Industry Analysis
Coffee is one of the most famous drinks in the world. Most people like to drink coffee. Now restaurants and companies like Starbucks offer different kinds of coffee drinks. Before starting a coffee cart business, you have to study current trends in coffee drinks and carts.
The coffee business has developed for hundreds of years. Since the industry has developed for a long period, you cannot sustain the industry by selling pure coffee only. Sellers have added value to their products. Present customers expect industry-standard from every seller.
Business carts have also developed in past years. You must need a clean and modern card to attract more customers. But it does not mean that you have to make the most sophisticated and valued cart to succeed in business. I think it is enough to maintain industry minimum levels. A clean and simple food cart can attract more people.
Study the Market
Under the topic market, we have to collect facts on product variation, competition, and equipment for the coffee cart.
There is a number of coffee restaurants and coffee carts that can be found in your area. If we consider the present condition people offer a different type of coffee. Some of them are coffee with vanilla ice cream, mild mike coffee, coffee with a latte with chocolate and whipped cream, cold brew coffee, coffee with little milk foam, a coffee drink with a double espresso, and lightly frosted milk, classic coffee cocktail. The cost may depend on your coffee type.
As the first step create a list including the required equipment, materials, and expected cost for the above coffee types.
You can identify many competitors. Coffee restaurants and coffee carts are the main competitors. But other beverages and food are indirect competitors. This is because, if other shops introduce a new beverage, people may go for them instead of coffee.
But the actual condition is you can not find a market without competitors. If you narrow down your product by introducing new features. Then you can find a market with no competitors.
In this step, you have to create a list of competitors, including product details and customer engagement. These details will be used for the final analysis and decision making.
Identify the Customer
Now you have an idea of available coffee type, competitors, and their products. The next step is identifying the customer. The customer depends on your selected location.
For example, if your location is near a school, the customers may be students and their parents. If your location is near a university, the customers may be young students. Your location can be a car park in a supermarket. Here the customers maybe the people who come to the shopping mall. Like that, the segmentation of the customers differs from the selected location.
If you know your customers, you can study them. What is their spending pattern, specific coffee types, attitude toward the cart, and branded coffee types. This is important to avoid failures. Think that, the average income of the selected location is very low, then you don’t need to have branded coffee types in your cart.
Now you can position your business based on the resources and customer requirements.
Time plan and Budget
All the above activities cannot start at once and complete. There are some dependencies. You have to plan the activities.
You can start industry analysis and marketing analysis at once. After completing both activities you can go for selecting a suitable location. If the seller is required to get the approvals, you can start the approval process after selecting a suitable location. At the same time, the seller can identify their customers. This activity is independent of getting the approval process. After the identification of the customers, you can think of suitable products and marketing strategies. After this step, you can prepare your business cart.
Then create a budget for the business. You have purchased a suitable cart and other equipment at this stage. Now define your yearly, quarterly, monthly, and weekly targets for the business. These targets must include sales and profit figures.
The marketing strategies can be fine-tuned when starting the business to achieve the targets.
How to brand your coffee business
Once you start the business, you have to maintain your brand image. I suggest you focus on building your brand from the beginning.
- Offer a quality product – You are selling a beverage. The quality is the most important thing. If your quality is poor, you may be sued.
- Develop a unique product – Develop a new coffee drink as a mixture of others. You have to do a bit of research and trials to succeed in this.
- Develop a logo and color theme – Develop a logo and color theme at the beginning. You can use bags and cups with that logo and color theme. You also can color your cart according to your theme.
- Don’t sell different product categories – Don’t sell tea and other beverage in the same cart. Try to market yourself for a coffee beverage.