# New Online Bean Seller needs advice



## Zombie Coffee (Jun 19, 2020)

Hello, I am a newbie and starting to sell coffee beans branded with our own company. Looking at the business model, its looking like I will have to sell a massive amount of beans to actually turn a profit. 
I found beans we like at £12kg, minimum order 6kg. Then packaging, labels, shipping.. I have gone over the numbers for selling 250g and 500g bags and looks like we would have to sell 50 or 60 bags a day to support ourselves. 
This doesnt include website or advertising costs.

I read that some coffee sellers mark up 300-600% but it would seem that would make our coffee insanely expensive. Presently selling it for £6.50 per bag would bring in very little.

Does any one have a business template for crunching these figures further or are we missing something entirely? It seems to me to do this we invest, and hope we can sell a mass amount or its clearly a lost business idea..

Thanks all


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## Mrboots2u (May 10, 2013)

Hi not sure this is the right place or your wares to be honest ad that your timing is very good for this model .

All you are doing is adding in extra pricing for the coffee for the benefit of your marketing . I can live without that cost , as can most here I think , so we may not be the right audience . I am presuming you are marketing it as some kind of "uber strong coffee" to get you going ( given your name )

Given the amount of roasters there are at the moment , and competition , offers they are using while their commercial cafes partners are closed , I am not sure this is the right time for anyone to be going into the coffee business , let alone white label.

What is it about your "brand" that will make anyone buy your coffee as opposed to the same coffee cheaper or better quality coffee cheaper ?


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## filthynines (May 2, 2016)

It's a bad business idea. I started writing a longer post, but I've given up. You're adding zero value for your customers, and on your own admission the numbers don't stack up.


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## Mrboots2u (May 10, 2013)

If this is your blurb , then when you get your website open , I would be making it perfectly clear that you are using a white label roaster , and not doing it yourself .

In specialty coffee , people will want you to roast the beans ad QC them or be really clear that you are not doing that.

This blurb below is deliberately obtuse to this fact , and it translates as

"i roasted in my shed for my mates and sold some, now I think I can brand that and get someone else to roast it for me " . It's an example of used marketing that implies something that is not true .

This of course may not be you it it isnt then someone has already stolen your name , apologies if this is the case .

https://thecoffeeroasters.co.uk/blogs/roasters/zombie-coffee-co-roastery

*
Zombie Coffee Co & Roastery
*

zombiecoffeeco.co.uk

Zombie Coffee Co & Roastery was created out of one's passion and love towards incredible coffee's from the most exiting and unique farms situated across the stretch of the coffee belt, from the beautiful countries of Central and South America, Africa and Asia.

Created by Daniel Lomas, a coffee enthusiast who has studied the intriguing world of coffee over years, he has been roasting small batches over the last two years and has been providing people close to him with unique and delicious freshly roasted coffee's.

Now Daniel has decided to take his roasting experience to a commercial level that he can use as a platform to provide people of the UK with high-grade stunning specialist coffee at an incredible price through his own creation Zombie Coffee Co & Roastery.


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## Jony (Sep 8, 2017)

Classic


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## BlackCatCoffee (Apr 11, 2017)

I don't want to bust your balls but I also do not want to see someone spend time and money to fail - and if this is your business plan, it will fail.

The speciality market is quite crowded. There are a number of superb roasters that go to extraordinary lengths to source and roast amazing coffee with quite staggering attention to detail and quality. There are also a number of roasters that claim to be speciality and in reality they are roasting up commodity stuff and slapping nice branding on and using words like artisan and small batch to try and justify a premium - this get sniffed out very quickly, as does white label.....

If you plan is to buy from someone white label, put a logo on it (oh and incidentally there are already a number of 'Zombie Coffees' out there so I would think again on that front) selling to the speciality market is never going to work. The kind of people that enjoy speciality coffee are interested in the provenance of the coffee, reading about the farm, the processing method, the roaster etc. You will have limited control over all this and you will be paying a great deal more for it to boot, that is if you can even get coffee that is up to par from a white label provider and I suspect you might struggle there.

The other option is to shift to the volume market where people don't care about the quality so much they just want a cup of brown in the morning. The problem here is that you will be competing on one thing alone and that is price. You will not be able to do this if you are getting someone else to roast. And if you are as passionate about coffee as you say then you really wont want to be piling high and selling cheap crap coffee anyway.

If you really want to get in to the business then save up, buy a commercial roaster, find good coffee and start small and build yourself up and above all, focus on quality.

Sorry if this comes across as very negative but I am afraid to say it is the truth.


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## filthynines (May 2, 2016)

The advice from @BlackCatCoffee above is precisely what I would have said if I could've been bothered, albeit that his advice is backed up by being a few months/years further down the line than me.


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## Drewster (Dec 1, 2013)

Wot they said!

Plus I am actually quite surprised at your judgement in coming onto a Coffee forum - full presumably of your target customers (I don't think we are but you presumably did?) -
to basically ask how to squeeze massive profit out of coffee buyers by badging cheap coffee.


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## Border_all (Dec 19, 2019)

Zombie Coffee said:


> Hello, I am a newbie and starting to sell coffee beans branded with our own company. Looking at the business model, its looking like I will have to sell a massive amount of beans to actually turn a profit.
> I found beans we like at £12kg, minimum order 6kg. Then packaging, labels, shipping.. I have gone over the numbers for selling 250g and 500g bags and looks like we would have to sell 50 or 60 bags a day to support ourselves.
> This doesnt include website or advertising costs.
> 
> ...


 Think maybe you have missed the point of the forum...


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## Rob1 (Apr 9, 2015)

White label sellers are volume based, so yes you need to do something unique and appealing with the branding, advertise it to death and sell in large volumes via retailers to people who don't care about quality so much as they care about being able to say "this is the coffee I drink, it defines me perfectly".


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## filthynines (May 2, 2016)

So you're all saying there's a chance?!


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## Rob1 (Apr 9, 2015)

Well I was going to say "Sure, look at throat punch coffee" https://beta.companieshouse.gov.uk/company/SC611137/filing-history

They're still trading which I can't make sense of.


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