Coffee Shops Problems (Part 2)
After discussing the top 5 coffee shops problems here's the rest of the problems you as a coffee shop owners might have to deal with to boost up your sales and be profitable in a long run. On this 2nd part of the post, I'll be focusing more on the human factor, it might be you coffee shop owner or the baristas or the customers..
6. Coffee Shop Owner Mentality
Building your own independent coffee shop really takes a lot of effort. I'm not only talking about sleepless nights doing research of the market, branding, logo, cost calculations, inventories, etc etc. I'm also talking about your mentality as a leader, the decision maker, the main engine of your business. A lot of the coffee shop owners that I know just want to sit behind the desk and want nothing to do with the customers, let's not do that shall we?
Starting an independent coffee shop means you need to start from zero, you'll need to greet your customers in person, get to know their name and talk to them. You'll need to be a charming people person, because having direct interactions really is what it takes to create loyal customers. They will come because of you, because they know you and your baristas, they will have the familiarity with the whole brand in the end. Only by doing so, you can set an example for your baristas to do the same.
7. Personality First. Skill Second
Hiring people for your coffee shop can be tough, especially if you're new to the business, opening your first coffee shop, no one aware of your brand. In a situation like this, it's important to hire people from their energy, pick the candidates that's cheerful, optimistic, smile all the time, honest, and diligent. Many coffee shops prefer to hire a skillful experienced baristas, I understand, but if they have a wrong personality, that's just won't do. At least I can say they're not gonna stay for a long time.
Because skill can be taught, but not personality. Barista trainings can be hard, cost a lot, and takes a long time, but that's an investment. By providing them with new skills, they'll end up having more confidence, more eager to learn about coffee, and it opens up their career opportunity for a promotion in the end. And that's a win-win. No need to worry if after you provide them with a training, they'll move to other coffee shop, if you show appreciations of their hard work, they'll be loyal.
8. Everything Sold Out
I understand that managing inventories / ingredients stocks can be a long boring thing to do and everyone seem reluctant to do it after a long tiring day, but someone have to. You really don't want your customers to complaint regarding of the sold out / unavailable items. Whatever the reason that you may come up with, they'll still cringe. It's very important to check the remaining stocks, shelf time, and expired dates of your ingredients, purchasing staff also need to be updated all the time. To avoid this problem, there are some POS (Point of Sales) machine that can help you with the report of stocks calculation. Is it accurate? Not always, but it helps.
9. Poor Service
There is "serve" in the service industries, and the coffee shop business is tough I won't sugar coated it. Coffee shops that have poor service from the staffs won't get any repeat business, to prevent that from happening you need to be able to recruit staffs that have a good personality, and continuous train, train, train, and reward. If you're paying your staffs with minimum wage or not giving them the reward after a month of good sales, most probably they won't be happy at work and won't stay for long. This will surely effect their service and attitude during work. You need to treat them as an extended family, show them your appreciation after their hard work.
Also it's important eliminate everything that's in the way for your customer to have a perfect experience in your coffee shop. If the music too loud, turn it down. If there's not enough magazines, go get it. If the wi-fi router is broken, fix it. Don't let your customers leave with a bad service experience from your coffee shop. Because it goes all the way to the rating site and social media.
10. Wrong Mindset
Coffee shop isn't a lifestyle business, it's a real business with real customers, real overheads and a lot of potential to go wrong. It's not a quick way to get rich kind of scheme, let me put it out first. So if you're thinking to open a coffee shop for fun, don't. Anyone that's thinking it's a fun business that can make a lot of money instantly will get disappointed. It takes a lot of hard work and commitment. Are you ready to sleep late and wake up early in the morning everyday? Will you be okay not receiving any salaries for the first couple of month?
You need to know your budget and financial plans to run a coffee shop, for sure there might be some unexpected things showed up along the way, and you will need to use your back up financial budget to cover it.
11. Marketing Your Coffee Shop
Just like I mentioned earlier it's very unlikely that your coffee shop will very soon become a destination that people travel a long way to visit. So to spread the words out there, you will need a good marketing. Collaborations with other brands or banks, and social media is actually the one that have a potential to boost up your sales. Invest in a good camera & editing skill, put it out on your website and Instagram. It will invite people in the area to give it a try.
BUT, too much marketing or sale or promotion will create the customers tendency to come only when it's sale or there's a credit card promotions or late night promo. So be wise, know which marketing plan that will create a profitable outcome, which won't.
12. Managing Waste
From milk waste, food waste, to coffee waste, all of that can be tricky things to deal with. Coffee waste for an example ( I always use the roasted coffee beans 7 days after the roasting date and finished all of it before the 30th day after the roasting date, more than that the coffee is stale), can be reduced if your baristas know how to store coffee beans properly, know how to do espresso calibration, one grinder dedicated for one type of coffee beans, and many more. Milk and food in the other hands have their expired dates very specific, you will need to up sale several products or creating a promo to sell them ASAP before their due date to prevent the waste. If your coffee shop always have waste on milk, food, and coffee, it's best that you reduce the quantity that you ordered.
13. No Wi-Fi
Seems like it's genuinely important for Jakartans to have free Wi-Fi wherever they go, so this is one of the problems that you might need to face in your coffee shop as well. When your Wi-Fi is down (or slow), your customers will leave. Some of the customers I had, asked about Wi-Fi first before they placed the coffee order. Not even asked about the coffee beans types or origins, but Wi-Fi passwords. So yeah..one of the lousy problem that you'll have in your coffee shop, is when your Wi-Fi is down, no customers.
All and all, I think setting up a coffee shop have less challenge than a restaurant, yet you need to treat it as a proper business. Running one involves working long hours to get things right, and frankly it's quite physical and tiring and might changes your lifestyle. If you're thinking to open a coffee shop for the first time, I hope the lists that I made above will help you to have some understanding through out the business. And feel free to contact me for practical help to set up a new coffee shop or fixing your current ones, that's for sure will save you a fortune in a long run.
xoxo
AP
6. Coffee Shop Owner Mentality
Building your own independent coffee shop really takes a lot of effort. I'm not only talking about sleepless nights doing research of the market, branding, logo, cost calculations, inventories, etc etc. I'm also talking about your mentality as a leader, the decision maker, the main engine of your business. A lot of the coffee shop owners that I know just want to sit behind the desk and want nothing to do with the customers, let's not do that shall we?
Starting an independent coffee shop means you need to start from zero, you'll need to greet your customers in person, get to know their name and talk to them. You'll need to be a charming people person, because having direct interactions really is what it takes to create loyal customers. They will come because of you, because they know you and your baristas, they will have the familiarity with the whole brand in the end. Only by doing so, you can set an example for your baristas to do the same.
7. Personality First. Skill Second
Hiring people for your coffee shop can be tough, especially if you're new to the business, opening your first coffee shop, no one aware of your brand. In a situation like this, it's important to hire people from their energy, pick the candidates that's cheerful, optimistic, smile all the time, honest, and diligent. Many coffee shops prefer to hire a skillful experienced baristas, I understand, but if they have a wrong personality, that's just won't do. At least I can say they're not gonna stay for a long time.
Because skill can be taught, but not personality. Barista trainings can be hard, cost a lot, and takes a long time, but that's an investment. By providing them with new skills, they'll end up having more confidence, more eager to learn about coffee, and it opens up their career opportunity for a promotion in the end. And that's a win-win. No need to worry if after you provide them with a training, they'll move to other coffee shop, if you show appreciations of their hard work, they'll be loyal.
8. Everything Sold Out
I understand that managing inventories / ingredients stocks can be a long boring thing to do and everyone seem reluctant to do it after a long tiring day, but someone have to. You really don't want your customers to complaint regarding of the sold out / unavailable items. Whatever the reason that you may come up with, they'll still cringe. It's very important to check the remaining stocks, shelf time, and expired dates of your ingredients, purchasing staff also need to be updated all the time. To avoid this problem, there are some POS (Point of Sales) machine that can help you with the report of stocks calculation. Is it accurate? Not always, but it helps.
9. Poor Service
There is "serve" in the service industries, and the coffee shop business is tough I won't sugar coated it. Coffee shops that have poor service from the staffs won't get any repeat business, to prevent that from happening you need to be able to recruit staffs that have a good personality, and continuous train, train, train, and reward. If you're paying your staffs with minimum wage or not giving them the reward after a month of good sales, most probably they won't be happy at work and won't stay for long. This will surely effect their service and attitude during work. You need to treat them as an extended family, show them your appreciation after their hard work.
Also it's important eliminate everything that's in the way for your customer to have a perfect experience in your coffee shop. If the music too loud, turn it down. If there's not enough magazines, go get it. If the wi-fi router is broken, fix it. Don't let your customers leave with a bad service experience from your coffee shop. Because it goes all the way to the rating site and social media.
10. Wrong Mindset
Coffee shop isn't a lifestyle business, it's a real business with real customers, real overheads and a lot of potential to go wrong. It's not a quick way to get rich kind of scheme, let me put it out first. So if you're thinking to open a coffee shop for fun, don't. Anyone that's thinking it's a fun business that can make a lot of money instantly will get disappointed. It takes a lot of hard work and commitment. Are you ready to sleep late and wake up early in the morning everyday? Will you be okay not receiving any salaries for the first couple of month?
You need to know your budget and financial plans to run a coffee shop, for sure there might be some unexpected things showed up along the way, and you will need to use your back up financial budget to cover it.
11. Marketing Your Coffee Shop
Just like I mentioned earlier it's very unlikely that your coffee shop will very soon become a destination that people travel a long way to visit. So to spread the words out there, you will need a good marketing. Collaborations with other brands or banks, and social media is actually the one that have a potential to boost up your sales. Invest in a good camera & editing skill, put it out on your website and Instagram. It will invite people in the area to give it a try.
BUT, too much marketing or sale or promotion will create the customers tendency to come only when it's sale or there's a credit card promotions or late night promo. So be wise, know which marketing plan that will create a profitable outcome, which won't.
12. Managing Waste
From milk waste, food waste, to coffee waste, all of that can be tricky things to deal with. Coffee waste for an example ( I always use the roasted coffee beans 7 days after the roasting date and finished all of it before the 30th day after the roasting date, more than that the coffee is stale), can be reduced if your baristas know how to store coffee beans properly, know how to do espresso calibration, one grinder dedicated for one type of coffee beans, and many more. Milk and food in the other hands have their expired dates very specific, you will need to up sale several products or creating a promo to sell them ASAP before their due date to prevent the waste. If your coffee shop always have waste on milk, food, and coffee, it's best that you reduce the quantity that you ordered.
13. No Wi-Fi
Seems like it's genuinely important for Jakartans to have free Wi-Fi wherever they go, so this is one of the problems that you might need to face in your coffee shop as well. When your Wi-Fi is down (or slow), your customers will leave. Some of the customers I had, asked about Wi-Fi first before they placed the coffee order. Not even asked about the coffee beans types or origins, but Wi-Fi passwords. So yeah..one of the lousy problem that you'll have in your coffee shop, is when your Wi-Fi is down, no customers.
All and all, I think setting up a coffee shop have less challenge than a restaurant, yet you need to treat it as a proper business. Running one involves working long hours to get things right, and frankly it's quite physical and tiring and might changes your lifestyle. If you're thinking to open a coffee shop for the first time, I hope the lists that I made above will help you to have some understanding through out the business. And feel free to contact me for practical help to set up a new coffee shop or fixing your current ones, that's for sure will save you a fortune in a long run.
xoxo
AP
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