Message My Latte!

Message my latte – the perfect pick me up for any coffee shop!

It takes me two coffees to know which way is up in the morning and I’ll normally have one more before lunch to get me through the rest of the day. When I am out and about, I like to get a cup of coffee from a local shop, as the coffee, the snacks and the service is better. I was thrown for a loop last week as I was on a business trip, in a hurry and the only coffee around was Starbucks (not a fan to be honest) and decided to go in for an Americano. I haven’t been to Starbucks in a couple of years, but what really surprised me was 80% of the orders fulfilled were coming from the Starbucks’ Mobile App. I can understand why as it took me 15 minutes to get my coffee, as I was stuck behind a steady stream of Mobile App orders. This got me thinking that when I visit small local coffee shops, most people physically order their coffee  except for the odd Uber Eats or Deliveroo pickup there is not much online ordering. I can understand a behemoth like Starbucks having a Mobile App, but the economics of a Mobile App don’t make sense for most local coffee shops, and everyone knows using a website on a mobile phone is not ideal. However, it seems like a missed opportunity for local coffee shops to miss out on eCommerce.

Why is eCommerce important for local coffee shops!

For most small coffee shops their primary business is from one off or regular customers that physically order in the shop. While this is great business, it is difficult to avoid the growing trend of increasing online sales with over 18% of people in the USA shopping online every week.    

‘Online retail sales amounted to 4.9 Trillion U.S dollars worldwide. And it’s forecast to grow over 50% within the next four years’ Source Statista.

For many consumers the ability to order online and then pickup is a critical factor in their choice of where to shop. Consumers like to pass the time online shopping when they have downtime or commuting, to peruse different products, and view the specials. They like to save time by re-ordering a frequent purchase, avoiding the queue on pickup. And finally, consumers like to be rewarded with loyalty like ‘every 10^th coffee is on us’.  

For small business owners getting to know their customers (even if it’s just a phone number) is invaluable business insights. You get to learn your most valued customers, how much of your customers are one off or repeat customers. Also new products can be promoted to these customers ‘Coffee of the month’ or ‘two for one Wednesdays’.  

Which eCommerce solution is best local coffee shops! Answer Conversational Commerce using Messaging Apps

Most businesses when they think eCommerce either consider a website or a mobile app. According to eMarketeer, USA users spend on average 4 hours 11 mins on their phone each day and over 88% of that time is on Mobile Apps and is increasing year on year. So, it makes sense that Mobile Apps are popular way to engage customers. Websites are fine for PCs, but they really don’t offer a good user experience on a smartphone and its why mobile apps are so popular.

However, mobile apps are not really an option for most small businesses. The cost to develop an app and maintain one is prohibitive. Also, consumers don’t like to have a lot of apps on their phone so are careful when downloading an app or keeping it on their phone.  

‘71% of app users churn within the first 90 days of downloading an app.’ Source Upland, Mobile App Retention Rate: What’s a Good Retention Rate?

An alternative for small businesses is to consider Conversational Commerce, which allows businesses to engage with customers using messaging apps and augmented with technology to allow a more seamless and natural conversation between a business and their customers.

Benefits of Conversational Commerce through Messaging Apps for local Coffee Shops

Coffee shops can benefit from conversational commerce through messaging apps in many ways from customer support to allowing customers to order products and services

• Customer Support: Simple chat bots can answer basic customer questions like opening hours, location, or provide simple tips or how to guides.  

• Personalized service: When customers need a more personal touch, it is possible to handover conversations from the chat bot to a human.
• Free up time and save labour: Small coffee shop owners can free up precious time by allowing automation to engage with customers on simple repetitive tasks, and this will allow the business owners to focus on a more personalized service.
• eCommerce: Coffee shops can put their products on an eCommerce store and allow their customers to order and pay, ensuring higher revenues and higher sales closures.
• Message and Pickup: Allow your customers to order their morning coffee and avoid the queues on their way to work, increasing sales.
• Loyalty: As every customer will engage with their phones, coffee shop owners will now have the phone number of every customer that engages with their business and understand new versus repeat customers preferences. No more little paper cards with coffee loyalty programs, as customers will have every order stored.

• Promotions: Once the business owner has the phone numbers of their customers, conversational commerce can be used to send messages of special deals and promotions (e.g., 2 for 1 Coffee Wednesdays).
• No Apps to download for customers: This is critical as many consumers do not like to download Mobile Apps for small businesses and this can be an unnecessary friction. No one is ever deleting their favorite messaging app like WhatsApp from their phone.

Payemoji – Enabling eCommerce for Coffee Shops with Messaging Apps

At Payemoji we enable every local coffee shop to have an online presence with messenger apps to engage with their customers – no tech or IT skills required. Every coffee shop gets their own AI Chat Bot, a local mobile number (separate from their business number) and a QR code(s) that make it simple for your customers to engage through a Messenger App with your AI Chat bot. This will then allow the coffee shop to offer customer support, offer an eCommerce store (with choice of store theme) to allow their customers to buy products digitally all through the AI Chat bot on any Messenger App. QR codes can be used to provide a Quick call to action to order, all within the Messaging App. Integration into social media platforms and internet platforms is also easy i.e., local number, a QR codes or even we offer a simple plug-ins. All this is available through our solution, and best of all your customers will never have to leave their favorite messenger app to engage with your AI chat bot for your business.  

Sounds Interesting – Get in touch now. 

We would love to chat with you about how your business could benefit from OMNIchannel messaging and WhatsApp business platform. Get in touch with us at sales@payemoji.com and we will schedule a call. 

So go ahead and join the conversation by taking advantage of the 23 hours that consumers spend per week on their Messaging Apps and use that to grow your Business. 

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