So you want to sell tea online
Welcome to the club! I've seen hundreds of new online tea shops pop up since I joined the US tea industry in late 2004. In the past year, I've heard at least once a week from someone planning to launch a tea website (or add teas to their existing website) in the next year. The market for specialty tea in the U.S. has exploded in the past 10 years and the pace of growth is only accelerating.
All of this action is either really good news or really bad news depending on your perspective. The good news is that specialty tea is hot! New tea drinkers are born or converted each day and old tea drinkers are rapidly moving "up market" to better quality teas. Tea is currently experiencing the same growth pattern seen previously in the markets for wine, nutritional supplements, and coffee.
As great as this good news is, the bad news is that the specialty tea trend is not a secret. In the last few years, the U.S. market has attracted leading tea retailers from around the world with chains from Asia and Europe entering the market with aggressive growth plans. A number of U.S. tea companies now have multi-million dollar war chests, thanks to venture capitalists or angel investors. Even many regular grocery stores now sell reasonably good quality loose leaf teas. Online aggregators like Amazon.com allow the customer to browse the tea collections of dozens of tea merchants in one convenient, trusted location. A quick search for "loose tea" yields 2,884 results on Amazon.com.
The key to success (as in most businesses) is differentiation. Why would someone buy from you instead of someone else? In the physical retail world, the experts always tout "location, location, location". But what about online where Grandma's Tea Room in Walla Walla, WA is just as easy to get to as Amazon.com?
Name recognition? If you haven't already developed a large customer base, you're quite a few years behind on this one. Do you have the marketing budget to make up the distance?
Trust and security? The tea merchants with physical stores and an online presence certainly have the advantage there.
Customer service? Not many new web operations can manage to ship orders the day they are received and have someone answering the phones 24x7x356.
Design or marketing? Do you really have the six-figure design and marketing budgets to compete with online tea merchants already doing several million dollars a year in business?
It may be that you yourself are the difference maker. Maybe you grew up amidst the tea gardens. Maybe you regularly travel to the source countries. Maybe you are a tea scholar and can offer a compelling educational experience. Many of the entrepreneurs behind the existing online shops have incredible personal resumes or long histories with tea, and this is clearly a great start at creating an online presence that stands out from the crowd.
If you are not already a tea master and the brutal reality of this David and Goliath tale leaves you feeling depressed, you may just need to be a little more creative. The truth is that the market really doesn't have much use for another under-sized, under-funded, "me-too" online tea shop. But that doesn't mean there isn't a wealth of opportunity hiding a few steps off the beaten path.
So what is your niche? I'll leave that to your entrepreneurial spirit and creativity. The reality is that in the past 50 years, the stream of marketing messages has become river and then a waterfall, quickly overwhelming the consumer. At the same time, some of the most profitable small businesses have found a way to target a specific market or demographic and appeal to that market in a way that is nearly impossible for big companies to replicate. The moral of the story is that you'll have a hard time beating the leading online retailers at their own game. To succeed, you will need to change the rules and offer something (an experience, a product, a perspective, or a story) that they do not.
Good luck, and happy innovating!
Adagio Teas
Twitter: @AdagioRetail
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Dec 7th '09 13:07
As a tea consumer, you have a multitude of online vendors to choose from. What would prompt you to give your business to a new e-Commerce tea site? (http://www.tearetailer.com/article_4.html)
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Chicago, IL |
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Dec 7th '09 14:31
What would prompt me? The first things that come to mind are:Word of Mouth Focus on whole leaf Pictures of tea - dry leaf & brewed Harvest dates Descriptions and grower details Tea by region Rare, limited or new/special region tea Paypal accepted Ease of site navigation What keeps me coming back: #1 - The quality of the leaf. Without a doubt. Good customer service. IE; knowledgeable and responsive, and most importantly - a tea nerd. Order history on file. I buy a lot of tea, I like to know what I've purchased. |
Southern CA |
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Dec 8th '09 16:29
Especially if they have something new to me and then what Victoria said except for Paypal - they always give me trouble. I read a lot of blogs and keep a file of teas on them that sound good from companies that treat you well.I would keep returning if I got good service, good prices and they had unusual teas. It is also a big plus with me if they include a couple of samples so I can try something different. Just enough for 1 cup is fine |
marlena
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Dec 8th '09 17:06
+1 to everything victoria said esp paypal, (that is a big big thing for me, both for security and convenience) and a tea nerd (every store online or off would benefit from one) I'm also a sucker for samplers, I find If a vendor sends me 2-3 good free samples the chances of another purchase in the future are high indeed esp if the samples are good New entries usually start out with cheaper prices too, so that is a big draw factor, to get the good prices while they last because I expect them to rise after a while |
teaisme
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Dec 9th '09 13:34
Everything Victoria said plus samples, samples, samples.If a vendor offers only xx oz bags of teas and doesn't sell samples I would not shop there. Also RSS with product updates and special offers would be very nice to have. |
El Dorado Hills, CA |
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Dec 10th '09 17:12
• A clear concept what they offer and why they are different from others.I would not buy anything from a generic looking tea shop. • Professional and well designed website. If your website looks like your neighbors son did it then why I would trust you with my credit card # ? |
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Dec 11th '09 9:53
I would also add to all of the above... samples are wonderful. Low-cost sampler packages for organized tastings (as is recently being done by Lochan) is a great way to get some exposure on Facebook and to encourage customers to branch out into new areas of tea. To repeat some of the other important factors... -Easy to use, professional website with good security for online ordering -STRONG customer service presence -If something goes wrong, make it right, every time. Adagio already does this. -Coupons for return customers... reward points... etc. Very good for promoting return orders. -And of course, sell a quality product. |
Kentucky |
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Feb 2nd '10 10:11
I agree with most of the things listed by others. A professional presentation is very important. Pictures are vital, at least of the dry leaves, but a picture of the brewed tea would also be very welcome. I'm not a big fan of paypal, but I do shy away from giving my credit card info to small online retailers--you never know. And yes, samples are ESSENTIAL.
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Feb 3rd '10 0:48
What would prompt me? The first things that come to mind are:Word of Mouth Focus on whole leaf Pictures of tea - dry leaf & brewed Harvest dates Descriptions and grower details Tea by region Rare, limited or new/special region tea Paypal accepted Ease of site navigation What keeps me coming back: #1 - The quality of the leaf. Without a doubt. Good customer service. IE; knowledgeable and responsive, and most importantly - a tea nerd. Order history on file. I buy a lot of tea, I like to know what I've purchased. +1 especially paypal, it´s the only online payment method I will use also Rare, limited or new/special region tea Focus on whole leaf are very important, I have good local shops available so the tea has to be really special to be worth ordering online. |
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