Coffee & Tea Warehouse has been selling coffee, tea and beverage supplies on the web for the past six years. Owner Russ Lumsden has had great success with his online store at http://www.coffeeandteawarehouse.com, and is always planning expansion by either adding new products or opening the site to new markets.
Creating a good web store
As with most online stores the hardest thing to do is make the process of buying something as easy and painless as possible. Coffee & Tea Warehouse took the approach that simplicity is the best policy. Locating products is easy and the check out process is streamlined to allow past customers to complete their order without filling in their information every time.
Coffee & Tea Warehouse has two different product offerings on their site. One for retail customers and the other focusing on wholesale customers who buy large quantities of bulk coffee. This gives the site the flexibility to tailor its offerings for each market.
Coffee & Tea Warehouse uses several marketing techniques to build a loyal consumer base.
The major benefit of utilizing these tools is repeat business and referrals, which have helped bolster the bottom line and even cash flow from month to month.
Other marketing efforts include strong partnerships with search engine marketing personel, and referal rewards. Coffee & Tea Warehouse.com has a very strong ranking on google for it target keywords and this has proven invaluable to the success of the business.
Challenges
A natural part of web site businesses is dealing with the constant change of technology. In the past 6 years there have been many enhacements to the way credit cards are processed, shipping can be fullfilled and new customers can be gained. Coffee & Tea Warehouse has gone through several site revolutions and is in the middle of refining its product offering again soon to serve the Canadian market.
