E-Commerce Tips for My New Coffee Brand

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39211506

by juanclaudio • 2 years ago

2 2 2 years ago

news.ycombinator.com

I'm struggling with sales for my coffee brand.. i know what you're going to say, hypersaturated market etc etc.. but i dont see anyone targeting gamers and they consume so much caffeine. give me some tips, check out my website too, morcoffee.com

cameron_b• 2 years ago

I’m not a gamer, but I am a coffee person, and as a potential customer a few things come to mind. The “supplement jar” packaging isn’t familiar, and there may be reasons why you wouldn’t put a high end coffee in a sealed container, but the label doesn’t say that it’s whole bean coffee. At first I thought is was concentrate or similar. When you differentiate in some aspects like packaging, it is important to be similarly clear to avoid being misleading.

I would think that a gamer-focus would tend toward ready-to-drink options ( I seem to remember Bawls going for this market ) not ultra-high-end whole bean. And that’s where I’m struggling. I pay more for great coffee, and even more for businesses I like ( purpose statement, what you do with a portion of profits ) but your prices are double for half ( nearly ).

In a bold play like this, I would go after the people buying gifts for gamers.

jayturley• 2 years ago

I checked out the site, and if I hadn't known it was a coffee company, I would have thought it was a supplement company. As it was, I thought that this must be coffee with added supplements (which does not appeal to me). It wasn't until I got to an actual product page that I realized that the "supplement" concept was just the branding. If I were simply browsing for coffee, I would have left the site from the home page without exploring enough to understand it's just branded that way.

The home page offers minimal value in understanding the concept. If you had a text section just below your hero that explained why/how you are marketing coffee as a "supplement", it would be extremely helpful. Something light-hearted that hammers home the point you are treating coffee as a supplement. You already lean into it by having supplement info sheets on the product pages, so perhaps below the explanation, you could put some CTAs to drive people to click on/order the coffee. Like, "Looking for sweet flavor with an intense aroma? Try X. Looking for a more traditional flavor? Try Y".

Obviously these are quick off-the-cuff suggestions, but the meta-problem I'm looking at is helping a new visitor understand your branding and aid them to find what looks like really good coffee by easing them into the "supplement" branding concept.

If you're targeting gamers, to me nothing about the site indicated gamer-related or even gamer-adjacent except for the label font. The pictures are all hoodied zoomers. If you want to go after the gamer supplement market, I think you might need a redesign that focuses even harder on the supplement concept (e.g. Kill Enemies Faster! Shave Seconds off your Speedrun!), as the current one feels like it's targeted at higher-end urban professionals and influencers.

I hope any of this is helpful. The social proof makes the product sounds fantastic and I'd love to try it.

E-Commerce Tips for My New Coffee Brand

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