I own a Houseplant Café, where you can sip coffee while you shop for houseplants and small handmade items, think jewelry, pottery, candles etc. We’ve been open six months and things are going not as well as we’d hoped. Demographic: millennial women, brunch crowd (I can break this down further) Area: 12k cars pass us a day, we do have road signage and a flag Returning customers: 17% of our clients visit more than once a month Offerings: locally roasted coffee, lattes, smoothies, sandwiches, fresh pastries

I have a marketing background, but I’ve been out of the game a bit and so I feel like I’m not living up to the needs of the business. We do post daily on social media. Have a following of over 5k between insta and FB, starting on Tiktok next week. We need to nearly double our daily numbers to get to the profits we estimated before we opened. We do theme days that are very popular but then the rest of the week is under $500 days. I have a small marketing budget of about $1000 a month which I’m not sure where to utilize. Help? I’m getting desperate for my space to succeed.

  • hotlikebea@alien.topBEnglish
    1·
    1 year ago

    17% is terrible repeat business. I’d focus on getting that number way up before sinking time and money into attracting new customers who are 83% unlikely to return.

    As a coffee shop, you should have regulars who are dropping in every day before work. Is your setup conducive to this? Or is it mandatory leisurely plant browsing that doesn’t make sense for the pre-work crowd? What’s your most re-ordered to-go food item? Least ordered?

    • bubblesbrin@alien.topOPBEnglish
      1·
      1 year ago

      17% is people who come more than once a month, we’re at a bit above 50% coming back monthly. Much more leisurely brunch crowd. Most popular food is a bagel sandwich, least is strawberry covered waffle. We tried early mornings and they failed, so we honed in on brunch and that’s why our Saturdays are great.