ITT: We Tell Tea Companies How To Get Our Business!
This is a small thing, but I would like to add that I am always very impressed when a tea retailer’s website allows you to change the currency that their prices are displayed in. Teavivre is a good example of this – they have around ten different currency options to choose from. Obviously this isn’t a necessity, but I find it much more enjoyable to browse when I don’t have to convert all the prices to figure out how much I’ll be paying. I feel like this would make sense especially for US and Canadian sites – since we’re neighbors I would think the number of US citizens who purchase from Canadian sites (and vice versa) would be fairly high.
Cameron, I’m glad you mentioned this. I just implemented it into our site after reading this. You can now select your currency from the dropdown on the top right of the screen :)
agree with this, as long as the end price is IN that currency. I’ve had sites that display the other currencies but then charge my credit card in USD – defeating the purpose for me, since i have both a usd and a cad credit card to avoid credit card conversion fees :)
Sil, I believe that we can take payment in any currency during checkout, but I’ll have to check into it to make sure! :)
No Worries Brendan, i hadn’t checked your website since the change, so it really was just a general comment :)
Woo! I’m glad to see a tea company has noticed this thread. :) I do hope that there are more who are watching and taking notes haha :D
Thanks for responding Whispering Pines! It’s good to know someone is listening!
Hey, you’re telling companies what you want. It’d be silly of any of them to not be listening ;)
I’ve been trying to figure out what you all want for a while, so this thread is exciting to me :)
I’m really glad to hear that. :) I was hoping when I made this that it may be a way to open a dialogue in a sense with our favorite tea companies. Feeling like we have your ear is actually a pretty big part of the picture too in my opinion.
Anyway, glad you’re here. ^^
i just made my first order from Adagio because they gave me $5 off coupon after signing up. That enticed me to buy some samples because I am new to tea and want to try a bunch. Great incentive!!!
Also $2 samples are the way to go in my opinion. I was hesitant to buy any samples that are $4 or more.
I absolutely adore Adagio’s whole business model. I rave about them a lot for a reason. Being able to work up reward points keeps me interested in their site and I always end up buying more than I have credit to cover of course. But it does make you want to place an order when you’ve saved up enough to have a coupon. :)
Agreed that $2 samples are part of why I dug into their tea and started grabbing larger packs later because I’d gotten to try so many teas that I knew what I wanted. Absolutely the way to go.
Offer more than one way to make payment. I hate PayPal and refuse to use their service. There are several tea companies that I would love to order from, however, they only process their payments through PayPal, so I don’t make purchases from them.
On that note, I mentioned this to Brenden at Whispering Pines Tea Co. a while back, and he took the time to write back to me and let me know they were looking into other payment options. Now they have multiple ways to send payment. Just one of the many reasons I love WPT and will continue to be their customer.
My basic complaint is that PayPal is a financial institution without the laws and regulations that protect people the way they are protected if they put their money in a bank (FDIC insurance). Once PayPal has your money they can keep it for extended periods of time without your consent.
PayPal reserves the right to put a hold on your account for a variety of reasons (heightened activity, accusation of fraud, complaints, or any reason they considered “heightened risk”). It’s shady to the extreme.
oh, i didnt know that. so far i didnt experience any problem ( knock on wood). good to know, I’ll pay more attention.
Dealing with out of stock items:
If for some reason you are unable to deliver on an item I have paid for because of low stock or other reason, please offer me options. If it is something that you are restocking in the next few weeks I am probably willing to wait for it, rather than be refunded. To be quite honest unless your shipping is really cheap, I am unlikely to make a single order for it when it comes in. The most awesome companies will honour the rest of your order, inform you of the delay and either offer to send it to you later, allow you the opportunity to chose a substitute, or refund you based on your preference. Do not do what I caught one aliexpress dealervdoing which is create a fake shipping number, so the process moves past where the sale is easily cancelled and than offer me inferior/old tea as replacements. Eventually they offered to refund through PayPal which has not happened yet, so I guess I am going to have to dispute it. Its not a big purchase but I won’t deal with that seller again. On another note tracking numbers do change sometimes on aliexpress, this does not mean that the seller is using this practice. Sometimes sellers ship to the economic regions that have cheap ems and then use a broker to ship at different prices. Others have shipped through Singapore which is cheaper and faster apparently than China Post,band sometimes its because a seller notices a problem, is the parcels stalled at some airport for a long time and they assume it’s lost and resend it.
If you’re going to make non-tisane blends, please don’t make them overly complicated. A good dessert tea only really the flavours associated with that dessert, and a nice base.
Please don’t take offense, but isn’t this just a question of taste? I mean, you don’t have to buy everything they sell!
For the record, I agree with you about junky blends, but I have no objection to a huge menu of items many of which I would personally never buy…
I guess it is a question of taste, but maybe there can be both.
(Perhaps some companies have gotten me really into straight teas.)
a relatively curated selection, and display of knowledge, specialized or not, is essential for me to purchase. usually the quality of sites like this are better than generalists.
A unique selection will draw me in – if there’s a tea or two that really intrigues me and that I can’t find anywhere else, that will usually prompt a buy. I mostly buy flavored teas, so creative flavors get a cart going.
Shipping has to be reasonable, and a free shipping threshold of about $50 is good (of course lower is even better!). I just ended up doing a lot of buys from Etsy as well, from sellers who charge a low base rate and then just add from there per tea – for example $2.00 shipping for the first tea and 40¢ for each additional tea. I know that’s probably not optimal for larger businesses, but I liked that I could order a little or a lot and not get slammed on shipping.
Lately I’ve been into trying a lot of things, so companies that let you buy 25g/1oz at once are great! Much nicer than the more common 50g/2oz minimum. Little bonuses are nice too, like free samples with your order (especially if you can select them yourself!) and coupons for next time.
A good mailing list is also really key to keeping me coming back, especially if you get a coupon for signing up for it (like 10% off your first order). I like to be alerted to new products and sales as they happen.
Having the option to pay through Paypal is also one I like, since I sometimes sell things on eBay so my Paypal will get filled up and then it’s like treat money that I can use on fun things. Tea being, of course, the most fun thing. \o/
I loooove getting to pick the samples myself! It feels more like a free purchase!
Also the Paypal option draws me in because sometimes I don’t order things just because I have to get up and go find my card. lol. With Paypal all I have to do is sign in. Boom, done. :P
See my problem is I have my card number memorized, so I don’t even have to get up to get it to place an order. Very dangerous for me.
Yep, and I just got it last September (accidently tossed the other in the trash at Universal Studios haha). I’m good with numbers, I know pi to 15 decimal places, haha
Sara, link me up to those Etsy sellers! I’m interested. :) Private message if you feel it inappropriate to post here!
Arshness, here you go! Will just link here in case anyone else is interested:
Amitea (https://www.etsy.com/shop/Amitea) – sells by the ounce, shipping $2.25 base + 50¢ each additional tea, I just bought four of their blends
Sands of Thyme (https://www.etsy.com/shop/SandsOfThyme) – sells by the ounce, shipping $2.32 base + 30¢ addtl, seller also gives generous free samples (about 3 tsp) for every 2 oz you buy, bought from them more than once and will again
Dreamweaver Shop (https://www.etsy.com/shop/dreamweavershop) – sells by the ounce but a little pricier, shipping $2.25 base + 50¢ addtl, haven’t ordered from them yet but the selection intrigues me
KnC Creations (https://www.etsy.com/shop/KnCCreations) – by the ounce, shipping $1.75 + $1 addtl, a few teas that sound good
There’s more if you hunt around, but those are the ones with the best shipping situations that I found in my most recent Etsy binge! Might do a separate thread on Etsy tea vendors now that I’m thinking about it, I wonder how many of us here buy there ever.
I’ve only tried the first two I listed, but it’s been hit or miss! Just tried Amitea and I got two of their black teas on sale and am not crazy about the base tea they used – however this could be an age issue as those teas are being phased out. I did get their Pineapple Coconut Rooibos and it’s outstanding! Also the Starfruit green tea which I haven’t tried yet but smells great.
Sands of Thyme I just did a second order from, and I’ve tried a good handful of their offerings. The White Cherry and Roasted Almond green are truly excellent and a bargain, I’m restocking them. The one issue I had was with their teas that contain cardamom, it really overpowered the other flavors in those blends. This could be personal taste though, I’m not a huge fan of cardamom in tea but the kind they used seemed especially sharp. The blacks and herbals were for the most part quite good though – there of course isn’t a great deal of depth or complexity that you’d get with say Mariages Freres or more unique and complicated blends, but for simple straightforward flavored teas I think they’re a real bargain for how good they are.
Thanks for the links Sara!
A thought, you could ask those sellers if they’d make you “this blend without cardamon” since they mostly say they hand-blend them in small batches. It may or may not be possible, but there’s no harm in asking eh? Plus I doubt they get at on of feedback on their blends and might appreciate it.
I’d like to pipe in about international shipping – to Europe/Middle East. I’d like to see more vendors offer reasonable international shipping. I like when vendors offer a few shipping options, from the expensive overnight to the regular USPS international. This gives me the option to chose the inexpensive shipping over a quick delivery (I’d love to have both, but I am aware that’s not going to happen :). Too many vendors only use Fedex or similar, which puts shipping at over $30 !! Needless to say, this is ridiculous. I am willing and accustomed to paying between $10-$15 for shipping, but anything over that is unacceptable. Please offer USPS shipping.
Unfortunately, USPS shipping nearly doubled over the past 2 years. For instance, sending 4oz of tea in a lightweight box to France from the US costs $14. Two years ago I sent a 1 pound package to France for under $10.
It’s really unfortunate for both businesses and customers :/ I would LOVE to offer a much cheaper international shipping price, but I don’t know if that’s quite possible for small businesses like mine.
I may be alone in this, but personally, if you were transparent with that information on your shipping page, it’d really help my decision to purchase from you.
Maybe even offer a few options like if you could find out a certain amount you could ship for a lower price (like if you know you can send 1oz for $5 (using random numbers here) mention that so that someone could choose to purchase a couple of small samples and utilize that knowledge to get the cheapest shipping option.) This kind of transparency might allow some people to try your products when they otherwise are not drawn in due to high shipping costs.
But if I knew you were doing your best and it’s the best price you can offer for shipping, I’d be more interested in considering it than how with some companies it feels like their shipping rates are so arbitrary and unfair.
Having giveaways or contests is a lot of fun. And that is how I discovered Teavivre.
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