Best Retail Location for a Tea Shop

[Sheng]

Hi all, I'm looking into expanding our online business to brick and mortar. We're currently based in China and shipping tea worldwide, but we need an European presence. At the moment, the location is already decided to be in the Netherlands as it's easy to ship anywhere in Europe.

My question is, what sort of retail locations would be suitable? Should it be in a big city or better go for smaller cities. Should be an A location or better more remote locations? What other things should we consider when determining a suitable location?

Our business focuses on a very specific niche and only deals with high end Chinese teas. Initially we though of an A location in a big city like Amsterdam, but the issue we see is that the majority of the foot traffic won't be interested in teas that aren't that commercial. This would mean it's a waste of the expensive rent that we pay right?

Any random thoughts on this is really appreciated!

 

[Sheng]

Another thing, does anyone know a special framework of retail location decision making?

 

[paul4uk]

Hi Sheng,

Nice to meet you. Have you possibly looked into Holiday/Tourist locations? I'm not too sure with the Netherlands but where I am from (The Isle of Wight, UK) there are a few Tea/Coffee spots which are very popular with tourists/Holiday makers. Your authentic Chinese loose tea would be a great hit!

 

[Richard Moore]

What is the ratio between the new premises engaging in retail and engaging in mail order? If you're going to be sending out orders from the new site, grade A retail space wouldn't be the most cost effective way of doing it. So if you need (say) 50% of the premises for your shipping operation, that might suggest going for a cheaper location so you're not paying grade A retail prices for a shipping operation.

Regarding shop location, probably the most important thing is footfall. Even in the best choice of city, the location needs to be frequented by passers by. You'd really need to visit the location to gauge this factor. Not all areas of a city receive the same footfall, and the more footfall you receive, the less advertising you have to do.

I'd have thought most cities would have a decent population of people that would be interested in high end teas. So IMHO it wouldn't matter so much which city you choose, for me it's the size of the population that would matter most. Bear in mind populations can fluctuate seasonally, so you might want to choose somewhere that has a steady population year-round, not just (say) in the summer when full of tourists.

I don't know how rent and rates work in the Netherlands, but here in the UK business rates are a major factor in choosing a retail location.

 

[TotalWebSolutions]

Being an online business presently and 'shipping tea worldwide' presumably you ship to the Netherlands already, if you are considering this as a location for a B&M shop. Having access to the order details puts you at an advantage as to seeing where your items are shipped to (i.e. which cities or towns within a country get the highest volume of orders).

Agree that you will need to visit and research suitable locations in terms of footfall and also any competition you might have in the chosen location. Best of luck with it !