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© by Sally Jones; all rights reserved

An alternative to a restaurant style tea shop would be mixed retail. This involves selling tea and tea related products without serving meals.

Serving afternoon tea is fun, but you have to sell this in quantities if you want to pay for your equipment, overhead, employees, and food costs. You usually cannot survive selling just afternoon teas. You will need to also serve meals--breakfast, lunch, and dinner or a combination--in order to make a profit. What happens is that you are now running a restaurant instead of your original concept of afternoon tea.

Mixed retail is an alternative to that. You don't have to necessarily have to serve food to have a tea shop. You can sell tea and a blend of products related to tea. You can have two sides to your business. One side to sell tea products and the other to sell bulk and prepackaged tea.

Develop a "Tea Accouterment" department. Put together all the things necessary for an afternoon tea. Consider pre-packaged shortbread, scones, tea bread mixes, etc. Find what fits your community and your budget. Educate your customers as to what is available: traditional to modern, collectible to functional, etc. Introducing new products takes time and you have to educate your customers.

The other side of your store is your Tea Department. Begin small and expand as your customer base grows. The tea department will be the most important because here is where you will begin to educate your customer and where they will begin to enjoy tea. As they become more familiar with tea, they will want to buy the accouterments to make tea at home. This will also be where most of your revenue will come from. Sell bulk tea as well as prepackaged tea. If a brand is available at your local grocery store, don't sell it. Sell only tea that is not available in your area. That way customers will have to come to you to get what they want.

You will want to have a place where you can make tea to give your customers a sample. Consider making two or three teas each day for your customers to taste. This way you can educate them and they can develop their palate for tea. Making tea in pots can be messy so possibly serve the tea in 12 ounce mugs. Use only paper cups for to-go orders. Don't use shortcuts when making the tea. You will undercut yourself by serving substandard tea.

Sell prepackage cookies, biscuits, scones, and shortbread for your customers to enjoy with their tea. If you sell prepackaged, you don't have to have a kitchen or equipment or deal with the Health Department. You might consider talking with your local bakers to prepackage goodies for you.

You can provide a place for them to sit and have tea, but also let them wander about the store with their mugs. The longer customers stay in your store, the more likely they will see other things they would like to purchase. While your customers are enjoying their tea is an excellent time to educate them about tea. Take every opportunity to educate your customers. Explain what you are selling and why. Encourage customers to develop their palate. The more information you share about tea the more they will come to rely on you and shop in your store.

An educated and happy customer will return again and again to buy tea and gifts for their friends. A tea business does not have to involve a restaurant to serve tea.

How do you decide on what to buy wholesale to sell in your store? This is a question we ask ourselves all the time at Belle's Tea Cottage where I work part time.

You cannot always sell only tea accouterments that appeal to you. I have learned this in helping my boss decide what to buy. It seems everytime I tell her that what she wants to buy is ugly and no one could possibly want to buy it, she orders it. And lo and behold, it sells like hotcakes. She has come to call these items "Sally's stuff". I tell her I really should get a commission for picking out the most popular items.

The whole point to this is that you need to have a wide variety of retail because you need to have something for everyone. After all, if everyone liked the same things, this would be a very boring world.

If you don't want to have coupons for your customers, there are other ways to reward them. Coupons, if not worded correctly, can be a real headache. One idea is to offer a free pot of tea for bringing in a new friend. This encourages your customers to tell their friends about you.

July 8-9, 2006:
Specialty Tea Instutite Tea Certification Program, New York City, NY

July 9-11, 2006
52nd Summer Fancy Food Show, Jacob K. Javits Center, New York

July 22-23, 2006
Fresh Cup Roadshow, Hyatt Regency, Minneapolis, MN,

August 17-19, 2006
The 3rd China (Shanghai) International Excellent Coffee & Tea Exhibition 2006, Shanghai Mart, Shanghai, China

September 8-9, 2006
Fresh Cup Roadshow, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

September 27-30, 2006
China Tea Expo, The World Trade Exhibition Center, Beijing, P.R. China

September 26-28, 2006:
Tea & Coffee World Cup, Shanghai, China

October 2006
Fresh Cup Roadshow, Dallas, Texas

June 9-11, 2007
World Tea Expo, Georgia World Congress Center, Atlanta, Georgia

We would like to hear from you. If you have any tips that you found helped you build a successful tea business, please submit a tip and we will publish it in a future Tea Business Success News. We will also give you a permanent link to your site.

I have had several questions about the legal end of setting up a small business. I found when I was looking into starting my own business, the Small Business Development Center helped me. They are affiliated with a group called SCORE. SCORE is a group of retired executives that help entrepeuners get started. I would suggest you go to http://www.sba.gov/sbdc/ to find a Small Business Development Center in your area. They have a wealth of information.

Contact Sally