Sell Coffee Online From Home
Getting Started with Your Online Coffee Business
How to Sell Coffee Online From Home (Easy Steps)
Want to start an online coffee business from home?
It is arguably the best time to start an online coffee business from home.
Why?
Because every morning, nearly 200 million Americans begin their day with coffee. Coffee is the most popular beverage in America – easily beating out tea, soda, and juice – combined!
With two-thirds of Americans drinking specialty coffee, you can jump into the online coffee industry.
As these trends will only continue to grow, tapping into this healthy market is a real option. Whether you want to start a full-fledged online coffee operation or have a coffee side-hustle, selling coffee just might be the way to go.
Selling coffee online can channel your passion for coffee into a rewarding and lucrative business while building your coffee brand and customer base.
First, Let's Talk About
Benefits of Selling Coffee Online From Home
Selling coffee online from home is an appealing, low-cost coffee business because it's low-risk, has minimal investment, and offers potentially lucrative profits. Additionally, everyone is generally familiar with your product!
Generally, costs are minimal. In fact, your website constitutes only a small monthly expense, especially when compared to brick-and-mortar coffee businesses that pay hefty costs every month in rent and insurance.
By having an online coffee shop, you can't beat the savings.
Developing your coffee brand, forging a customer base, and generating sales will be among the biggest challenges. To start selling coffee online, you'll need to set up a coffee website, create your social media accounts, and choose a wholesale coffee roaster you'll want to work with. We'll be talking about all of these topics in this article.
Primary Benefits of Selling Coffee Online:
Sell Coffee Online From Home
Benefits of Selling Coffee Online
#1 Selling Coffee Online Can Generate Revenue
Money is a big motivator for starting any business. Selling coffee online can generate revenue and profits. However, there are essential strategies that you will need to follow through with to be successful, some of which we will discuss below.
Estimating the coffee sales volume, your overall costs, and your margins will help determine your revenue and profit projections. This will give you some idea of how much money you can make and help you establish your revenue benchmarks.
Note: Starting an online business can be a big challenge. It takes time, diligent work, and innovation. Starting an online coffee business will be no different. However, if you have a solid plan and stick with it, you'll be on your way to profitability.
#2 Selling Coffee Online is Convenient
Convenience makes selling coffee online the perfect side hustle.
Now more than ever, working from home is essential. Whether you work in your pajamas or not, selling coffee online from home is super convenient.
Since selling coffee online can be done on a part-time basis and on your schedule, there's no need to quit your current “day job.” You have to ensure you can ship out your coffee on time.
#3 Low-Overhead Reduces Your Costs
Dump the traditional brick-and-mortar costs! Without the need for leasing out expensive commercial space, buying tons of coffee equipment, and adding payroll for your baristas every week, your online coffee shop will have a low monthly overhead.
Depending on your type of online coffee business, you may not need any inventory at all! For example, you might decide to dropship your coffee with other coffee roasters.
#4 Helps Build Your Coffee Brand & Customer Base
Selling coffee online from home is much more than making money. You are building a coffee brand, either locally or nationally. A strong coffee brand can open up new doors and opportunities for you – and create healthy profits due to a loyal fan following.
In the short run, it can help you sell coffee and generate profits. Additionally, you can create a profitable coffee brand that you may expand into a brick-and-mortar or sell in the long run.
Wrapping Up:
Benefits of selling coffee online from home:
- Overall lower costs
- Allows for a flexible schedule
- It makes a great part-time (or full-time) business
- Helps you to develop your coffee brand
- It helps you to develop a customer base
An Online Coffee Success Story:
Success With Selling Coffee Online From Home
Meet “BioWilly,” owner and head roaster of BioWilly’s Beans.
I had a chance to interview William a few years back, just as he started his own coffee business. He was roasting and selling his coffee right out of his own home in Seattle.
William is a former middle-school teacher and an eco-friendly guy who loves coffee.
He wanted to sell his coffee from home. In his basement, more specifically.
So, as it would turn out, he decided to jump in and sell coffee online. He started experimenting and roasting his coffee beans and selling them from home.
As a former science teacher, he roasts his coffee beans a little differently – using solar power! And just to give you an idea of who Willy is, he also retrofitted his car to run on used restaurant grease! Yes, he is a fantastic coffee guy.
Of course, you don't have to roast coffee or even be a superstar science teacher to succeed in the online coffee world.
You have to start by channeling your passion – whatever it may be – into your online coffee business.
Sell Coffee Online From Home
Steps To Selling Coffee Online From Home
There are some important steps to selling coffee online from home. In this post, we'll discuss the main elements of your home-based online coffee business:
- Determine Who Your Online Coffee Customers Are
- Determine What Coffee Products You'll Sell
- Decide on an Online Coffee Business Model
- Develop Your Online Coffee Brand
- Create a Coffee Shop Website
- Where Will You Get Your Coffee From?
- Develop a Marketing Strategy
- Deliver Excellent Customer Service Every Time
Now, let's discuss each of these points as we look to start your online coffee business.
How To Sell Coffee Online From Home – Step #1
Who Are You Going To Sell Coffee To?
Who will your online coffee customers be?
Will your customers buy your coffee from you primarily online? Will your customers be other coffee shop businesses, cafes, and small local grocery markets? Or a combination of both?
Fortunately, you can start small.
You can start with your friends, family, co-workers, and social media followers. After you feel proficient enough, you can offer your roasted coffee beans to your local coffee shop or even your local mini-market. From there, you can grow as large as you want.
You will most likely have two types of main customers:
- Individual customers and,
- Local coffee shops and restaurants.
Each of these groups has different needs for their coffee, so it will be essential to develop winning strategies to approach them and deliver exactly what they want.
Coffee shops and cafes will want large orders of whole-bean coffee. Coffee shops prefer whole bean coffees because they stay fresher longer – and make better espresso shots. Once you grind up coffee, the shelf life of coffee begins to decrease quickly. Coffee shops could order 50 lbs. to 250 lbs. of coffee per week (or more), so you’ll want to be prepared for the volume you need to ship out.
On the other hand, individual coffee customers will buy smaller bags ranging from one 12 oz. bag to 3 lbs. bags of coffee per month.
How To Sell Coffee Online From Home – Step #2
Determine Your Online Coffee Business Model
Once you know who you will sell to, you can determine what type of coffee products will best fit their needs.
You may want to experiment with different product offerings such as coffee boxes, gift sets, or coffee subscription sales for those who want the same coffee blend delivered every 1st of the month.
While you will want to determine what your competitors are doing, you also want to offer something different or novel. Perhaps you would like to offer a specialized gift service or a type of specialized blend.
Our friends at Bohemian Roastery offer wood-fired coffee that provides a different flavor that is hard to get anywhere else. You may also want to sell other related coffee products, such as coffee mugs, t-shirts, or coffee-BBQ rub. The possibilities are endless!
Customer Taste Preferences
Additionally, each customer will have their taste preferences. For example, some customers will prefer darker espresso roasts. These will be used for their home espresso machine or French press brewers. At the same time, other customers may like lighter and fruitier coffee that they will use to brew via a pour-over system.
Today, coffee customers are more educated than ever. Many will prefer their coffees to be high-quality specialty coffee. They may want organic, fair-trade, or direct-trade coffees from particular regions of the world.
When starting, you may want to offer only a few available options that 80% of your customers will like. This will help keep your inventory low.
We recommend that you determine your niche product offering and promote that type of coffee.
At this point, it makes better sense to appeal to a specific segment of the coffee market than every coffee drinker.
It's too expensive and too cumbersome to be everything to everyone.
Besides lowering your costs and inventory, you can better focus your coffee branding and marketing efforts on this smaller group of people who are most likely to buy from you.
How To Sell Coffee Online From Home – Step #3
Develop Your Online Coffee Brand
You can offer the most amazingly delicious coffee, but you will be hard-pressed to sell any of it if you have a poorly developed coffee brand and marketing strategy.
Your coffee brand plays a pivotal role in your online sales.
The trust your coffee brand creates with your customers will be the only way they can determine whether or not to buy your coffee.
As a part of your coffee brand, your name, and slogan will help customers either remember you – or quickly forget your business. And you don't want them to forget about you!
While you want to choose a memorable coffee business name, you also want it to be clear and concise. Additionally, it should be easy to spell, pronounce, and find online.
Choose a coffee business name and create a logo that people can easily remember, trust, and embody your coffee business's purpose.
If you need help creating your logo, consider getting a freelance graphic designer at 99Designs or Upwork.com.
Once created, utilize your logo on your website, social media accounts, and coffee bags that you are selling.
Once you get your logo, create an ink stamp of your logo to be used on your coffee bags. The look of your coffee bags and packaging will go a long way for customers in determining whether to buy from you.
How To Sell Coffee Online From Home – Step #4
Create an Online Coffee Shop Website
Your coffee shop website will be the center of your customer's experience. It replaces the brick-and-mortar experience most of your customers will have. Therefore, you should put the same time, energy, and investment that you would in designing your actual coffee shop into your website.
Additionally, you will want a professional-looking website for your customers to place their orders securely. More broadly, you want a website where your customers feel comfortable ordering directly from you.
You need to follow plenty of rules to process your orders, so I recommend getting a third-party e-commerce platform, such as Shopify.
Besides having a professional, clean look, Shopify can safely and easily process your customer's credit card information.
Sell Coffee Online From Home
What Your Online Coffee Shop Website Needs:
- It must look good with any device (tablet, phone, or desktop).
- Load quickly.
- Be able to process orders safely and securely.
- Needs to describe and present your coffee well.
The great news is that creating a website with shopping cart features is easier than ever. There are affordable options to create high-quality, secure websites – without knowing or understanding any computer techie stuff!
To easily start your online store, we recommend Shopify. Their professional website and secure checkout system make it easy to start selling coffee right away.
To learn more about selling coffee online, visit Shopify.
Let’s review the website store options we recommend:
Affordable Online Coffee Store Options:
| Online Store Option | Description | Info |
|---|---|---|
 | Shopify is an easy-to-use all in one website option which includes a shopping cart. | Learn More |
 | Allows you to host your WordPress website. Here's how to set it up. | Learn More |
Selling coffee online from home will be done much more effectively with a dependable e-commerce platform. Shopify offers an excellent platform to quickly and easily set up your online business. You can also get your domain name, host service, and shopping cart directly through them.
Shopify provides an excellent and secure shopping cart system to set up your checkout system and have your customers buy with confidence.
How To Sell Coffee Online From Home – Step #5
Where Will You Get Your Coffee From?
Where do you get the coffee that you will sell to your customers?
Your source of wholesale coffee really depends on what type of online coffee business you plan to establish and which products you wish to sell.
For example, you will need green beans if you want to roast your coffee beans and sell them online. That is coffee that hasn’t been roasted yet. You will most likely go through a green coffee broker.
Starting your coffee roasting operation can be beneficial in the long run, driving down costs and allowing you to create your own coffee roasting profile. However, it will take more upfront costs to buy your coffee roaster, install it properly, and buy green coffee beans.
If you want to sell roasted coffee beans but not start your own roasting company, consider approaching local coffee roasters in your area. This is, by far, the easiest and least expensive route to take.
Often, local roasters would be delighted to work with someone who is buying coffee from them – even at wholesale rates. You can consider their coffee directly in a curated format. Successful online coffee businesses are doing this very well, like Bean Box.
Another great option is that you can sell your own private-label coffee with any number of local private-label roasters. Selling private-label coffee means that you will be buying coffee beans from a roaster in bulk and package them with your own bags and label.
You want a coffee provider that offers:
- Quality Coffee – First and foremost, the coffee needs to be excellent. You don't want to put your name, logo, or promote poorly roasted coffee.
- Quick Delivery – To get your coffee to your customers, you will need a wholesale coffee supplier responsive to your and your orders.
- Low Minimums – You will want to work with a coffee supplier to have low minimum orders. This will help save you money as you start your business.
How To Sell Coffee Online From Home – Step #6
Start Developing Your Website Content
Your website content is critical to your success.
Imagine for a moment if I had only a simple title at the top of this article? With nothing to read or look at… would you stay on this page too long?
Nope.
When you sell your coffee from home or online through your website, people will want to see pictures. They also want to read about you, your business, and of course, your coffee!
Customers also want to hear your story. They want to see what your coffee will look like. The quality of your packaging and your logo are important. Use your text and pictures to describe your products to your customers.
Determine what the front page of your website will look like. What will you say to new or returning visitors?
If you don’t have your coffee beans yet, consider putting together your own packaging and labeling and start taking pictures of the bags.
It's no secret that your presentation is important. Ask yourself, would you buy from yourself?
And if not, why?
Make your website and packaging as professional and clean as possible. It's easier and cheaper today to look just as “professional” as more established companies. Invest in the time and money to look good.
Develop your online coffee store's web content:
- Take High-Quality Photos: Whether it's pictures of you, your packaging, and your coffee – start taking well-lit photos that you can use on your website and social media accounts. The chances are that your phone can take some great pictures; just make sure that you have the proper lighting.
- Write Product Descriptions: You want to develop well-written product descriptions. If you don't know too much about coffee, consider talking to your coffee roaster. Ask them what their coffee profile is and relay the information back to your customers in a way that appeals to them.
- Write Blog Posts: Start writing blog posts. Your written posts can be on any topic. Start with who you are and why you are selling. Or maybe you will want to focus on the country that your coffee is coming from. Your posts are an excellent place to upload your photos, too!
How to Sell Coffee Online From Home
How To Sell Coffee Online From Home – Step #7
Learn About Google Page Ranking
There are millions of web pages available online. Most websites never get found because they have poor search ranking on Google.
How does Google sort and prioritize all of these web pages?
The short answer is search Engine Optimization or “SEO.” Search Engine Optimization is a general term for developing your website and its content in an optimized manner for search engines.
For example, Google loves to boost website rankings to websites with fresh and relevant content for potential readers. Additionally, Google loves it when a website is user-friendly and responsive with any device.
In contrast, Google does not like plagiarized websites or content that is copied from other sources.
Setting up your website with WordPress and Shopify are all great for this. But you still have to do the work in creating content that Google believes is relevant for your niche. This is why creating and maintaining a blog, offering detailed product descriptions and other text and pictures will be important.
Google loves when you start blogging and offering your customers in-depth information. This is also a win-win situation for you because the longer your customer stays on your website, the higher the likelihood that they will buy from you.
Elements of “Good SEO” for your Coffee Website:
- Clean website back-end computer code (this is taken care of by Shopify).
- High-quality pictures
- Detailed product descriptions
- Original content and blog posts
How To Sell Coffee Online From Home – Step #8
Open Your Social Media Accounts
Social media is important because it could really help drive customers to your website. It also helps build brand awareness and offers something called “social proof” – a certain type of legitimacy because other people follow you.
When it comes to your social media, there are so many options out there. Where should you begin? I recommend opening your social media business accounts using Facebook, Pinterest, and Instagram. It can be overwhelming to open up so many accounts, so decide which is best for you and your customers. Instead of trying to be everywhere, go deep instead.
The great thing about social media accounts is that they are free! Many people can also sell directly on their social media accounts as well.
Choose one or two to get started and start adding content (pictures, videos, and simply introduce yourself!) Remember that your social media accounts are great for reaching many people, but they never come close to developing offline connections with those in your community. We'll talk about that next.
How To Sell Coffee Online From Home – Step #9
Build Networks To Help Your Online Coffee Business
The key to marketing your business is to build networks online and offline.
Selling coffee online from home doesn’t just mean sitting on your couch and waiting for your neighbors to come knocking (though they might!).
Get out there and introduce yourself and your coffee business!
Approach coffee shops, cafes, and people at farmers' markets. Selling coffee online from home can be fun, engaging, and profitable. The best way to do this is to stay proactive and follow through on your plans.
Selling coffee online from home can start with emailing your friends, family, coffee bloggers, or other business organizations that might be interested in your coffee. Put up a post on your personal Facebook page or Instagram page. You'd be surprised at the level of support you will receive.
How To Sell Coffee From Home – Step #10
Deliver Excellent Customer Service Every time
When selling coffee online coffee from home, your customer needs to hit the mark every time.
To succeed, you're going to need repeat customers. Repeat customers are the key to your online coffee business success. Once someone buys from you, the higher the chance that they will buy from you again.
Additionally, customers also share their thoughts with their friends and family. They also share the coffee! Therefore, your customers can potentially be your most prominent marketers. So, treat your customers like gold, and you will be halfway to success!
So what does it mean to offer “excellent customer” service?
Your customer service begins with your website and then moves to provide the information your customers need. Provide easily accessible ways to get in touch with you. When a customer has a question and emails you, answer it quickly. When a customer orders from you, send out the coffee as soon as you possibly can. Provide a tracking number if possible. Follow up with an email and ask how their coffee was.
Consider any loyalty rewards or strategies to keep your customer coming back. Stay in contact with them. And most importantly, thank them. Treat your customers as you would want to be treated, and you're sure to keep them loyal.
By working hard to impress your customers, you'll have repeat business. Offer discounts and other incentives that keep them coming back. It's much easier to get a previous customer to buy again than a new customer to buy.
How To Sell Coffee Online From Home
Connect Your Online Coffee Store to “A Cause”
Another possible way to approach your online coffee business is to discover a niche customer or coffee consumer. Selling coffee online from home can also be a great way to contribute to your local community or favorite organization.
Many customers want to buy coffee if it supports a cause, a group, or an organization. We’ve discovered one company that sells coffee to help military veterans.
Other online coffee stores want to help children with disabilities, schools, churches, or fight homelessness in your city.
Pick a cause to help sell your coffee! People like the idea of helping others with the local coffee that they buy. Start looking at different ways to create a win-win-win situation with the coffee that you are selling.
Specifically, this is what I mean when you choose to go this route:
- You receive a sale.
- Your customers receive excellent-tasting coffee and feel good about supporting you.
- The organization you are helping gets a small donation.
Consider what the organization that you want to help can do for your business. Can they help spread the word about your business, follow/share your social networks, or even buy coffee from you instead of buying from the corporate big-box store?
Connecting to a cause can inspire your customers to buy from you and provide you with an immediate supportive customer base.
Selling Coffee From Home Can Be Profitable
But you have to do one thing…
You have to start.
Selling coffee online from home, either online or offline, can generate an excellent opportunity for you in the retail coffee business.
Simply start where you are.
Do one step thing at a time. Review each of the steps I laid out for you above and do something. Anything!
Whether it is getting your website and domain name (using Shopify) or whether you want to get a logo design made, you have to start somewhere, but you have to start.
We've laid out some pretty easy-to-follow steps for you to get started! If you are still unsure where to begin, email us or get our online guide to starting your own online coffee business by signing up for our free guide and newsletter.
Sell Coffee Online With The Following Resources:
Affordable Online Coffee Store Options:
| Online Store Option | Description | Info |
|---|---|---|
| Shopify is an easy-to-use all in one website option which includes a shopping cart. | Learn More |
| Allows you to host your WordPress website. Here's how to set it up. | Learn More |
Disclaimer: We are not a coffee roaster trying to get you to buy our beans or packaging. There are recommendations of services we are affiliated with, which we have linked to. We have an affiliate relationship with some of the links provided, which provides us a small commission if you were to purchase the services.
* The information on this page is for educational purposes only. We do not offer legal advice.
Coffee Shop Startups
Based in Seattle, Washington, USA, Coffee Shop Startups is dedicated to providing you with the most relevant information on how to start a coffee shop business successfully. Over the last 11 years, we've helped thousands of aspiring coffee business owners worldwide. We harness the experience, wisdom, and knowledge of many successful coffee shop owners to help you increase your chances of success and profits. We support business owners who want to start a coffee business by providing them with valuable information on starting their coffee business successfully.
