Online tea shoppers - what drives your brand loyalty?
What keeps you loyal to your favorite tea brand? Or, do you have a number of brands that you buy from? Is your loyalty primarily based on their tea quality, variety, customer-service, or is it something else they do as a company?
The shop at the top of my list I purchase from because I like their teas and because I can usually find an online coupon when ordering. I would say quality and price then.
I’m only loyal to an extent. I go where the tea takes me. If I love your tea, I’m not going to disappear because you raise your prices a bit. I’m not going to complain because I didn’t get any free samples or you don’t have a loyalty program or you’re not active on Twitter and Facebook. But if you do provide all these things, they are a bonus that will help me connect to you on a more personal level.
As well, I will be as loyal to your competitor(s) as I am to you, if they make tea that I love. It’s all about the tea. I am impartial in my evaluation, meaning that just because I love the way you do business, that’s not going to make me write a more flattering tasting note. Really, the brand is secondary. I look at the tea flavour and I look at what our Steepster family says about it, and only then do I bother to see who makes it so that I know where I have to go to buy it.
In summary, the following is mandatory for a tea brand:
- Awesome tea
The following are not mandatory, but are awesome and appreciated:
- Samples
- Social network activity (Steepster, Twitter, Facebook, Google+)
- Loyalty programs/incentives
Hope that helps.
would agree that tea is king when it comes to where you decide to purchase, followed by a close second – price. i think that quality/over/price is what people look for ie: a great tea for 100$ an oz or a good tea for 5$ an oz 99/100 take the good tea
samples/ease of use(sites)/advertising is what gets people into the door, you may never even consider a company if they dont provide/have these things
social network/loyalty programs/other incentives are usually a novelty at best, yea they might give you a better experience with the company, but if they didnt do the other things right this will not matter at all… and if they did do the other things right, a lack of these things wont hurt that much, if at all.
customer service/professionalism isnt really something people get to see until theyve ordered/dealt with the company, but it is something that can turn off repeat customers(usually only if something pretty bad happens)
overall i think since tea has so much variety, getting loyalty comes down to getting what people like into their hands and offering it at a good price/quality… so many of us have tried a ton of teas we dont agree with and if we try 4 teas from a company and miss the one we would have liked, it may be a long time before we go back to that company again to give it another shot.
imo i think more companys should offer samplers with 1 tea from each region in small sizes( you only need 1-2 cups to get a good idea how much you like a tea) max exposure/minimal cost then let people expand into the regions nuances( go through the regions varity) after they know which they like
edit: after reading what i just wrote i guess variety should be up there as very important too
I buy from several places (uhh more than several, a LOT) but there are certain things that will definitely keep me coming back. The first is, obviously, tea quality! If I like a tea, I am obviously going to buy it again once I run out. But aside from that I really appreciate stores that offer small quantities (I do NOT want to buy 4oz of a tea I’ve never tried), sample sizes (especially if they throw in a free one!), good customer service, and reasonable shipping. I want to feel like I’m getting my money’s worth, so prices that are in line with the quality help. I’m perfectly willing to pay high prices IF the tea is worth it, but I am not going to pay $10/ounce for a heavily flavored black.
Places like Verdant and Butiki (and more recently Della Terra) really epitomize what I want in a tea buying experience. Small sizes, great prices for the quality, really personalized customer service, free/cheap samples so I can try out some new flavors, cheap shipping and of course amazing tea! I also like when there are loyalty programs—I find myself going back to Red Leaf and Persimmon Tree over and over again because of these systems.
Definitely low shipping costs or low “free shipping” minimums. I actually don’t mind spending a little more for the tea itself so long as I don’t see $5.00 or so shipping charge. (It makes me think I should just order another thing of tea!)
Sample options, I am always hesitant to buy from a company when I can’t try their teas first. I like trying small sizes of tea before committing to buying a larger amount. Or sometimes I find myself ordering large amounts, but made up by tons of samples.
Dedication to a certain type of tea. For instance, David’sTea is pretty specialized when it comes to their well made flavor teas, but they don’t offer quite as many regular teas as some other companies, such as TeaVivre. The same with Della Terra Teas, I have found them to have excellent and wide variety of dessert type teas, so I typically go to them knowing I can get high quality dessert teas.
Coupons! I will buy from any company that sends out coupons. I’m a bargain shopper, and I like the feeling that I am saving money. I always fall for the catch too, as I typically order 2-3 times what I would have if I didn’t have a coupon to use.
I’m not really loyal to any one particular brand. I do have my favorites, and what makes a company my favorite is exceptional customer service and product. The companies that have excellent and unique products as well as a high caliber of service will get my repeat business.
On the flip side, if a company does me wrong … it will be near impossible for them to earn my business back. So, I guess I’d say that I’m not so much loyal to any one brand but to my own standards. If a company goes against what I hold as important, they will lose me as a customer.
Tea business is one of the most competitive businesses there is so customers really do have a choice. So for me absolutely everything matters: products, service,shipping,good deals, etc. I’m loyal to companies who are professional and value me as a client.
Pricing and customer service tend to steer me toward certain brands than others. If the selection is good, they offer a fair price, and are prompt and communicative with their shipping practices, then I’m sold. I had a bad experience with a store that happened to be local to me, but far enough away that it was an inconvenient drive unless I really knew what I needed to get. So I ordered from their web site and it was a series of errors from then on. Got the wrong shipment sent to me, but only after I had opened the packaging to discover things weren’t labeled well. Then they insisted that I pack it up and send it back (even the opened portion) within a certain time frame and at my expense, and they would recover my shipment and give me a store credit for my trouble.
Fine, they at least tried to rectify it. So I get the store credit voucher, go online to try to use it – and they have NO way to enter the voucher code to have it apply to my new order. I let it go and chalked it up to a lesson learned, but they called back after a certain time frame and hounded me about using the voucher.
No thanks! The sad part is that they offer some pretty rare pu-erhs and I’d be tempted to visit them in person, but the ordering experience just put me off of giving them my business again. One mistake, fine, but then two problems, I’m not going to bother.
All that said, I will pay extra to order something that’s really good quality from one of the better-known world vendors. Kusmi is in that category for me. I can’t find it on shelves in my town, but I’ve never had issues with their shipping or service.
You all have provided excellent feedback, and thank you so much for responding. We have some excellent teas and would love to get your feedback. I will gladly ship you a sample of tea (at no cost) if you provide an email and physical address or register with us at http://www.teajo.com/login.php. Please keep in mind that we can only do this for domestic U.S. locations.
By the way, we only carry loose leaf teas.
Hey, I just noticed you guys are in Tampa! That’s awesome. I’m actually in Pinellas. Do you have a storefront you can actually visit?
Rachel, we do not have a physical retail location. However, I encourage you to sample our teas at restaurants in St. Pete or drive to Tampa/Lakeland to buy packaged products. The closest location for you to buy packaged teas is King Corona Cigars in Ybor City. Chamberlins Natural Foods in Lakeland also carries a number of our teas as well. Visit http://www.teajo.com/wheretobuy.php for a list of restaurants/stores in Florida. Also, beginning in October, we are reducing our ground domestic shipping rates to $3.75 flat rate if you prefer to have them shipped to your home.
Aww that’s a bummer. Do you guys ever exhibit anywhere locally? As you know, tea shops in the TPA area are few and far in between :(
We used to participate in the Downtown Tampa Market but just don’t have the time or resources to do so anymore. I would recommend visiting Moon Under Water or Bella Brava in downtown St. Pete. They serve some of our best flavors and you could at least try them. We are working on growing distribution at more food stores locally.
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