Changes to Our New Store
We've focused on three main changes:
Tea Merchandise
When we opened Naperville in late 2010, we had over 200 teas out for people to purchase and enjoy. We built a store that was aimed at creating the ultimate tea experience. The whole 80/20 rule comes into play here: having our teas on the wall is great for the customer, but is expensive and forces you to have less merchandise on display. Since only about 20% of the teas were really popular we decided to narrow the collection to 100. This allows us to still sell all of the popular teas, but also allows us to show off more of the Adagio merchandise. Since we cup the teas for the customer before they buy and the customer doesn’t make a purchasing decision based solely off of name and appearance, the popular teas in store aren’t exactly the same as online. I’m aiming for two goals from this change. The first is to increase the average ticket while the number of tickets stays the same or increases... more >
Third Store: First Thoughts
Foot traffic has been a bit surprising. We expected to see more commuters in the morning passing by our store, since the train/red line is only a block from us we hoped to break into that market. We’ve been open long hours for the holiday season and to watch foot traffic, but its looking like we’ll be opening a couple hours later at the start of the new year. We’re currently open at 7:30. The other surprise is how many tourists we’ve had come into our shop. We expected to have them, but thought we’d have more locals than tourists at first. Especially since we’ve had a coming soon sign in the window for about half a century. Though we didn’t get the response like Apple does when launching a new product, we did have a few already Adagio fans come in to say hi... more >
How to Succeed in Tea
If I've learned one thing from seven years in the US Tea Industry opening stores and selling online, it's this: To be successful in tea you need to pick a customer and rock their world. It can be hard to tell the difference between a business strategy that will make you king of a niche, and one that will leave you floundering in a sea of competition, but it's often little differentiators that make all the difference to a company's long term success.
The number of tea businesses that are trying to be all things to all people is appalling. Mission statements like "appealing to the casual tea drinker without alienating the connoisseur" set up impossible business challenges. Imagine trying to sell $18,000 economy cars on the same lot as $180,000 luxury sedans. Do you invest in leather chairs? Are the floors Italian marble? Do your sales people wear expensive suits? Is the music Beethoven or Katy Perry? If you try to cater to both customers you'll fail to make either happy... more >
The end of the Victorian Tea Room
Victorian Tea Rooms are on the decline and are being replaced by urban, trendy cafes, cupping rooms and tea themed restaurants. I made a statement something like this last week during my presentation at World Tea East in Philadelphia. The topic of my talk was finding profitability in the tea business. Good headlines and good soundbites catch your attention. Clearly this one worked, because I've heard from quite a few people worried that I was predicting the demise of their personal businesses.
The simple truth is that many Victorian Tea Rooms serving high tea and finger sandwiches are struggling to survive, while most of the successful new entrants are taking a hip, urban approach to tea. It's also true that averages don't always apply at the local level. There are plenty of very successful Victorian Tea Rooms, particularly across the more traditional New England corridor. But even that generalization isn't absolute... more >
Musings from World Tea East
The 2011 World Tea East just concluded this afternoon in Philadelphia, PA. This was the first east coast tea show since 2007, and the first ever to take place in addition to the World Tea Expo in Las Vegas. It was a great three days (including the World Origins Tasting Tour), and I wanted to share a few thoughts before I head out of town.
- While the show was much smaller than the World Tea Expo in Las Vegas, buyer to exhibitor ratios of 25 to 1 made for a pretty busy event. Pity for the vendors that chose not to participate.
- The US recently surpassed the UK as world’s second largest importer of tea. That’s pretty impressive and exciting. (Never mind the fact that we could fit the UK in our back pocket.) We’re now 6th in global consumption. In case you’re wondering, the countries who consume more but import less are producing countries drinking their own tea... more >