Posts Tagged ‘expanding’
Lessons From Starbucks: Thinking Big While Keeping it Small
Wednesday, February 13th, 2008
If your small business is growing rapidly and you have visions of multiple locations and franchises, that’s terrific. However, take a lesson from corner coffee shop turned corporate giant Starbucks, and don’t forget what made your company so popular in the first place.
Less than a month ago, after showing the weakest sales period in the company’s history, Starbucks announced that it will close 100 stores. This was shocking news considering in the 1990s the company was opening a new shop every workday - and the rapid growth continued well into the 2000s.
So what happened? Where did Starbucks go wrong?
Quite simply, Starbucks went from having a home-away-from-home feel to more of a corporate giant, selling music and Wi-Fi and putting the company’s bottom line in front of their customers. In addition, they stopped making their espressos by hand, switching to robot-like machines that make drinks with an assembly line-like feel.
Remember back when having a Starbucks in your town was something of an elite status? Now what town, rest stop, airport, Target, and Barnes & Nobel doesn’t have one? In fact, what two-block radius of any urban or suburban area isn’t armed with their own personal Starbucks? Comedian Lewis Black put it best when he said the end of the universe as we know it was in Houston, Texas, where there is indeed a Starbucks across the street from a Starbucks .
In a race to please stockholders and board members, Starbucks grew too fast. They put profits and efficiency first and lost sight of what their customers once found so darn endearing about them. Back in the day, every Starbucks store was run with the feel of an independent, local coffee shop. They sometimes had local musicians playing or weekly game nights. They had neighborhood postings on their corkboard and silly chalk drawings on their “Today’s Special” menu board. There were lots of big comfy chairs with magazines and newspapers scattered about and lots of chit chatting going on - even the baristas were fun and talkative with customers, and many even knew them by name.
Now take a walk into one of your many local Starbucks and you just won’t have that same sort of fun-loving, fuzzy-warm feeling. All those big comfy chairs? Well, you might see just one or two remaining - they needed the room for sales racks to sell CDs, iTunes gift cards and ground coffee. What about the neighborhood activities? It’s hard to cater to a neighborhood with three other Starbucks locations within walking distance of each other. With so many Starbucks to choose from, customers tended not to have a “favorite” store anymore, they just popped in whichever one was nearest when they needed a caffeine boost. As corporate pushed for efficiency, baristas had less time to chat and get to know their could-have-been-loyal customers, or even make drinks with the same quality Starbucks had become known for back in the day.
What happened to the customers?
You can bet that other coffee shop entrepreneurs learned from Starbucks’ early days and started running their own local shops like funky little coffeehouses, putting their customers and their coffee at the forefront. These local shops started to win the war against Starbucks, offering fresh roasted beans, handmade espresso drinks, and most of all an inviting and cozy atmosphere that surrounded customers with warmth and enjoyment. Just like it felt when you walked into the very first Starbucks in your town.
What growing small businesses can learn from Starbucks
If your business is doing wonderfully and you have plans to branch out and grow, it’s easy to try to streamline the processes that made your company so popular in the first place. Before you make any changes to the original framework of your company, think carefully about each. If you still believe that making a certain modification is the best thing to do, then test it first and see how the customers respond. It’s much easier to find out after a month that customers dislike the new change, then after investing thousands in making it permanent. Change can definitely be good, but change can also ruin what was once a very good thing.
Tags: advice, Carrie Hinkel, CDs, expanding, gift cards, Growing Your Business, iTunes, starbucks, strategy, tips
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Taking the Next Step: Exporting Your Goods
Monday, November 12th, 2007
So, your products have been selling so great here in the U.S. that you’re thinking about selling them in another country. That’s great! Exporting can be a terrific way to grow your business and expand your market.
Exporting can seem a bit intimidating to those who have never done it, but if you have all the information and take the time to thoroughly understand the process, you’ll find that exporting can be a fairly simple process.
Here are some basic steps to help you understand the exporting process:
Finding your overseas market - Once you’ve decided that you would like to export your products, you will need to find buyers for your products. Many exporters find that working with a foreign partner makes the most sense, since they have the buying contacts. Finding the right overseas retailers or distributors for your products may be time consuming but it’s definitely not impossible. A good place to start is on two websites that are sponsored by the U.S. Commerce Department: www.export.gov and www.buyusa.com . Both sites contain directories of foreign buyers.
Making your product ready for a foreign market - This isn’t always simple. If you are selling an electrical product, you may need to make modifications to both the voltage and adapter. Another thing to consider is whether or not your product needs to be in metric standards in order to integrate with other foreign products. Also, your instructions, warranties, product packaging and labels will need to be in that country’s language, with an easy way for foreign customers to submit warranty information.
Shipping Your Products - There is a lot of documentation involved in exporting products and many companies choose to hire a freight forwarder to take care of the shipping and prepare the paperwork. The money that you spend on a freight forwarder will many times be saved by their shipper connections and discounts. For more about freight forwarding, read our article Choosing and Using a Freight Forwarder .
Here are the documents you may need in order to ship your products overseas:
Export license - Normally, exports don’t require this license, however, there are certain categories of products which do need an export license in order to leave the U.S. They are:
* Foodstuffs and chemicals
* Agricultural products
Certificate of origin - In order to qualify for a country’s preferential tariff treatment, you will need to have this form. Many countries allow products a duty-free entrance into their country as long as you comply with their rule of origin.
Insurance certificate - This is usually required in order for your goods to be in transit. Usually the exporter pays for insurance up to the arriving port and then the shipping company provides insurance to the final delivery destination.
Bill of Lading - This is the contract between the exporter and your carrier. The carrier is typically the issuer of this document; however the terms are usually negotiable.
Airway bill - This is only needed for freight shipping via air. Again, the carrier issues it; however, this bill is typically non negotiable.
Invoice - If your goods are being shipped to a particular buyer, and not to a warehouse, then your shipment should include an invoice. This will contain exporter information, payment terms, pricing information, total quantities and the shipment’s weight.
Packing list - The packing list needs to clearly state exactly what is in the containers, the value of the products, and the weight of the products. If there is a mistake on your packing list, it may result in your shipment being delayed in customs.
If you’re a first-time exporter, it may be wise to enlist the help of a freight forwarder to help you with all the details and to make exporting even easier to you. You’ll find that once you understand the process, exporting isn’t as mystifying as you once thought.
Tags: Carrie Hinkel, Doing Business Internationally, expanding, exporting, International shipping, selling overseas
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