How to Get the Most Out of Your Online Marketplace

With online ordering more prevalent than ever before, how can café owners make the trend work in their favor?

BY LUISA CASTELLANOS
FOR BARISTA MAGAZINE

Featured illustration by Nono Flores

What to know:

• Since 2020, online ordering has become a common practice in the U.S.; over 80% of American adults now make digital purchases, and nearly half shop online at least once a week
• Coffee shop owners can boost sales by building websites with merchandise and online ordering options
• Websites like Squarespace offer easy ways to build a website without a lot of tech experience
• Third-party ordering apps like Joe support independent coffee shops

There’s a reason major chains like Starbucks have teams of engineers redesigning every utensil down to the ice scooper: They made it larger and stronger so baristas only had to scoop once, shaving 14 seconds off the amount of time it previously took baristas to get a scoop. As a customer, every minute that separates you from your first sip of coffee (or catching your bus to work) feels like an eternity.

Of course, the average coffee-shop owner does not have a high-tech lab at their disposal, nor do they have the budget to hire more baristas or install more equipment. You may be resigned to accepting your fate as a slow-serve specialty-coffee shop forever. Alas, I’m here to tell you that doesn’t need to be the case. There is, in fact, a highly effective and affordable solution: a tool that will get coffee in the hands of your customers faster than they ever imagined.

That solution is (drumroll please) … coffee e-commerce.

Now, I know what you’re thinking: e-commerce? Like Amazon or eBay? Sort of, but not really.

Unless you’ve been living under a rock (or, actually, especially if you’ve been living under a rock), you’ve probably tried online ordering these past few post-COVID years. Throughout the COVID era, platforms like Uber Eats and Grubhub provided relief to restaurants that were unable to serve customers in person, but in doing so they popularized and legitimized online ordering writ large. Even the biggest line-waiting diehards—you know, the same people who buy their plane tickets at the airport— have gotten used to opening their phones or laptops to place an order.

As a coffee-shop owner this means you can direct customers to your website, have them place an order on their walk over, then have them pick up their coffee from a self-serve counter—without ever waiting in line. Not to mention, you can hawk your cool merch and whole-bean coffee at the same time, increasing order sizes and selling to outside markets.

So it’s a win-win-win situation for owners, baristas, and customers—but all of this goodness has to come with a catch, right? Not necessarily. Current e-commerce platforms on the market range from $0/month for a very basic website (Square) to $18/month for a more customizable system (Squarespace), and require several hours of time to set up and learn the features.

You need a website anyway

If you’re opening a coffee shop for the first time, you already know that you need to build a website. You may have even considered hiring your nephew or your neighbor’s kid to set something up. But the truth is, you don’t need someone with coding skills. In fact, it’s actually better to be involved in the process early on so you can continually make changes on your own. It makes life much easier when you can simply log in to adjust your holiday hours and not have to frantically call your website technician.

When the pandemic hit, point-of-sale companies like Square were quick to enable better online ordering features for small businesses—especially coffee shops—and after purchasing Weebly (a simple web builder), they were also able to offer their customers a simple website that integrated directly with their point-of-sale. Some of our café partners at Science Retail, such as PiniPico and Baker Miller, got set up quickly with a new Square website and were able to reduce their web-hosting costs by combining their main website and online ordering platform into one.

In addition to Square, there is also Squarespace, a design-friendly, drag-and-drop, no-code web builder for any type of business. They offer a variety of templates and features including e-commerce features for as low as $18/month. Other restaurant point-of-sale systems such as Toast and Upserve do offer online ordering, but through a separate ordering site that is not very customizable.

Don’t forget: You will also need to secure a domain name (e.g., “yourcoffeeshop.com”). Most website builders like Squarespace allow you to purchase directly from them, or you can link from another provider such as GoDaddy or Namecheap. Their 24/7 support and tutorial videos can also help you do a lot of the work yourself.

These are just a few options for you to manage yourself without needing the help of a tech wiz. Just do your research and choose the right tools, and you’ll be well on your way to reaching your customers—not just in your actual shop, but at their home and from their phone.

Merch + swag

With online ordering you aren’t just limited to coffee and food; you can offer those cool T-shirts, custom-printed mugs, pourover gear, filters—not to mention your one-of-a-kind coffee beans. When using Squarespace or Square, adding products like these to your online ordering system is easy. At first, you can keep things simple by offering local pickup only. Then once you start to grow your customer base and attract out-of-town guests, you can begin to offer shipping.

When choosing which e-commerce site you want to use, make sure you also check the transaction fees. Typically transaction fees for online sales versus in-person transactions (card present) are a bit higher and/or include a small fee (+$0.30) on top of the usual 2.9% fee. Even if you use Square as your on-premises point-of-sale system, you may end up paying a bit more if someone orders online versus in the shop.

When the sales truly start flying in beyond your ability to fulfill orders, we typically recommend our customers upgrade to a more robust e-commerce platform like Shopify (which is a bit more complex and expensive), as they provide additional productivity features and shipping integrations with major carriers such as USPS and UPS. They can also help you set up an account for wholesale orders or even integrate a customer portal for returning guests. However Shopify is not always the best solution for physical location point-of-sale (although they do have one). Having different in-store and online systems may mean you will have to track your inventory in two separate systems.

Third-party ordering sites

Now, in addition to setting up your own website with online ordering, we also recommend coffee shops get listed on some of the third-party ordering sites that have come into the market. You may be thinking of the obvious: Grubhub, Uber Eats, DoorDash, etc. But those aren’t what we’re talking about.

The main alternative is to get listed on a mobile ordering app such as RDY or Joe, an app specifically designed for independent coffee shops. Just like how Grubhub and Uber Eats can give a new restaurant a rush of new customers, Joe puts your coffee shop’s name in front of thousands of local coffee enthusiasts. Plus their fees are significantly lower than other online ordering platforms. According to their website, they have “helped shop owners save up to 80% on fees compared to other apps and services.”

When choosing your point-of-sale, you should also confirm what the capabilities are for integrating with these third-party platforms. For shops using Toast point-of-sale, you can easily make a menu change within your system and it will update on several popular ordering platforms.

Should you customize?

We’ve had clients also approach us about creating their own custom-built app, but we typically urge them to reconsider. Developers are expensive, and unless you have a mega-cult huge following (insert multi-billion-dollar coffee chain here), nobody is going to use it. There are, however, alternatives such as Craver that can help you create your own app without needing to hire a developer. But make sure you have identified whether your customer base is willing to download an app. You may want to give them some extra discounts or perks if they do.

We’ve covered a lot of ground here on how to create a simple website and e-commerce platform for your shop. The truth is, you’re going to need a website, even if it’s just to share your hours of operations and location. Today there are many new online features to consider that won’t cost you an arm and a leg. Now’s the time to get out there and start selling.

This article originally appeared in the August + September 2022 issue of Barista Magazine. Read more of the issue online here for free.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Luisa Castellanos (she/her) is the co-founder and COO of Science On Call. She began her first company at age 11 selling handmade plush toys called Pock-it Palz. After graduating from DePaul University with a degree in marketing and entrepreneurship, Luisa co-founded her second company, Science Retail, a boutique IT consulting agency. Luisa has a passion for supporting local restaurants and coffee shops, and still dabbles in the local Chicago art and music community. 

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