Coffee is big business. According to GlobeNewswire, the worldwide market for coffee shops is projected to reach $237.6 billion by 2025. This is despite the fact that there’s a cost-of-living crisis, and millions of people are cutting back on luxuries such as coffee.
Clearly, the demand for good coffee is never going to slow down. In fact, it’s going up. Therefore, there’s never been a better time in history to run your own coffee shop, whether it’s small or large.
Of course, running a coffee shop isn’t always easy, especially during current economic times. Luckily, though, there are plenty of fun and practical ways that you can improve your coffee shop in order to:
- Boost sales
- Attract loyal customers
- Cut costs and more
Sounds great, right? Well, you can learn how to do this through the following tips and tricks that are specifically designed for ambitious coffee shop owners and staff.
Let’s begin!
Choose High-Quality Green Coffee Beans for Roasting
Some – but not all – coffee shops like to roast their own coffee beans.
The main benefit of this is saving money. It makes complete economic sense when compared to purchasing coffee beans wholesale from a roaster.
If this is something that your coffee shop currently does (or is planning to start doing in the future), then it’s essential that you choose high-quality green coffee beans from green coffee importers. You can pick and choose from a variety of different importers, so browse carefully. Remember, you’ll also need to select how many bags of green coffee beans you want to buy for roasting. Naturally, this will depend on how much coffee you serve (on average) per day as well as current customer demand.
Whether you roast the green coffee beans yourself or one of your other staff members does it, you’re going to save a lot of money in the process. Plus, you’ll likely find that roasting your own green coffee beans actually results in a better-tasting end product. It’s a no-brainer!
Offer More than Just Coffee
Coffee shops are no longer just about the coffee. Now, it’s also about tasty snacks, sweets, and non-caffeinated beverages. The more variety you have, the better it’ll be. After all, modern consumers love expansive coffee shop menus.
Have Special Deals on Specific Days
It’s also a great idea to offer special deals on specific days.
Example: Espressos are 25% off on Tuesdays.
Sometimes, all you need is a mega-hit special deal to attract long-term customers who keep coming back for that deal.
Whatever your most popular type of coffee is, it’s important to build a special deal around that. As a result, you’ll get maximum engagement, which is ultimately what you want to happen.
Offer Student Discount
Speaking of special deals, don’t forget to offer student discounts. Students love to drink coffee. In fact, many of them survive off of it! Therefore, the key is to get local students onboard with your coffee shop – and one of the best ways to do this is via student discount.
Usually, student discounts will be offered somewhere between 10% and 25%. Of course, the higher the discount is, the more attractive it becomes. If you’re a start-up coffee shop, it’s recommended you offer a 25% student discount so that you can quickly establish yourself in the area.
Start a Customer Loyalty Program
These days, most big coffee shop brands offer customer loyalty programs. Typically, this works by customers downloading an app to their smartphones which they then scan each time they buy a coffee (or something else) from the coffee shop. Over time, they can earn more points which can then be used to get rewards, such as free cups of coffee.
If you want to start a loyalty program, you can. This will involve you working with a web or app developer to get your app ready. Once it’s done, it can then be approved by the app stores and downloaded by customers.
Of course, you’ll need to think carefully about what rewards customers will be able to get and how many points they’ll need to accumulate for these rewards. You can look to big players like Starbucks for inspiration regarding this. For every $1 you spend at Starbucks, you receive 3 stars. Once you’ve collected 150 stars, you get a free drink – it’s that simple.
Make the Interior as Comfortable and Vibrant as Possible
Coffee shops are all about the vibe. The vibe is largely dictated by how good the interior looks. Also, a good blend of background music helps, too.
Pro tip: it all starts with the lighting. The last thing you want to do is add super bright lights to the interior that make people uncomfortable. Instead, you should use modern LED lighting fixtures to create a relaxed vibe – almost as if people are shopping in a luxury, high-end clothing store.
It’s a good idea to go on a coffee shop tour around different cities for further lighting inspiration. You’ll find that the best coffee shops have the best lighting. Plus, if you find a coffee shop with specific lighting that you like, you can even ask the owner where the lighting is from.
Add WIFI
Many students and professionals like to do their work in coffee shops. This is why every time you go to a coffee shop, you’ll see people sitting at tables using their MacBooks and laptops. The only way that this is possible in the first place is because free WIFI is provided in the building, as well as electrical charge points for people who need to charge their smartphones and other devices.
So, if you don’t have it already, it’s time to add WIFI to your coffee shop. You’ll be stunned at how many future customers this will attract. Just make sure that you advertise your free WIFI on your windows and main entrance so that people know it’s available. Also, it’s a good idea to provide the code for the WIFI via customer receipts or your coffee menu.
