, kitschy coffee shop
Source: Pixabay
Do you know who your target audience is? Just like not everyone is a Starbucks aficionado crazy about a choco-mocha pumpkin latte, not everyone will be overly eager to enter a shop that offers one coffee blend.
There are people who like variety, they like crowded cafes with many digital features, while there are others who prefer the small coffee shop with a reading nook in the corner and just a handful of tables hidden in the greenery.
Depending on your audience, your brand image, and your own aspirations, you’ll need to choose the perfect location.
Plus, the rent will define your location choice, too. If there’s a perfect little shop just around the corner, but you can’t afford the sky-high rent, you should keep looking so that you can wisely invest your limited capital into developing your business.
So, look for a range of different options, scout a variety of places. You can even hire a professional to help you find the right location. Only then can you move on to developing your coffee shop.
Find an Edge For Your Coffee Brand
Yes, there’s always someone in a hurry who’ll go into your new store to purchase a cup of coffee to go because the line in the shop down the street is already too crowded. You’ll agree that this isn’t the best way to aim for customer acquisition from the get-go.
As a new shop on the block, you can do so much to give your brand that authentic vibe necessary for success. People like unique things, and selling coffee is definitely not cutting-edge, but you can give it a twist.
- How about donating a portion of your coffee profits to a charity everyone in the neighborhood knows and loves?
- How about hosting kitten and puppy adoption days on the first weekend of the month to encourage adoptions and help people bond over their favorite beverage?
- Why not name each coffee mug in your shop and give it a personality?
- Why not pick and choose coffee from a unique vendor with a unique story?
There are millions of ways to make your brand unique, you just need to take the time to define it.
Use Tech to Increase Productivity
With the location already picked and ready, and a coffee shop brand defined and ready for launch, you need to create the backbone of your business, a structure to allow you to evolve and operate every day.
As a new cafe, you have limited access to funds and to exposure. By the time you develop both, you should focus on cost-effective methods to boost productivity, automate certain processes, and avoid hiring too many people you can’t pay.
For starters, you can introduce a point-of-sale system for a cafe that’ll allow your shop to handle the workload with ease, streamline your customer communication with fewer employees, and handle loyalty programs without hassle.
Plus, such POS systems enable you to keep track of customer preferences and trends in your store, so you can conduct in-depth analytics of your development and make changes to your business operations based on the data.
Choose Your Marketing Channels
Although your physical presence and your grand opening will be enough to generate a decent amount of interest in your local community, you still need to remember that your competitors won’t sit idly by, watching you taking over a portion of their business.
In fact, you can expect them to come up with creative and costly ways to make their businesses more appealing in the times when you’re just starting to make your name known.
As ruthless as this may seem, it’s just business. You need to use other ways to make some noise and garner more interest online as well as offline.
For example, social networks are a perfect choice loaded with free, low-cost advertising and promotional opportunities to stir up some buzz around your brand: from regular posts, videos, setting up interactive polls, all the way to inviting people with personalized discounts, social networks are definitely the best place your business needs to set up camp and consistently inspire engagement.
Handing out flyers will only get you so far, which means you need to get creative and always have someone ready to answer customer questions online.
In Conclusion
Setting up a cafe in this day and age is practically a slam dunk from the “demand” perspective. However, when you consider competition and rapidly changing customer trends, your cafe needs that special something to stand out and succeed. Start with the basics.
Allow your brand-new coffee shop to steal the spotlight and make someone’s day.
Read: March is National Caffeine Awareness Month
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