Just opened... not sure what to think. Advice?

[kcooley]

Well, I had enough time to go through the entire month and break down our sales by hour. So, you can imagine, not very busy.

Our sales our averaging around $350 during weekdays and 550-600 on Fri-Sun. I'm not complaining, since I was expecting it to take awhile to break even. But, I do wish we had more coffee sales. I'm having two girls stand out there Monday morning. (I had to get the signs made, or I would have done it earlier.) From the hours of 6-9 AM I am only averaging $54. Up about 10 dollars from the previous week, but still pathetic.

I paid about $300 to be on the first spread of a direct mail advertising book and only got about 5 coupns back. Spend $5 - get $1 off.

After we do the signs on the street and a coffee tasting, I am out of ideas. I'm starting to wonder if these people even know what espresso is.

You?

 

[SunriseCoffeeLasVegas]

Well, our sales have been going up steadily haven't reached out break even mark just yet for our daily sales but, we are implementing more tactics.

I'll give you a list of my best marketing tactics.

1. happy girl on street with sign in the mornings. received alot of customers who had to come and check it out.

2. made 2500 flyers and blanketed a one mile radius. Receiving them back steadily. Gonna do it again soon introducing a breakfast combo of muffin/danish w/ coffee and veg. lunch menu

3. host meetup groups to get our name out.

4. blanket again with some other special.

5. blanket at least one every month with some special.

6. cost me $90 for 4000 small flyers.

7. Put a sign on the back of our truck so, people can see us from the street. We don't have a marquee and got cited for having a sign on public property (i.e. ground)

bad marketing tactics.

1. chamber of commerce

2. community newspaper

flyers without discount.

Apart from that we are gonna introduce a breakfast combo that should draw people in.

I think customers don't like to change habits so, if you have to give them a initiative to come in on before work.

At least the yogurt is doing well.



2. direct marketing book

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[kcooley]

You know, I did 5000 flyers and got about 50 back. Coupon was 30% off entire order. But, it costs me $.10 each flyer, so not cheap. Didn't bring in much coffee even though there was a beautiful photo of a cappuccino on the front.

I think my biggest problem is that I "look" like a smoothie/yogurt place and not like a coffee place. It's something I'll have to overcome. My regulars and people trying us for the first time say, WOW, better than Starbucks...

You can see my website: www.berriblends.com

Will be using the sign idea this weekend and i think i'll try to breakfast combo like you suggested. Thank you!

 

[Tophie2]

How you doing?

 

[kcooley]

I'm doing OK. Coffee sales still really haven't gone up. Probably doing about $80-$100/day in coffee. It's pretty discouraging because that's almost all regulars who say our coffee/espresso is the best they've had. It's like once we get them in the door we can keep them pretty well. We are doing 12 oz latte + muffin for $3.99 which is our biggest draw, and for the latte they can select mocha, vanilla, or caramel.

The good thing is, with the warm weather, we are doing pretty well on our yogurt sales. Not breaking even yet, but we are still in an almost vacant strip center. We are excited because we are getting 5 new neighbors over the next 4 months. Ace Hardware, full service restaurant, Kroger grocery store, Wal-greens, and a dry cleaners. What do you think? That should help a lot, right?

We are doing bandit signs, which I notice helps some, and we'll be doing another 5K doorhanger drop in a couple weeks. Also, we are using text-message promos, through clubtexting.com, but that helps more with the teen crowd.

Any suggestions or ideas? How is everyone else doing?