Students, young professionals, managers of the lowest level – these are your potential clients. They appreciate the low prices, friendly service, efficiency and social activity. Of course, older people also should not be dismissed, there are fans of coffee with them and among people over 50. But if you look at the truth in your eyes, answer yourself to the question, how many such fans will go by your coffee point with you every day and how many of them will think about buying?
90% of people are sure that opening a coffee is easy. On the one hand, they are right. The only clarification is that it’s easy and simple to open a coffee with you only if you know how to do it right. Despite the fact that the format of coffee seems to be simple with itself, like any other business, ignorance of the subtleties and nuances can make a profitable and promising business idea an unprofitable enterprise that runs to zero and sucks out the last pennies.
To avoid such a situation, you need to know where to start and what stages of the business should be given the utmost attention.
For example, you need to start with the definition of the target audience of coffee with you. Asking who will buy your coffee, you can adjust both the design, strategy, and concept of your small enterprise to the needs and requests, interests and desires of specific people – your future customers.
The target audience of coffee with itself is basically young people from 18 to 24 years old. In 70% of cases – these are girls.
But it is the number of people passing by, coupled with their «quality» (belonging to the target audience) and is the key to the success of the coffee point with them. Finding such a place means half the success for coffee with you.
Nevertheless, do not forget about another important fact for the coffee business with you. It is the taste and quality of the coffee itself. If you prepare delicious, refreshing drinks, they will come back to you, recommend to friends and acquaintances. So you can achieve that spontaneous purchases will decrease, and the number of regular customers will increase.
About all these subtleties and other important little things, we will discuss further.
Investment size
Opening a coffee point with yourself can be considered a business with small investments. According to the experience of entrepreneurs who have opened their own coffee points with themselves, you can keep within 200 thousand rubles, and the top bar of starting capital is unlikely to exceed 400 thousand rubles.
Such a difference in the initial capital is explained by wide opportunities to save.
Of course, the amount of funds needed for start-up to a large extent will depend on several large costs, without which it is simply impossible to open a coffee point with you. Firstly, this is a lease, which we will talk about a little later. Secondly, equipment.
Coffee machines with coffee
If the flow of customers depends on the choice of the location of the lease, the ability of the point to quickly and efficiently service this flow will depend on the equipment on which you will make coffee.
Professional coffee machine and coffee grinder – the main means of preparing and selling coffee with you
There’s no point in putting a homemade or even a super-automatic coffee machine on the coffee point. Firstly, such a technique can not provide the required quality of the product, and secondly, it is not designed for continuous and uninterrupted operation. And if the coffee machine breaks – you will no longer sell a single cup of coffee. Remember, the miser pays twice: time is spent, money is missed.
That’s why many entrepreneurs try to buy high-quality, foreign equipment, the cost of which can be 150, 250 thousand rubles, and more. If you do not have such money, but work on professional equipment is still your priority, the rental of equipment or buying used coffee machines comes to the rescue.
Usually coffee equipment for rent (even free of charge) is provided by suppliers of coffee beans, provided they purchase a certain amount of coffee from them. At the same time, they also advise on the selection of the necessary list of equipment depending on the expected amount of work (for example, one- or two-chamber coffee machines) and provide maintenance and repair of equipment. Nevertheless, even in the case of free rent, many companies require a security deposit – from 20 to 50 thousand rubles.
What else will you have to spend?
You will also have to spend money on the sales rack or the design of the rented kiosk. Naturally, when developing the appearance of the coffee point with you, you need to pay attention to the fact that it attracts attention and attracts the eye. Appearance should cause a reflex desire to drink coffee or tea. The name on the signboard should not subtly hint that an invigorating drink is pouring here, but shouting about it so that at first sight a person realizes that you are offering coffee, and do not sell donuts or sim cards …
Returning to the investments necessary to start a coffee business with you, it is worthwhile to mention all sorts of trifles, which nevertheless are important for comfortable work without failures and lining.
Purchase of consumables for the preparation of a variety of coffee drinks – milk, toppings and syrups; additional assortment – snacks, sweets and snacks; purchase of disposable cups, lids, spoons; purchase of bar stock.
By the way, there is an option to save on the purchase of consumables – for example, disposable dishes, if you can cooperate with other coffee owners with themselves, buying unbranded cups
Consumables should be purchased immediately for several months. What can not be said about the additional assortment and various syrups. If you do not have coffee and cups to work with you, the absence of a snicker or nut syrup will not be able to slow down the process. At the same time, by launching a coffee point with you, you can «in the course of the matter» adjust the proposed range of sweets and snacks, as well as coffee additives – depending on the demand of the client audience.
In addition, the cost of rent, utilities, the printing of promotional leaflets and other printing products, as well as the salary of the barista, should be immediately included in the amount of the initial capital.
Expenses for employees during the launch phase can be avoided, if you personally work at the point in the first month. Naturally, provided that you have the necessary knowledge and skills and have passed at least a minimum course of barsit. But know that combining the conduct of business and direct communication and customer service is not an easy task. Someday you still have to look for suitable employees, train them and monitor them by paying salaries. But about this a little further …
Step-by-step instruction
Having calculated the necessary amount of investments in the coffee business with you, it’s time to start active operations.
To begin with – legalize the business. It will be best to register yourself as an IP and file an application with the tax inspectorate about the choice of the tax system for UTII. This tax will allow you to pay less due to the lack of employees and a small leased area where the activity is conducted. Taking into account the minimum necessary area of coffee with yourself in a few square meters, you will pay an average tax of about 3,000 rubles. In addition, for cash registers at the UTII cash register is not required, which means that it is possible to issue a check only on demand with the help of a normal NPR (check printing machine).
Despite this OKVED, you do not need to get any permits, as there is no full kitchen, and therefore, there is nothing to check the supervisory authorities. All that is required of you is to notify Rospotrebnadzor of the beginning of the activity. Wait for inspections from the SES is only if there are complaints. If you are lucky, the first meeting with the checks you will only three years later.
Attention to the workplace
In advance it is necessary to take care of the order of the sales counter. Its design and manufacturing will take at least two weeks. Provided that you already have your chosen rental location.
The very process of installing a rack, bar or kiosk equipment can also cause difficulties and problems that will entail the transfer of the date of the planned opening.
In advance, for example, you need to take care of proper energy supply. If it is not, you will have to call an electrician and conduct an additional line, which will need to be coordinated with the landlord. Therefore, all issues related to electricity, heating or water supply, it is necessary to decide even at the stage of signing a lease. In this case, the contract itself should not be concluded for a long time: your expectations about traffic may be erroneous and in practice the pedestrian flow will not be converted into buyers and customers …
Naturally, in parallel it is necessary to search for suppliers of consumables and raw materials.
And first of all it is necessary to decide with the supplier of coffee beans. If your coffee does not like customers – all is lost. Delicious coffee is one of the main components of the coffee business success with itself. The sorts of coffee that suppliers can offer are huge. To orient in the choice will help both your own taste, and the advice of the suppliers themselves, and the analysis of competitors.
If you buy your coffee equipment, you will not depend on a particular coffee supplier and the assortment of offered varieties can be much wider.
Find out if the brand you are looking for is a classic coffee drink, as it is exactly the espresso, latte, cappuccino, americano and moccasin that you will specialize in. The amount of the initial purchase will depend on the conditions under which you sign the contract with the supplier, whether you will lease equipment, etc. Do not be afraid of figures of 10 kg or more.
Thus, 10 kg of coffee purchased will go to just over 1,100 small cups of coffee. At the same time, a working coffee point with itself in a passable place for a month sells much more.
In addition to the coffee card, you need to make a menu and a list of additional assortments. Will you sell a variety of chocolates and sweets, and maybe ready-made sandwiches or even pastries?
With an affirmative answer to this question, you should look for profitable suppliers or partners who could provide you with the required quantity of products, usually not too much. You can buy chocolates or oatmeal cookies in wholesale markets and bases, as well as in stores like Metro, Lenta and Auchan.
Of course, the main component for the coffee point with itself is coffee as a drink, and various sweets and «snacks» are needed sooner to increase the average check and customer convenience. You can hardly earn on chocolate or baking. Still, marginality in the resale of foreign products is small.
The assortment of snacks and additions to coffee will change – some positions will disappear, others will be added. Experimenting with the assortment is definitely necessary, but only when the work of the point is stabilized and the changes do not lead to a sharp decline in revenue.
Barista for coffee with you
An important factor in the success of the coffee point with you is the professionalism and competence of the barista. This person should not only prepare delicious coffee, but also properly serve customers, communicate with them, be able to sell, thereby increasing the average check. With the search and hiring of such a person, there may be certain difficulties both at the stage of launching and during the first time of working with coffee.
Opening their first point of coffee with themselves, entrepreneurs often personally stand behind the counter and serve the first customers, working for 12 hours without days off and lunch. But such work on two fronts is rapidly exhausting. In any case, an entrepreneur will need a replacement or a full-time employee. At the same time, it is not always possible to hire a professional barista. Basically, for a barista job, young people respond to the coffee point with no idea about how to make coffee properly. It attracts a flexible schedule, hourly payment, etc.
The peculiarity of working with the staff of the coffee point with you is a large turnover of staff – which will cease only when you hire a suitable person – a friendly, honest, hardworking and responsible, who will also quickly master the art of making tasty and quality coffee. Agree, these people, especially young people, are rare today …
Therefore, before the future owner of coffee with himself at first will be the task – to find and train a reliable person who can change you behind the counter. Later, if you do not stop at opening one point of coffee with you, the need for employees will increase. Therefore, it is necessary to immediately determine the stages of selection and training of employees, as well as develop a schedule of shifts, a system of motivation and control.
One of the options for motivating a barista is bonuses or bonuses for overfulfilment of the sales plan and absence of comments (percentage of total revenue or percentage of each sold coffee over the plan).
But even the system of motivation does not insure against unscrupulous employees who do not go into their shift, arrange for a booth at the point, or simply treat the work superficially. Before the owner of coffee, the question of controlling an employee or a replacement is acute.
Regardless of what kind of work with the staff you choose – stick or carrot – when opening the coffee point with you be prepared that at any moment you will be forced to personally stand up and work as a barista.
A place
If you plan to open a coffee point with you, you know, all your profits will depend first of all on the place. At the same time, choosing the right location of the coffee point with yourself can be one big problem.
A couple of years ago, when nobody heard about coffee with anyone, the landlords, especially the big shopping and business centers, did not understand how you could make coffee on three square meters and refused to rent. Today, almost all the tasty places in the more or less large shopping centers and business centers have long been occupied.
Nevertheless, the rental market is quite competitive and implies a change of tenants. It’s only the price of the matter. If you find a tasty place, but it’s busy, you should start negotiations with the owner or the rental department, find out the rental rate and offer to pay more, or convince yourself that your coffee point can generate additional traffic and attract a certain audience.
By the way, you can open a coffee point with you not only in megacities, where the lifestyle pushes people to do everything on the run, including drinking coffee, but also in small cities. Moreover, it is even easier to find an advantageous place for coffee in a small city – there are fewer points with high pedestrian traffic in smaller cities, which means that the probability to choose an unsuccessful place is reduced.
However, it is quite easy to make a mistake with choosing a rental location for a coffee point. Often happens that the location, it would seem, high traffic, but to assess its quality can only start working. For example, it may turn out that there is simply no target audience among passing traffic. Or the point itself is not in the stream of people, as it should, but «around the corner.»
Considering the locations for coffee with you, you do not need to limit yourself to rental options in shopping or business centers.
Of course, the most profitable is renting in shopping and entertainment centers. Business centers are also promising, but they are more susceptible to the impact of economic changes and may be emptied in two to three months, leaving the coffee point with them without a single customer. Not always coffee points with themselves take root both at public transport stops, and in underground passages, which, it would seem, are characterized by high pedestrian traffic. Another conversation, if you can rent a kiosk in the format of a «glass» near the universities, on the main pedestrian streets of the city or in the business center.
Remember, it is from the place of rent and rent that for the most part will depend on the economic indicators of the coffee point with you. For example, the influence of the season on the amount of profit will depend on the place of rent. If you rent a kiosk near the university, drop sales during the holidays. Any other street kiosk will also depend on the weather conditions. Rain or frost does not encourage the desire to linger on the street to order yourself even if warming coffee. Therefore, considering the location of such locations, take into account and plan your expenses in advance, so as not to go into negative.
Check-list of opening
- IP Registration
- The registration with the tax inspection,
- The filing of an application for the application of UTII,
- Search for a rental location,
- Analysis of lease options (traffic counting, location estimation),
- Signing a lease,
- Search for coffee suppliers,
- Search for equipment suppliers,
- Conclusion of contracts with suppliers,
- Creation of design of a trading rack / signboard / kiosk design,
- The order for the manufacture of the stand / sign / kiosk design,
- Purchase of necessary bar stock,
- Drawing up a coffee card,
- Purchase of consumables for the first two months (coffee, milk, disposable cups with a volume of 200 and 400 ml, covers, spoons),
- Composition of the list of additional assortment,
- Purchase of additional assortment,
- Installation and installation of racks and equipment,
- Search for a changer / barista,
- Training of the changer,
- Development of an advertising campaign and promotion strategy,
- Creating accounts in social networks,
- The beginning of the advertising campaign,
- Notification of Rospotrebnadzor on the commencement of activities,
- Beginning of work.
Is it profitable to open
If you think that by opening a coffee point with you, you will make a profit of hundreds of thousands of rubles, we hasten to disappoint you. The average monthly profit of one point rarely exceeds 100 thousand rubles and on average varies from 40 to 80 thousand. In the first month of work, you are unlikely to get out even to zero. Nevertheless, with the coincidence of positive factors and tireless work on both the assortment and the promotion, even one point can reach profit of 140 thousand rubles.
This amount of profit from one point of coffee with itself is explained by the fact that despite the fact that the cost price of a cup of coffee is 30-40% of the price, its profitability is only about 20%. Most of the proceeds are eaten by rent, which, in turn, is the key to greater profit – a vicious circle.
To recoup rent and expenses for consumables, you need to sell coffee with you to 30 to 60 cups of coffee a day. Only after this amount, each next sold cup of coffee will bring 60-70% of net profit.
Another thing is when you open not one point, but several or gradually open the points one after another. In this case, to achieve a good profit, several times higher than the mark of 100 thousand, you can with 3-4 points and a good manager. Moreover, coffee points located in different places with themselves will balance the total revenue, compensating for the failures in sales of one of the points. For example, the peak of sales of coffee with you in a shopping center on weekends will compensate for the zero point revenue in the business center.
In any case, when opening a coffee business with yourself it is necessary to understand that on the one hand, one-time, spontaneous or even reflex purchases are typical for coffee with oneself as a commodity, but, as many owners of such business say, it is the regular customers that provide stable revenue.
It is possible to earn the trust and loyalty of customers with a variety of factors, such as friendly service, various bonus programs (for example, when buying a cup of cappuccino in 400 ml oatmeal cookies as a gift), shares («The sixth coffee as a gift»), activity in social networks and etc.
And if you want to become the owner of a lucrative coffee business with yourself and make even one of your points advantageous, you need not just to cook tasty and quality coffee in the right place. Now, in conditions of severe competition, when coffee is pouring from each door, you need to bet on service and marketing, work with the menu and assortment. If you love this business with all your heart and will invest your strength and soul in it, you will succeed!
