ShanValley said

I run a tea company, what can I do for you?

Hey everyone, my name is Dimitry Apollonsky. I help my partner run his tea company.
We’ve been trying to get our tea out there in the tea market, and frankly, we’ve been struggling. We have a great tea, it’s grown in Myanmar and everyone we know who’s tried it raves about it. I started off with the belief that for something like tea — if you have a good product, you will naturally get a reputation.

I’ve learned the hard way that this is not the case.

So I’ve come to ask you guys. What can we do to appeal to you? What kind of content do you want to see/read. What kind of tea do you want to drink.

Here are a couple reviews of our teas:
Black tea
http://sororiteasisters.com/2014/01/30/black-tea-shan-valley/

One Of Our Green Teas http://sororiteasisters.com/2014/01/23/shan-first-flush-green-tea-from-shan-valley/

Other Green Tea
http://www.teaformeplease.com/2013/09/shan-valley-valley-green-tea.html

I’m not going to link our website, it can be found through the links above, I don’t want to be seen as advertising.

I posted this question on Reddit’s tea community and got an awesome response, I’d love to hear any other suggestions from Steepsters lovely community.
(TL;DR) This is a call for the community, what do you want to see from a tea vendors website?

13 Replies
AnnaEA select said

I would like to see more information about Myanmar and it’s tea growing regions on your website. For example – I had to separately google Shan Valley to learn to that your company name is a reference to the Shan Hills, and I thought it was cool to realize that the Shan Hills are part of the same hill range as Yunnan.

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carol who said

Is it possible to send samples? I know I look at other people’s tasting notes when selecting my purchases. This would tie us a way to review it an share our experience with others. It wouldn’t have to be much, just a small amount in a variety of your teas. BTW, they sound very good, but as I said I am reluctant to buy without tasting notes or samples. Thanks.

ShanValley said

We’ve added samples for all our products. Hopefully you guys will enjoy them :)

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boychik said

it would be great if you would offer sample pack. offering smaller sizes like 1oz or 2oz would be better option. Most of us here overloaded with tea. i would really want to try your tea but 6oz of single tea is just too much for me.

moraiwe said

Absolutely this. I don’t tend to buy more than 1-2 oz of an individual tea at any given time because there is so, so much out there I want to experience and try.

I agree. 6 ounces is far too much to commit. If you send smaller sizes, the shipping costs will be less and then maybe you can ship to Canada?

I think sending samples for review would be a great idea. Maybe even partnering with sites to offer a discount code to their readers? See: http://steepster.com/discuss/141-will-blog-for-tea-companies-that-will-send-bloggers-tea

Also, maybe look into partnering with local companies to create signature blends (ex: take a special regional ingredient & add to your tea like Peanut Butter & Co. That’s just a random example), or offer wholesale to companies that create their own teas such as House of Steep or Handmade Tea.

Ok, I see that you have a 20 teabag option. Since the tea is the only ingredient in your 4 products, I’m not too worried about the ingredients listing, BUT, you don’t mention anywhere whether your tea is organic or not. For the teabag option, what are the details on the tea bags? Paper/fabric/bleached?

ShanValley said

We’ve added samples for all our products. Hopefully you guys will enjoy them :)

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carol who said

Ditto

ShanValley said

We’ve added samples for all our products. Hopefully you guys will enjoy them :)

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This isn’t so much product advice as marketing advice. You need to remember that every successful company sells two things: a product, and an idea. If you’ll look at their commercials/websites you’ll see that Febreeze sells air freshener AND cleanly living. Coke sells soda AND Americana. Apple sells computers AND innovation.

You’ve got a pretty good head-start on your webpage – from what I can tell, you’re selling tea AND environmental/societal responsibility. Let your pictures reflect that. Let’s see a few pictures of the farmers and fields where you’re getting your tea on the main page. If you can get certified by Fair Trade, that’ll help too.

I’d also add a section quoting some of the good things reviewers have said about your tea. Right now you have a nice slider with some professional-quality photography, but the rest of your page is just green text. You could also consider something exterior to your individual products to get you linked to – how about a series of videos talking tea to beginners (steep time, the differences in tea types, what to look for to make sure your tea has been responsibly grown, the difference between your kind of tea and major corporation tea, etc.). Upload them to youtube and who knows? You might get lucky. In any event, it’s one more way that you can get hits on google. If you can find ways to get to tea fanatics AND neophytes AND Fair Trade/environmentally conscious people, that’s just more ways to bring people to your product.
Also, ditto what everyone has said on the sampler pack.

Hope this was helpful!

ShanValley said

We’ve added samples for all our products. Hopefully you guys will enjoy them :)

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carol who said

Thank you for the samples on your site. They are very reasonable,
as is your shipping rate. Thanks! I hope you do well.

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