Every tea business retailer is always asking, “How can I attract more customers?” It’s an important question, and we’ve gathered a few ideas to help you keep current customers and expanded your market for new ones.

Here are a few ideas to get the creative juices flowing:

Sell fine teas as the essential luxury - the must-have item that makes life worthwhile.

-Offer to Custom Blend teas to customers’ tastes. Price them to cover time and effort then either amortize the final amount if teas are various prices or price the custom blend at the highest priced tea used.

-Package with style, but add great content. Pretty ribbons or decorative labels are inexpensive ways to make a packet of tea present-worthy. By packaging for weight, luxury becomes affordable. For example, a 2 oz. portion of an $80 a pound tea is $10. A customer can buy two packets for $20 and feel they got a bargain. You can even do the math for that particular tea to determine how many cups the packet will provide, extending its value. Selling tea as via cost per cup vs per pound is always a great technique.

-Keep or Raise Your Prices. Now is not the time to offer discounts. Instead, emphasize the value of what you offer: the exclusive, the artisanal, the organic, and the like.

-Train staff to understand they’re selling value not price.

Focus your efforts on retaining existing customers

- Get to know your customers’ likes. Keep a list of customers’ favorite teas and let them know first when they’ve arrived.

- Create invitation-only events for tea tastings if you’re doing in-store events or/and zoom meetups by invitation only for demonstrating new tea ware or other products. Keep invitation lists small, to accent the exclusivity of the event. It’s better to do three small events of ten people than one large one of one hundred. You’ll be able to answer questions promptly, focus on selling, and offer the most personalized of service possible. Have one staff person for three people, if at all possible.

- Host larger events with special guests like tea book authors, tea vendors, floral artists or tabletop designers, or similar according to you style and your customers’ tastes. Charge an “event ticket fee” that includes a premium such as the author’s book, rare teas or teaware, exclusive tea table linens or other luxury item. This not only generates money up front, it weeds out the lookie-loo so you can concentrate on buyers.

- Accept special orders whenever you can.

- Always ask what else you can do either verbally or with a sign near the pay station. You never know what small or large item customers would love like decorative sugar cubes or 50-cup urns.

Make Your Sales Floor Shout ABUNDANCE Artfully.

- Mix low-priced items with high-end, so that your displays make buying easy, no matter what their budget is.

- Support local artists by dedicating space for a mini gallery. This distracts from smaller inventory, provides an interesting display, and you can arrange a commission for any art, textiles, jewelry, or ceramics sold while community residents.

- Add an antique corner to display high-end teacups and teapots, collectible books, fine antique linens, or other unusual entertaining and tea-related items. These make for a fun way for sales staff to open up a conversation with customers, sharing the provenance of these items, and steering customers to teas that match the importance of their “new” antique item.

- Cross-market with local stores to sell their merchandise (bakeries, tabletop shops, fresh fruits) to create a sense of abundance.

- Put product boxes next to actual products to fill up temporarily-empty shelves

- Clean and tidy invite sales. Dust! Dust! Dust!

- Organize and keep everything organized. No one, staff or customer, should have to hunt for anything in the store

- Get rid of clutter and think “display.” Do it as artfully as possible, using themes as appropriate.

- If you need to cut back on purchases, put EVERYTHING you have on display. Neatly.

Outreach to the Community

These are no cost or low cost ways to keep your business name “out there” and have it connected with your generosity and community involvement.

-If you have room, or can use an outdoor space elsewhere, host open mics for poetry readings or music with members of the community. Contact local literature departments of community colleges, poetry societies, or place a notice on your newsletter to invite writers and musicians and market the event to the public. These can be free or you can help sell the books or CDs of participating entertainers and, of course, sell tea and/or serve tea and sweets.

- Stage a contest for “Best Poem” or “Best Poster” that relates to your community. Print up broadsides of the poems or prints of the posters and offer them for sale. Post them in your window announcing when the next contest will be and to draw sales.

- Donate teabags to homeless shelters or nursing homes. Join with a group of teens to host tea and scones for a modest charge at the venues. The residents will love the company, and the opportunity to chat with them.

- Encourage staff to choose one local community charity for your business to support. That could be food fairs, 10k runs, blood drives, or events for children. Display flyers or posters your windows to promote them.