Greg,

I live in California. Four hours is NOTHING!

Seriously, my wife and kids drove nearly 40 miles roundtrip out to the barn this morning to go riding. Then, we'll drive 40+ miles up to Carneros for a friend's July 4th barbecue, and another 25+ miles to St. Helena for dinner and fireworks at another friend's house, and then we'll drive another 60 miles to come home . . .

Bluegrod wrote:I was thinking of maybe just having a machine or two up and running and maybe a grinder or two so people can have an idea how big these are or see them in action in person.

That's fine, but what if the one or two you have up and running aren't the ones I'm interested in? I don't mean you don't carry them -- I wouldn't expect you to have a Silvia for me to try if you didn't carry them -- but what about the machines you do carry?

Now, that said, if you do drive to Chris' Coffee (straight shot down I-90; easy except in a winter blizzard), you have many more than merely one or two machines and/or grinders up and running. I wouldn't expect Chris to have (e.g.) a Vibiemme for me to "play with," anymore than I would expect Jim at 1st-Line to have an Expobar Brewtus or a Cimbali Max Hybrid.

But what if you have "a machine or two" and you also sell Machine No. 3, and that's the one I'm interested in?

Bluegrod wrote:Can you honestly say you would pay extra for parts when you could drive 20 minutes and pick them up for yourself.

Keep in mind I'm in California. I have repeatedly ordered machines, grinders, baskets, parts, cleaning supplies, and more from four vendors: Chris' Coffee in New York, 1st-Line in New Jersey, Espresso Parts in Washington, and Stefano's Espresso Care in Oregon. By doing so, I avoid sales tax (now at 9.75% where I live), and the shipping is free -- at least from Chris' Coffee and 1st-Line. So . . . if I could drive 20 minutes, I'd be paying nearly 10% more! I'll order online, thank you.

And that means that your competition in business is not limited to the stores down the street or down the interstate, but all across the country!

Also, you are now talking parts, not machines and grinders (not just machines and grinders?). Are you planning on providing parts and service? Just parts? You going to be able to advise your customers which part they need, and how it works, needs to be installed, etc.?

Again, Greg, I'm not trying to pick on you. Honest! But you need to have a solid business plan if you have any hope of success. And the best way to make sure that plan is solid (IMHO) is to have someone else critique it! The person/people who created the plan cannot see its weaknesses as easily as someone else.

Cheers,
Jason

Bluegrod wrote: ... I have the opportunity to occupy a small space in an Italian import shop ...

What sort of imports? Would the customers coming in to buy their regular wares be happy to pick up an espresso machine in addition? For instance, if the place is selling imported prosciutto and pecorino Crotonese, you may have better luck selling artisan bread than espresso machines.

Jason

I appreciate your insight and you raise several good points. My purpose of putting this out there is to get responses like that so that I can more accurately judge if I have a decent idea or not and if so then I will develop a plan to present to the owner. I would have to say that life in CA is a little different there. I can't see alot of people driving all the way across the state for machines I just think you guys have a different mindset out there and it's just a question of geographic location as to what people consider a long road trip or not. And, your right I can't have every machine made for people to look at that is why I was thinking of just the most popular items that people seem to buy on a regular basis. Chris coffee does have to charge sales tax here and shipping is only free over 50 dollars and I would like to stock alot of stuff that falls under that range so that people here could get it now without waiting.

Jim

To answer your question this shop does sell food but also all kinds of imported wares ranging anywhere from cookies to utensils. They do sell coffee stuff now but in a conversation with the owner he has gotten several requests for higher quality machines and grinders along with higher quality accessories such as knockboxes. tampers, filter baskets and portafilter handles and stuff like that which he doesn't sell as does not know where to send anyone hence my idea of putting the parts and machines there.


As far as service work that is something I need to explore and see what my options are. I have a good working knowledge of home based machines which is where I would put my concentration on but, I would imagine there are alot of issues that can be handled with a house call. Like I said this may be a crazy idea but I would like to offer a small service to people who would otherwise have to go online to get parts and I would like to offer a little customer service which in this day and age is rare. When I have to get parts from chris coffee I love dealing with them. That company is very customer oriented and will bend over backwards to help you no matter what your question is. I just want a very small version of that. I am not looking to make a living at this. This is just something I would like to do on the side to maybe earn a little extra cash and most importantly help people with what I consider to be an art form

Bluegrod wrote:As far as service work that is something I need to explore and see what my options are. I have a good working knowledge of home based machines which is where I would put my concentration on but, I would imagine there are alot of issues that can be handled with a house call. Like I said this may be a crazy idea but I would lke to offer a small service to people who would otherwise have to go online to get parts and I would like to offer a little customer service which in this day and age is rare. When I have to get parts from chris coffee I love dealing with them. That company is very customer oriented and will bend over backwards to help you no matter what your question is. I just want a very small version of that. I am not looking to make a living at this. This is just something I would like to do on the side to maybe earn a little extra cash and most importantly help people with what I consider to be an art form

I think that you will find that (sorry to heap more negativity on you), selling espresso parts to consumers is meant for people with the patience of a saint, who value their time at near-zero. It will be a frustrating and unrewarding business. You will spend an hour or more of hand-holding time for every $5 you make in profit. I'm probably being generous.

I would leave it to the big vendors, who either refuse to take phone calls for parts or have enough experience to understand what the customer means when he says, "You know, the round plastic thingy, that's over by the metal part under the tube. What kind of machine is it? It's a, you know, the one they used to sell at Target that makes lattes."

Well I must say that the responses that I have gotten here have really shocked me. Now don't get me wrong I would rather have people tell me the truth rather than blow smoke up someplace but I guess I was thinking this would be a really great idea. I think part of my problem is that I am looking at it from my perspective and what I think would work but it seems the general consensus is that people really do like to order from people they can't see. I do realize the nightmares that starting something like this may cause but I truly felt a small service type company would really work but it seems that the people that have been responding have been around this for alot longer than I have and have a much firmer grasp on how this field is. I guess people like chris really need to feel lucky as that they have a wonderful customer base and a wonderful reputation amongst people like us.

If you're willing to invest space and money as an experiment and understand that you might get nothing in return except a bunch of spare parts and it's your dream, you'll find the answer soon enough, but if you need it to make money to pay the rent, there are probably a lot better ways to make money.

I don't know if I would go so far as to say it's a dream but I really do love this hobby and if I can share any knowledge I have or help someone just starting out with some good advice and make a few bucks at the same time then that would be great.

I would e-mail Sebastian at Great Infusions. What he's done is similar to what you propose and can provide firsthand knowledge of the pitfalls.

Greetings,

Before you go into this venture be sure you have enough money set aside to live on for the next two or three years.

Cliff

HB wrote:I would e-mail Sebastian at Great Infusions. What he's done is similar to what you propose and can provide firsthand knowledge of the pitfalls.

As a customer of Great Infusions I can safely say that their business has survived and succeeded because of Internet sales and regular commercial customers. He also does a lot of equipment repairs. Something the OP is not currently equipped to do.