How to Sell Coffee on the Street?

If anyone wants to know how to sell coffee on the street or anywhere successfully, you need to have happy customers who like your cup of coffee. And this trust is built up over time and the quality of service that you offer often can be destroyed by simply being slow.

So, responsiveness is a key ingredient in how to sell coffee successfully. For this article using the video case below, we are going to focus on selling street coffee.

The variables to sell coffee on the street successfully is similar to any other type of coffee business. And we are looking at

Customer Discovery - the slot of time that your customers will come
Customer Validation - will they come back for your hot drinks
Customer Creation - they enjoy the customer service

In the video below, the gentleman is making 5 cups of coffee at one go. This means that:

The demand for his good is good
He is servicing a possible busy slot of time. (he knows his environment well)
He needs to fulfil this order at the fastest possible time
His customer service is all about ensuring that all his customers get their cup of coffee in the shortest possible time. (responsiveness)

Here, we observe even in his very basic set-up, he is responsive to his customers’ demands.

1.Customer Discovery

So, if you selling coffee on the street, likely a mobile coffee cart, here are a few questions that you need to ask:

Where is the best location to station my coffee cart (retail 101 - location, location, location).

During the busy time slot, what can I do to be as responsive and serve as many customers**?

**By not being responsive, you run the risk of an angry customer, which might not patronise you again and of course, you also run the risk of people getting tired of queuing, leaving the queue for another coffee seller.

See this article on Online food Delivery Market size to discover customers online.

2.Customer Validation

If the location chosen has a high number of customers (not traffic but customers) are you able to maintain the quality of service?

That is the validation for the location with the correct audience.

There are a few variables to take note of:

Being in a high traffic flow area might not necessarily translate to a high number of customers

Having too many customers, a long queue (you are not able to maintain your responsiveness to customers needs), can have an adverse effect on your business.

3. Customer Creation

Once you have customers returning to your mobile coffee cart, it is not about your competitively priced coffee (they are also buying the more expensive items) and bringing their friends with them. You have won some regular customers, and you want to build up this relationship by rewarding them for their loyalty.

Regular customers are your bread and butter.

See this article on F&B sponsorship on ideas to reward your customers.

If you find this article interesting, do see our other F&B lectures and subscribe to our youtube channel for weekly content as well. We also have other articles similar to How to Sell Coffee on the Street (here as well).

If you are selling coffee online, you might be interested in this article on:

How to Sell Food Online?

How to Market Food Online?

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