Hi everyone, I come from a family where we've been selling our tea since 1899. At the minute, it's just sold in Northern Ireland but has proved very popular with the people that drink it. One woman even drives up from Rep of Ireland just to get it!
I'm actually a web developer and was looking into the possibility of setting up a website in order to sell it - just our own tea at present.
Does anyone have any input on this idea? I myself am not even sold on the idea yet, the reason being that while people love the tea, will they really go to all the effort of ordering it online and paying the shipping costs which would probably equate to that of the tea they are buying!
Kind regards and 'any' suggestions more than appreciated, Andrew
Your tea would have to be awfully good for people from North America to order it. There are a number of teas from Fortnum & Mason, for example, that I like quite a bit, but since the only way to get them is to pay more in shipping than for the tea, I do without (unless I'm making a trip to London, of course). I certainly wouldn't pay double the standard price on a flyer.
Within the UK and Eire, of course, a Web site might well improve your sales. We do buy a lot from various Web and mail-order places that are on the same continent as we are.
I think that about sizes it up. The woman who drives up for her tea will likely start ordering online. And she might get her friends to shop there as well.
I know my local shop gets orders online from people who have moved to other states. Local people who like your product tend to be loyal. But don't look to double your income by going online.
That depends where the customers live. I think you can easily make a website to sell your tea all over Europe. That may even be cheaper than what your customers usually pay. When I was living in France, I was ordering lots of books from England (one or two books per order), and most times I had them the next day. The shipping costed less than the bus or the parking ticket to go to the local bookstore that would charge 40% more on foreign books.
To export directly to other continents, you'd waste a lot of your time in formalities (see previous discussions about the US customs in archives). For Japan, you'd be happy if the cost of shipping only equated the price of the tea. Direct imports in small amounts are more likely cost 3 times their initial price.
If you open the online shop, don't tell her. That's be too sad if she lost the pretext for her trips....
Thanks for the input so far - I have continued looking into this on the web and I keep finding sites (based mainly in the US) that bring in tea from the UK and Ireland at quite high prices! I saw one brand selling for $9.25 (in-store price $12.25) and the taste would be comparable ish to that of our brand. Noticed their tea being sold on eBay too for the same price. I havent begun to look at shops in mainland Europe doing the same thing yet but thats the next step!
Just spoke to my Dad who's been been unable to push the product (currently sell about 60,000 boxes a year - we don't advertise it or work it at all, its just been a side-business for the last 10/15 years) and he was quite surprised at the interest in tea being bought online... he suggests going for it if only to compliment current sales and/or raise its profile.
Sometimes looking at your question in a different way will produce a more practical answer. For example, if you manage to attract interest at your Ireland-based WEB site, it might cost very little to find cooperating mailers, one or more, in the US or Canada to process orders relayed to them by e-mail. To become licensed as a tea packer can become costly, but a seller of tea which is already packaged would in many jurisdictions involve few requirements besides a local business license and sales tax permit. A small volume mailing center could be run from a person's home or apartment. That still leaves, of course, the problem of finding them and being sure they're honest and clean, and insured for the loss of any product you might trust them with instead of selling to them wholesale. Anyway, the in-country shipping costs for such a lightweight product would be modest compared to overseas rates. The costs of shipping 100 or 1,000 boxes to your distributor should be less per-box than individual mailings to the ultimate customers. If working through a home-based distributor gives you chills, perhaps an existing tea merchant would handle your line and fill orders relayed to them from your WEB site. Personally, if the volume is likely to be or remain small, I'd think the home-based person would actually have more motivation to get it right than the business where your volume is incidental. This is just an idea starter you may consider or reject. Good luck. Reply to group if you want any further comment.
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Thank you for your comments, much appreciated - I can imagine that as the online business grew, finding a distributor in places like the US would become the sensible thing to do as the shipping costs per box will come down as the volume goes up - so I couldn't agree more. But as a starting point, I would think that selling by the case(s) to retailers abroad will have to surfice. I have had some interest from a few online retailers so I will use that as a platform while selling in smaller quantities to general public over here. Basically being flexible - give small quantities who only want small quantities and in bulk to those that want bulk.
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