You're talking about providing a service no other shop in your area does. You might consider charging a one time fee of $25 (or so) for up to three comparison sessions (or so), including coffee; and deducting the fee from any eventual purchase.

At the end of the day though, it's probably better if you just eat the cost of the coffee. I learned about good machines when buying my first, and most of what I learned came from Pasquini in Los Angeles (twenty plus years ago). They invested a few of hours in me, and countless shots as well. While they didn't (and don't) have a huge range of machines, they didn't charge me for the instruction and samples.

You might say salesman time and free samples are a cost of doing business. Balancing the books to the nearest penny everyday isn't necessarily the best path to success.

BDL

My thought was to charge for a 1/4 lb or 1/2 lb of beans for the session, but of course if they buy a machine I would credit that amount back to them. Remember, it's very low margins here for me so I'm not really doing for the "profit" but I don't want to loose money AND waste time.

Nuprin wrote:Remember, it's very low margins here for me so I'm not really doing for the "profit" ....

Then my advice would be not to do it at all. If you are like most shop owners, you already put in tremendous hours. Why add a new distraction, when so many productive things are already demanding your time (or should be)?

Your plan sounds good to me. Paying for a 1/4 lb - 1/2 lb of beans to get to test drive a nice machine seems like a deal to me. Some people will object, but I would imagine most would be happy to buy them (or to bring their own if you liked that option better).

I would guess that with items this expensive it will be even less than 25% that end up truly being potential customers, but that may just be because I like to suffer over these kinds of choices myself for a long time.

Marshall wrote:Then my advice would be not to do it at all. If you are like most shop owners, you already put in tremendous hours. Why add a new distraction, when so many productive things are already demanding your time (or should be)?

Well, the point of this is to promote good espresso. I made a whole lot more money and worked a whole lot less hours when I left my corporate job. I do this because it's something I enjoy but at the same time I don't want to loose money doing it. Also, I'm not a high volume shop because I'm not in a great location with lots of traffic but this is a possible way to increase traffic to the store.

I already have a Braratza Virtuoso and Vario on hand. Planning on add the Maestro and Preciso to the line up as well as the Compak K3 touch. The K10, Robur and Quamar M80 are the shop's grinders. If someone knows of a better drip/press grinder at the same price as the Maestro, let me know.

Just in the past week, as I've been talking to regulars and non regulars about what's being added to the store, I didn't realize how many of them had Krups, Gaggia, Delongi, Breville...the usual suspects at malls and chain stores with really crappy grinders of course. So I think I'll be able to convince them to upgrade their grinders first and then go from there on the espresso machine.

Again, this is the fun part of opening a shop. It's about getting people excited about great espresso. Plus I'm 20 minutes away from Counter Culture Coffee HQ.

Most of the Coffee Shop owners in the Triangle area here did not start out as HBs. For the most part, they are rich property owners or artists or business people who just wanted to just have a coffee house (mostly romantic ideals) that hire a manager and some high school/college kids who have no clue what they're doing. Yes, some are roasters but they can't do that well either.

Mostly, they don't give a crap about quality or pursuit of anything great or most frustrating to me, nothing ever consistently good. BUT because they have money, they get the best locations and the most traffic so they're making money and life is good.

Sorry for the rant, I think the Steve Jobs biography I read is affecting me. However, I am passionate about coffee and there's nothing more satisfying than helping people realize what all of us enjoy here and why it makes our existence better