Category : E-commerce
Update date : 20240423
Release date: April 23, 2024
Thank you and look forward to
First of all, we would like to thank our friends who have supported Coffee Stage in the past. In the past month, we have started to receive products from suppliers for us to try, and they have shared samples such as coffee beans for us to try. For an online store that has been established for less than a year, we sincerely thank you all for your support.
Brand diversity and newly introduced equipment
Recently, we have introduced a variety of different brands of coffee machines, such as La Marzocco, Delonghi, Lelit entry-level series, etc., as well as a variety of new hand-brewed appliances. For those who are interested, please go to our online store to purchase.
Ad-free marketing experiments
As the brands and products we sell gradually increase, we have accumulated many consumers in Hong Kong or the Asia-Pacific region or even around the world. These consumers often have many questions that need to be answered before purchasing coffee products. We work hard to answer these questions every day, but we find that answering them constantly consumes our time and manpower.
Therefore, we had an idea: Should we share our experiences and suggestions to help consumers solve their confusion and promote coffee culture.
In Hong Kong, we found that many merchants have good products, but most of them focus on physical store sales and are relatively behind in the online market. Even if it is an online store, they may focus on system sales and heavy advertising. We understand that this approach is fast and effective, but as the cost of social media and algorithms rises, so does the accuracy of who you’re selling to.
Therefore, we are studying how to achieve the effect of "advertising" without "advertising". For a large number of endless advertisements, we prefer to focus our resources on quality communication, so that we will have more costs to spend on building a healthy and developing enterprise.
Two months ago we ran an experiment on Instagram and we were pleased with the results. We believe that this "no advertising" approach can direct traffic to sales and add more budget to Coffee Stage.
Multi-platform content strategy
We plan to put feature-length videos on platforms such as Youtube, and short introductory videos and photo sharing on Facebook and Instagram. Of course, all content will be recorded on our website.
We are also actively considering sharing platforms such as Xiaohongshu suggested by our customers. Because in recent years, we have found that the usage of these platforms is on the rise both globally and in Hong Kong.
Our videos may appear from the user's perspective rather than as a business. Because we found that for today's Internet user group, they are not interested in the official introduction of the merchant, they prefer the user's perspective. And now most coffee brands and manufacturers already have very high-quality videos, so we don’t plan to repeat the same mistakes.
As for other online shopping platforms, such as HKTV MALL, Shopee, Amazon, Taobao, etc., we are still considering them. The main reason is the high handling fees and platform fees of these platforms, which are about 16-35% of the sales figures. Even if a transaction is successful, we may still lose money given our operating costs. Therefore, we do not plan to sell imported goods on these platforms unless they are our own brand products.
Future Outlook and Physical Store Plans
Our current plan is that in the second and third quarters of 2024, we will still focus on online store retail and import and export business. But we are also considering adding physical stores in the third or fourth quarter of 2024.
We plan to use this physical store as an experience store, providing an experience of specialty coffee and coffee equipment like the Apple Store, and hosting various activities. We may also use part of the area for product development. We believe that if we can have our own products, it will be very beneficial to our healthy development.
We also plan to provide our venue free of charge to local coffee lovers and hold various activities, such as coffee parties, product experiences, teaching classes, etc., to promote local coffee culture.
Sincerely, Coffee Stage Coffee Stage Team
