Let's Discover How to Start

an Online Coffee Business

According to stats, 64% of Americans 18 and older surveyed in 2019 said they drink a cup of coffee every day. 79% of them drink coffee at home. As for Europe – figures are even more impressive! Coffee is the most traded commodity in the US. Its popularity continues to grow on other global markets like the UK, China, and Japan. If you have ever wondered how to start an online coffee business – you’ve come to the right place! In this article, we:

• Explore this subject from A to Z
• Review the best online coffee sellers
• Consider the requirements to build the store
• Discover other aspects that might be of interest for the online coffee shop startups

So, keep reading and find meaningful insights on how to build an online coffee store!

The Very First Step: Find Your Vendors

Don’t forget to take into account factors such as production capacity, geographic limitations, and dropshipping costs. Define the production capability of your coffee business and work with a supplier who will be able to meet your production needs on time. Along this line, search for a dropshipper who covers your geographic area and has the best prices to offer.

Most likely, you’re interested in offering only the best coffee beans to your customers. Thus we’d like to demonstrate a breakdown of the countries that are considered to be world leaders when it comes to supplying coffee.

Best Online Coffee Stores

In putting this article together, we visited many stores that sell coffee online. Then, we composed the list of the three best online coffee companies along with reviewing their peculiarities. We hope you’ll find your inspiration and come away with some meaningful insights after reviewing this list.

#1 MistoBox

MistoBox is a small business supporting other small businesses – and they’re proud of it! Today, MistoBox’s network includes 40 roasters with more than 600 coffee grades. The company uses a marketplace business model matching the most professional roasters with consumers who would like to subscribe to high-quality coffee.

How it works: First, a specially trained coffee curator starts with a short survey to find out the customer’s preferences for coffee. For example, if you have specific or conservative taste preferences, go for light roast or dark, or single-origin beans or blends. Based on the customer’s answers, the curator selects and sends a 12-ounce bag of coffee that he or she thinks you will prefer the most. The customer selects a shipping plan, and the coffee arrives at a chosen period of time. Customers also have the option to receive coffee packs regularly, in a range from every 10 days to every month.

UX: The website has been dramatically redesigned and upgraded recently. It continues to evolve and will soon make customer coffee reviews available to guide other customers in their search. MistoBox’s website is easy and convenient to navigate. Its light design allows the user to concentrate on services promoted by the company without any chance to get distracted. It also provides an easy-to-choose shipping frequency. For convenience, coffees are listed alphabetically, with pictures of the various flavors in each one (fruits or other foods). Once you have ordered your first shipment, the support team will contact you to notify you about the order details, or you can create a personal account and view the information there.

#2 Crema.Co

Talk about the best online store ideas would be incomplete without mentioning Crema.co – a coffee subscription service that states: “Coffee is a community, not a commodity”. An interesting feature of this coffee company is that it works only with small-batch roasters from different corners of the earth, telling the story behind every coffee producer on their website.

How it works: In the beginning, there is a survey that will provide users with a personalized experience. The user can always ask for help from a professional coffee curator. Another interesting feature about Crema.Co is the search option for different coffee grades by the roast level, geography, or certification. Another great feature is the Playlist. After tasting various coffees from different regions and roasters, subscribers can create their own list of preferences or “play lists”. Customers can also choose the frequency of coffee delivery (from five days to one month). Subscription price varies from $16 to $22.50.

UX: The Crema website offers a nice, clean, modern look that appeals to coffee lovers. The main menu is well-organized, allowing you to easily find coffee roasters, or even to buy your favorite coffee lover a gift. The user interface enables users to experience an easy and cheerful interaction with the service. The customer will also get an email notification when their favorite coffee is running out, when it’s out of stock, or when a new one is available.

#3 Angels’ Cup

Angels’ Cup is a coffee subscription box focused on single origin coffee from top-quality roasters. Freshness is a priority for this business, so they ensure a 24-hour manufacturing process, which includes receiving the roasted coffee beans, packing them, and shipping them to customers.

How it works: Angels’ Cup subscribers have the option to order a bag of coffee, meanwhile the service tries to upsell their sample packages. After, subscribers typically select the regularity that they will receive their coffee (from weekly to monthly). Every month customers get their package with four various coffee grades. Angels’ Cup strives to support an atmosphere of mystery, so the service marks each coffee bag with a number. It allows subscribers to taste coffee blindly and concentrate on the feelings only, and then guess the coffee grades’ notes and names. Roasters and coffee ingredients are mentioned on cards that accompany the coffee.

UX: The first thing should be pointed out about the Angels’ Cup website is that it has extremely clear navigation. The website is also interactive and easy-to-use. For mobile users, it has an application, which defines the taste preferences of the customers in a playful way, as you can see in the screenshots below.

Useful Third-Party Integrations for Coffee Store Development

There are several useful third-party integrations and services. Some of them are must-haves, others are made to simplify your store’s operation and make customers’ acquiring and retention easier. Here are the ones which you should consider first.

PayPal

There are various payment systems available. However, when we think about the most secure and reliable payment system for the website, PayPal is the first thing that comes to mind. The most important feature of PayPal is that the provision of security guarantees both the buyer and seller. We recommend that you learn more about PayPal and other popular payment integrations.

Stock Inventory Manager

This Magento module was developed to deliver a positive stock inventory management experience. It will help you run your online coffee store effectively since it has editable fields that allow you to update bulk products, as well as a search line, in-grid stock management, and many other helpful tools.

Instagram

Initially created for distribution of beautiful pictures, Instagram is a powerful tool in the context of your online coffee shop development. By integrating with Instagram, you can let your customers share amazing images of what they made from the coffee you’ve given them. You can include them further in the coffee experience by sharing these pics on your website which will help in increasing your website’s conversion, and customer loyalty.

Google Analytics Enhanced E-commerce

This popular analytics tool enables you to better understand customer behavior on your website and use this knowledge to make changes, do remarketing and improve conversions. You will get useful reports such as checkout, shopping behavior, sales performance reports, and more. You can also consider some other analytics tools that are also beloved by business owners.

Xero

Every business requires a lot of space for data storage, and the online coffee-selling business is no exception. There are many CRM and ERP solutions that can help you with this. We’d like to recommend a cloud-based accounting software Xero: this extension will connect the data from your website to your Xero account. It happens automatically and quickly, so you won’t lose any important information. Further, you can track your sales, get financial reporting, and access many control functions.

How Much Does It Cost to Build an Online Coffee Store?

The price issue is critical for any business, so it is natural to pay particular attention to this aspect of your online coffee store development. For your convenience, we underlined some of the most critical stages of starting a coffee business online, and estimated each one separately. You are welcome to check out the price table below.

In addition to the above-mentioned objects of expenditure, you should also be prepared for some additional costs. Such costs might include urgent purchase of needed third-party integrations, costs for sudden issues elimination, and so on.

For more insights

Read Our Guide Dedicated to E-commerce Website Development Costs

Read more

Important Design Features for an Online Coffee Store

According to W. Rogers, you never get a second chance to make a good first impression, and we fully agree! That is why in this chapter we are going to answer the questions like:

• 1. How to sell coffee online successfully?
• 2. What should be taken into account?
• 3. What can give your website a feeling of uniqueness?
• 4. How can you inspire your customers’ trust? And so on

So, if your intention is to become one of the top online coffee retailers, we recommend that you consider the ideas below.

#1 A clear business concept and appealing to the target audience

Every design concept creation starts with imagining a dialogue with your customers. Whom are you going to address? What do these people care about and what are their priorities? Before starting coffee business online, you should know the tastes of your target audience. Answering this question will give you a clear impression of what direction to choose for the design development.

#2 Light minimalistic or bright catching colors

The first thing most people imagine when hearing about the perfect coffee website are images of lots of beans, bags and cups, and a warm brown hue. However, we recommend you not to get carried away by these typical coffee illustrations, and be moderate while implementing them to the website design. Additionally, you also might want to avoid concentrating only on the color brown for your design. You can use bright color schemes like successful coffee retailers have, such as Dunkin’ Donuts, CoffeeDesk, Hello De Mello and many others.

Get more ideas on

How to Make Creative Product Photos for Your Store

Learn now

#3 A couple of similar fonts

A general recommendation about font usage for website design is using two or three fonts. Strive to choose the most attractive and decorative one for styling the titles and go for a more simple font for regular text on the webpage. The best solution here is implementing one font family. You might enjoy font families like Farnham and Benton Sans, Futura, Garamond, Century Old Style, Sweet Sans, Chaparral, Proxima Nova, or one of the many others. In our view, the most stylish fonts combination is represented by Quills Coffee, which looks nothing other than classy and professional.

#4 A flat, simple look for your coffee logo

The logo is a cornerstone for every online business. When it comes to the online coffee business, coffee cups or beans are very popular and of course, this is not accidental. Your logo should be easily recognizable and directly reflect what your business is about. Try making some sketches or ask a professional designer to implement your ideas. Perhaps here you can get inspired by some of the stunning coffee logo ideas.

Coffee Stores Themes

Ready-made online coffee store themes can be an excellent option for those taking their first steps in running online coffee business. Equipped with everything necessary to run a fully-fledged e-commerce business, themes also enable you to look inside the industry without requiring a big budget for custom web development. Here are some of the most popular themes for online coffee store development:

• 1. Cofibeans is a responsive Magento template for coffee e-commerce stores. It has a bright and attractive design and is supported with lots of extensions that go together. You have Megamenu with a clear division on categories, Newsletter Pop-up to catch more customers, Image Slider to demonstrate your products and hot deals, and Accelerated Mobile Pages for better performance.

• 2. Our next favorite one is this Coffee Shop Magento theme. This one has high user rates and positive reviews because of its extensive set of features and appealing design. Every time your customers buy coffee online from you, they will enjoy a smooth user experience and a seamless buying process. The template is cross-browser, multilingual, and multicurrency, well documented, has a valid semantic code, and sliced PSD files.

• 3. Coffee Store Shopify Theme is a good example of how you can display the high quality goodness of your coffee to your customers. Matching theme colors, a prominent logo on the header’s center, a well-functioning Parallax Effect, and incorporating a Lazy Load Effect are all perfect to meet this goal. This is a good option to start your coffee business online!

• 4. Coffee House & Shop closes our Top-4 templates for websites selling coffee online. This WooCommerce theme is more affordable for its price and has an endless number of cool additional characteristics, such as two-step installation, custom widgets for comments and social sharing, and free updates.

Final Thoughts

Stats claim that coffee consumption will only grow, with market experts expecting the global demand for coffee to expand by 25%, up to 175.8 million grain bags in the next five years. So, if you have the idea of launching your own home business selling coffee – it’s time for you to do so! Use proven and reliable technologies like Magento or Shopify, invest in high-quality coffee, and be attentive to your customers – these are simple but effective pieces of advice to help you to create the best online coffee shop! Have any questions? Drop us a line. We’d love to help you get started!