Ovation Teas No More :(
GAH!!!!!!!
I was just about to do a review on Ovation Tea’s Custom Blend that I ordered awhile back which I LOVE LOVE LOVE and planned to reorder.
It appears that Ovation will be closing its virtual doors.
:(
If you want to get in on their sale they will have to liquidate their teas (no pun intended) then be sure to sign up for their email or contact them to get notified!
Yes … I noticed that last night. :( Very sad. They had some amazing blends.
Aw, bummer! I hope their sale happens when I have money to spend, I adore their raspberry earl grey and would like to stock up.
Never had any Ovation tea but now I want their raspberry Earl Grey.
Check them out http://www.ovationteas.com/
They say here if you order a pound or more of flavored teas they will take your request prior to the sale.
Oh, they say the sale is towards the end of January so I should be good by then!
What a shame. I’ve been somewhat concerned that the purchase of Teavana by Starbucks and their planned expansion of shops, stores and sales in supermarkets might lead to a consolidation and closing of smaller online tea merchants with lower margins and volumes of sales. I hope Ovation’s closing is not a harbinger of that.
I doubt they’re connected. It’s sad, but tea shops close occasionally—it happened earlier this year with Element Tea. I think it’s bound to happen eventually since it’s a small market and it’s hard to find loyal customers.
I wouldn’t be too quick to say it isn’t connected. Ovation was within half an hour of the one Tazo store that SB opened ;)
increased cost of doing business =/= Starbucks opening and expanding (I would think maybe they weren’t doing so well either). And if anything, I doubt Starbucks’ expansion and changes to Teavana are going to really hurt online shops. I don’t see anyone here deciding they’re not going to order online anymore just because Tazo has loose leaf tea nearby. Bleh. And perhaps that will lead others to wonder, hey, is there better stuff out there? It’s worked damn well for coffee. Sorry if this sounds like NO YOU’RE WRONG!!! but there really shouldn’t be anything to worry about, stores come and go sadly.
momo, I’m not in the business, but I daresay that many online tea companies are relative recent start-ups or small operations which just got by as budding businesses hoping that increased consumption of tea in the US would lead to greater business and volume for them in the future. The looming greater presence of Starvana in local stores and supermarkets as well as online, together with the lower costs it can take advantage of and wider volume buys from sellers can potentially sap a lot of the lower but more profitable end of the business and make smaller volume buyers pay more for product.
It certainly happened in the bookstore business, in the toy business and many others. I do hope it doesn’t happen. Maybe greater tea consumption and popularity will lead to greater sales for all and there will be enough business overall so that the Behemoth leaves a niche for many smaller quality sellers. But that very much remains to be seen.
Not good! I’m sorry to hear this. They had many nice blends I wanted to try. :/
I’ve been keeping my eye out.. but they’ve had the same message up since they closed.
If you look…they have moved all inventory to the “liquidation Sale” tab and the price are crazy cheap. I just got a pound of Phoenix Jasmine Pearls, 1/4 lb of matcha, and 1/2 lb of King of Silver Needles White Tea for under $40. That should keep me floating in tea for a long time lol
Are they only selling it by the pound? That’s kind of a bummer, I was hoping to get a few ounces of several different blends. Might have to settle for just the raspberry EG but I definitely do NOT need a whole pound haha
No…the top 4 are custome mix by the pound. ALL the ones below that are 8oz bags of great stuff for super cheap!
Sadly I only wanted a few of the blends, and their shipping is killer ($10, what?!). That would mean it’d be $26 for even ONE blend.
True, I did a bigger order though and the shipping price never went up…maybe get a few friends and split an order to save on shipping?
you may want to make a post for each tea you want to split up with someone in this thread. include the cost per oz if it is more than $1, then steepsters can sign up for each tea :)
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