| As a coffee person, there's not _nearly_ enough information about the coffee. If I were considering your subscription service you'd be competing with places like: http://fourbarrelcoffee.com/product-category/coffees/ http://ritual.myshopify.com/ https://bluebottlecoffee.com/at-home https://www.sightglasscoffee.com/store I've got no idea who roasted your coffee - if they're a "premier roaster" tell me who they are! If you can't or wont, then you're missing a lot of what I need to know to buy coffee. (I'm _way_ off the spectrum this way, but it's been years since I bought coffee that was roasted by someone I wasn't on a first name basis with...) Unfortunately the words "fair trade" and "organic" on their own are a turn off for many serious coffee people - "fair trade" in particular is widely considered to be a trademark owned by rentseeking marketers that does little to benefit producers (and I don't know about the US, but of you use the words "fair trade" in your marketing without the blessing of the Fair Trade(tm) organisation in Australia, you should expect a nastygram from their lawyers fairly promptly). Compare your description of "Mexican Fair Trade Organic light roast" with any of Four Barrel's coffee descriptions - they know how to market to "coffee people". If I care enough about coffee to subscribe to a delivery, I probably want to know more about it that what's written on the side of a Folgers can... Critically, you're priced fairly high compared to your much more coffee-credible competition - even if I were writing off the 10% you're donating to charity, I can still buy beans from any of those four directly at lower than 90% of your pricing. Four Barrel's house blend (which to be honest, you're unlikely to be able to match quality-wise) is only $17 for 12oz without a subscription commitment. And final point - and I'm on less certain ground here, I think you're also way too short on information about the cause as well. I suspect if you compare the brief information you have for the Muira Village Health Center Project to "leading charity websites" you'll come up short in very similar ways. (Cold hard truths follow here - as constructive criticism of what you're showing us not a personal attack...) Your site seems to not know enough about either coffee or charity to be credible. The numbers in my head seem to say you're skimming 3 or 4 dollars per delivery to get me to buy coffee of unknown provenience and quality from you at top dollar, trying to justify that with some feel-good "donating a coupe of bucks to a cause". I'm probably not sure who your target market is (quite likely not me), but the numbers get _worse_ for you as the expectations of world-class coffee go down. If your typical buyer's usual alternative is a 2lb can of Folgers from the supermarket, it looks like you're pocketing closer to $10 per delivery. I know a business needs a business model and a margin, but I can't see anywhere you're bringing value to the transaction that makes it worth my while paying your cut. As a coffee drinker with philanthropic tendencies, there are more effective ways for me to spend my money. Good luck with it - I suspect with a _lot_ more information about the coffee, the roasting, and the charities; the outlook and value would improve, but I think you need to think very carefully about who you're targeting with this idea, and why they'd pay you instead of buying coffee from a great roaster and donating to their chosen charity. |