Do sellers sell the best they can find?

Post Reply
User avatar
Bok
Vendor
Posts: 5782
Joined: Wed Oct 04, 2017 8:55 am
Location: Taiwan

Thu Nov 25, 2021 7:06 pm

I came across this article from @Sweetestdew and I think it's worth posting it here and see a few reactions on it:
https://sweetestdew.com/blogs/tea-educa ... y-can-sell

For me, I agree with some of it, but I do think the whole thing is more complicated than that. So much depends on the individual business model, the funding available in the background as overhead, the sellers skill in actually being able to get access to certain teas and so fourth.

I do have friends in the business and it is a reality that it is really hard to sell a certain quality of tea in amounts that make a living possible (this of course might fail due to factors unrelated to the tea itself).

The market for premium teas is very small, there are these people, but are they enough to sustain a business? And usually, if you willing to buy things like that you will branch out and buy not only from one source, which makes it even more difficult for the businesses. You also need to have a certain level of understanding to have enough confidence in buying a premium tea and then you might not like it.

What is sometimes the case are vendors who sell tea to get the quantities and connections to be able to get access to better teas – which they won't necessarily sell, it is purely a means of even being able to get access and buy certain premium teas. The owner of a larger well-known tea operation in the West told me that is exactly why he got into selling tea. To get better tea for himself.

Interested to hear everyone's thoughts!
User avatar
pedant
Admin
Posts: 1516
Joined: Fri Sep 29, 2017 4:35 am
Location: Chicago
Contact:

Thu Nov 25, 2021 7:47 pm

yes. i'm not a vendor, but my impression is that the situation is made worse by the fact that the sticker shock of more expensive tea doesn't support the same % markup as cheaper tea.

and then there is less demand in the first place (lower overall sales volume by mass). it's just very hard to make anything worthwhile in terms of net profit.

expensive (good) teas are basically offered as a favor to the customer.

but it's not totally without benefit... offering really nice stuff signals vendor expertise to knowledgeable customers.
DailyTX
Posts: 882
Joined: Wed Jul 03, 2019 4:43 pm
Location: United States

Thu Nov 25, 2021 9:11 pm

I am here in the west, and I mostly buy teas from Chinese vendors who are operating store front tea shops and herb shops in the west. So far, most teas I got are low to mid grade at most, but the varieties are good. My impression have been that the first few purchases, those shops would sell what’s on the shelves. If you established a relationship with the owner, they would let you poke around, and you may find something interesting. Another thing I noticed is those shops typically have a freezer next to the counter. Their highest grade of oolong/green tea are store there ;). Those teas do not have a price tag. You are at the mercy of the owner. If you know the owner and know the price of tea, the price should not be that bad. If you are in the west, good luck hunting.
User avatar
mbanu
Posts: 962
Joined: Fri May 03, 2019 3:45 pm

Thu Nov 25, 2021 10:17 pm

It's a bit of a language game, as what counts as "the best" is decided by the buyer. That means that technically sellers do sell the best tea they can find, which in turn is also the best tea they think they can sell.

Maybe a historical example would be all-tips "tribute teas". The demand began as a Royal Warrant type situation, where the tea was wanted because it was the tea popular in the Chinese imperial court. Czarist Russians loved this tea, and paid high prices for it, while Brits thought it tasted bland. So after the Czarist market collapsed, the demand for this type of tea (until recently) also collapsed.

At times in the past, the demand for orthodox byproduct tea fannings was very high because there was a belief in parts of the British market that natural fannings had less tannins in them and were therefore the higher-quality tea. So these fannings might have fetched higher prices than a whole-leaf tea. On the other hand, after tea-with-milk became the dominant way of consumption, a "thin flavoury" tea would not sell well. (This sometimes created historical articles similar to this one, by vendors who had lived through the transition and believed that the old best of plain teas was better than the new best of milk teas.)

Some teas are "Veblen goods", where the high price is actually the thing being valued. In the modern market, gift-teas are sometimes accused of being this, as the elaborate packaging and a reputation for rarity and high price flatters the receiver -- whether the tea inside is the cause is unimportant, provided the receiver enjoys it. That might not even be necessary, as sometimes someone confronted with some high-priced item they dislike will assume that they are at fault for having unsophisticated tastes. :D
Ethan Kurland
Vendor
Posts: 1026
Joined: Thu Oct 12, 2017 1:01 am
Location: Boston
Contact:

Thu Nov 25, 2021 10:53 pm

Bok wrote:
Thu Nov 25, 2021 7:06 pm
What is sometimes the case, are vendors who sell tea to get the quantities and connections to be able to get access to better teas
This seems an excellent reason to be a vendor. Someone who is not a true businessman, has almost no chance of making a living in tea business, not much chance of making enough profit to make tea a sensible sideline, little chance of attaining a positive cash flow, etc.

Buying wholesale gives that same person a good chance of finding better tea than he found as a retail customer, an easier time sampling, more pleasure.... Attaining a net profit is not necessary for that person to benefit from the business significantly. One can "profit" from his business that loses $ most years.

I imagine sellers sell the best they can find when they have enough of it for themselves, friends, & family, & have people who want to buy it. Why not?
User avatar
Bok
Vendor
Posts: 5782
Joined: Wed Oct 04, 2017 8:55 am
Location: Taiwan

Thu Nov 25, 2021 11:05 pm

Ethan Kurland wrote:
Thu Nov 25, 2021 10:53 pm
when they have enough of it for themselves, friends, & family
That is another excellent point. Many very good teas are just a little to scarce to sell them at all.
User avatar
wave_code
Posts: 575
Joined: Wed Nov 21, 2018 2:10 pm
Location: Germany

Fri Nov 26, 2021 4:21 am

I can see a bunch of factors at play in this- who is the potential customer/market, what quantity are you trying to sell, do you have a storefront or not, so on...

My sampling size of people I know personally is small, but I do notice those who seem willing to spend the most on tea are either people who do not drink at all, or those who are also very in to other fine food/drink like wine or whiskey and understand quality costs and how to avoid being fooled by marketing and trust their palette (...sometimes). For those who don't drink at all I feel like tea then serves as their fine drink - a thing they enjoy, savor, and appreciate; and if you aren't spending money on alcohol depending on how and what some people drink that frees up quite a bit of a food/enjoyment budget to go to tea.

We live in an age of cheap consumer material goods, and I think this has really shaped that people will generally pay more for something they can 'posses' and keep- something physical that lasts, can be serve as status symbol, whatever. Even within the tea world how many people do you think would be willing to spend $150 on a teapot they enjoy looking at and can keep for life vs $150 on only 50-150g of tea? And that is from the already small market segment of those who would even buy specialty tea to begin with. Or the quantity of such teas too - after years of drinking and learning I don't get surprised by seeing teas that are $1/g or well beyond compared to when I first started, but life dictates our budgets and even those of us who can appreciate such teas might not be buying them in hundreds of grams at a time, but rather 10-100g at a time or single packs of fancy oolong in addition to lower price 'everyday' teas as learning experiences or special occasion teas.

Retail would add another dimension to that too - there is always the aspect of having the super cool or fancy or rare thing in your shop for prestige purposes or to attract interest- it is for sale, even though someone might never buy it, but its there and available if someone wants it. At minimum it implies you as the vendor have a certain level of taste or something like that. The rare records behind the counter that are just slightly overpriced but already so hard to find they are out of 99% of people's collecting budgets, the insanely rare and high end vintage Italian racing bike that nobody will buy for 20 years but is there for special customers to appreciate and drool over, the bottle of wine that nobody will buy but says to customers 'yes, I can actually get my hands on this, so I can get you almost anything'.

Of course as a vendor of specialty goods you are passionate about there is also the aspect of wanting the right thing to go to the right person. @Ethan Kurland you used to work on Newbury St, right? I remember back around early 2000s there was a tea shop not to far down from Mass Ave, right? I don't remember much, maybe it was just a Harney and Sons store or something like that. I only was in there once, but I distinctly remember just looking around and overhearing as the shopkeeper was helping and ringing up a ridiculous amount of stuff for a super rich couple who clearly had not known anything about tea 20 minutes prior and were just on a spree impulse buying everything that was 'the best' that the store had to offer. The shopkeeper was talking about white tea and how one he had was very delicate and their best quality because the woman was asking for their most expensive tea, but he was pushing that they should drink these other teas and learn more first before trying it. The woman was insisting on getting a bunch of it and the shopkeeper seemed to be almost desperately trying to talk her out of it clearly not wanting to sell it to her and that she should just take what she already had chosen. I suppose it could both be that you don't want to see such tea wasted, but also if someone has no palate or knowledge they could easily come back super angry insisting you ripped them off all because they didn't know what they were actually buying.
Ethan Kurland
Vendor
Posts: 1026
Joined: Thu Oct 12, 2017 1:01 am
Location: Boston
Contact:

Fri Nov 26, 2021 10:53 am

wave_code wrote:
Fri Nov 26, 2021 4:21 am
.... Even within the tea world how many people do you think would be willing to spend $150 on a teapot they enjoy looking at ...... Ethan Kurland you used to work on Newbury St, right?
Wave code, you write about human nature or at least in the modern consumerist world. We have seen people on quests to buy the "best" to consume or to own. Sometimes what they have is not even on display & hardly ever enjoyed.

I cannot forget my friend who has a few bottles of special vodkas in his freezer that cost hundreds of dollars each, that he pours from only a few times a year to mix w/ artificially sweetened fruit drink. I've tasted that fruit drink w/o the vodka & it could not allow anything to show its special qualities because it is so overwhelmingly awful. I cannot forget someone who lives in a tiny apartment & uses much of its very limited space to store dozens of expensive yixing pots, most of which are in boxes & not on display out of their boxes. I cannot forget that a friend that I like & respect a lot loves knowing that he has several special yixing pots & lots of puerh that is ready to use; but, he almost makes no use of the aged pu & old teapots. The need for owning & having....

Not rich, I cannot indulge so much, but I get good value from the times that I do. I enjoy anticipation, the actual use of leaves & teaware, & remembering the best sessions. I also enjoy knowing that if one has not bought something very special often, he can relive the experience vividly in his memory (usually w/ pleasure) .. which I doubt those who regularly spend & spend can do. I can tell you about a fantastic meal eaten at an Indian restaurant in Tulsa, Oklahoma or a wonderful Korean meal eaten in Peoria, Illinois (these were in the mid 90s) & the only times I spent a lot of $ on a hat, & the same for a pair of sandals. I believe thatt I enjoy those 2 indulgences as much or more than Imelda Marcos & Celine Dion enjoyed collecting shoes. (Such greed! One lady was confronted by political changes; the other by enlightenment.)

Wavecode, I used to sell some silk scarves & jade jewelry to some of the shops on Newbury Street. I've been in 2 teashops there, one of which is still open & is a ridiculous place. I would never have a business there. My averaged annual earnings in my life was under US$13,000. That would be the first month's rent & security deposit for getting a place there. Not my cup of tea!
User avatar
wave_code
Posts: 575
Joined: Wed Nov 21, 2018 2:10 pm
Location: Germany

Fri Nov 26, 2021 11:21 am

@Ethan Kurland aaah gotcha- I thought at some point you had mentioned working on a shop there, maybe it was somewhere else downtown. I'm from a similar financial situation - proof that money can't buy taste :D

... getting off topic but...
Ethan Kurland wrote:
Fri Nov 26, 2021 10:53 am
a wonderful Korean meal eaten in Peoria, Illinois (these were in the mid 90s)
...that one comes as a big surprise! :lol: Although the one time I was there I did have the best root beer I've ever had from I think it was a local hot dog stand, and that several gallon jugs of it were brought home. Wonderful things can be found in the most unassuming places.
User avatar
LeoFox
Posts: 1777
Joined: Tue Sep 01, 2020 4:01 pm
Location: Washington DC

Fri Nov 26, 2021 11:41 am

Might be worth reading:
https://www.pageoftea.com/puerh-tea-business

@Ethan Kurland your post made me think of this poem by Mary Oliver:

Storage

When I moved from one house to another

there were many things I had no room for.

What does one do? I rented a storage

space. And filled it. Years passed.

Occasionally I went there and looked in,

but nothing happened, not a single

twinge of the heart.

As I grew older the things I cared

about grew fewer, but were more

important. So one day I undid the lock

and called the trash man. He took

everything.

I felt like the little donkey when

his burden is finally lifted. Things!

Burn them, burn them! Make a beautiful

fire! More room in your heart for love,

for the trees! For the birds who own

nothing– the reason they can fly.
Andrew S
Posts: 704
Joined: Sat Jan 30, 2021 8:53 pm
Location: Sydney, Australia

Fri Nov 26, 2021 7:06 pm

Thank you @Bok; interesting article, but more interesting to see what people around here think about the topic.

For my part, I think that the availability of good tea is quite a distinct issue from the way in which vendors market their teas.

High-quality is not a commodity like, say, wine or whisky. There’s no easily-tradeable market for it (as least not in the West or in the online world that I can see), it is hard to verify authenticity of an unmarked pack of leaves, and it relies upon vendors building knowledge, making relationships, and finding things that others cannot. If they keep the good ones for themselves or only exchange them with their tea-friends or family, then so be it, because they’re doing me a favour by finding the other good ones that I enjoy and that I wouldn’t be able to find alone, and they’re not a charity.

As to how vendors market themselves, I think that most online vendors would be brave to try to including just a few ‘premium’ teas alongside more ordinary ones. It is easier to do so in person when you can explain to someone what they should expect to get in return for paying 100% more for something that they treat as a daily necessity in the same sense as milk and cereal, and then judge how to guide them through once you can see their reaction to it and hear them describing their thoughts. All of that is harder online, obviously, because the vendor loses control over the dialogue and the experience (and the potential relationship), and they place themselves at the risk of getting a bad reputation because someone whose opinions shouldn’t be worth reading leaves a review or a comment online saying ‘very disappointed’ , ‘would not recommend’, ‘this tea is a rip-off’ because it’s ‘nowhere near twice as good as their normal ones, but they’re selling it for double the price’.

I also think that vendors (especially online, where they’re not around to talk to customers) make a representation (consciously or otherwise) to their customers and their potential customers by the structure of their line-up and its pricing. A vendor selling mostly affordable everyday teas is not representing themselves to be any good at finding teas at the top-end of quality; they are instead representing that they probably buy in bulk, make savings that way, and can sell you something affordable yet still decent, and better than what you'll get at a supermarket or some other generic store. If a tea vendor sells twenty cheap teas, and two rather expensive ones, then they’re not going to attract people who want the expensive ones (since they’ll be shopping with the vendors who specialise in those expensive tea), and they’ll struggle to persuade their regular customers. Potential customers will tend to think that the expensive ones are over-priced, since this is a shop that specialises in everyday teas, and you wouldn’t expect them to get good deals on rare and expensive teas that they don’t specialise in. You’d go to a specialist high-end vendor for those kinds of tea, just as you would with food, wine, clothes, and almost everything else. To paraphrase George Costanza from Seinfeld, who would order lobster from a diner? You need to be able to have a genuine dialogue reacting to your customer, and try to build trust and a long-term relationship, before you can make that kind of sale, and the online world is not well-suited to that.

On a vaguely similar topic, though, and perhaps in line with what @wave_code has said above, something that I have wondered about is, why is it that some people who are obsessed with tea are confronted by the prospect of paying, say, $10 or $20 for a single pot of excellent tea that lasts a long session and leaves a lingering impression, but have no problem paying, say, $30 or $60 for a bottle of fairly average wine for some dinner or occasion (or if you live down here, then $4 for what will often be a fairly uninspiring café latté)… It seems to me that there is a market for special-occasion teas in small sizes which hasn’t been exploited all that well.

I suppose that that is the point of those ‘8.3g’ yancha packets, and places that offer 10g or so of expensive aged teas, and I suppose that there is a mental hurdle to overcome when you can’t simply pop over to your local shop for a nice wine, and instead have to order your 8.3g of tea from overseas, online, with exchange rates, shipping fees, customs, and delays, but still, I think that both vendors and customers might want to explore that idea a bit more.

Andrew
User avatar
aet
Vendor
Posts: 409
Joined: Tue Feb 06, 2018 7:56 pm
Location: Kunming ( China )

Sat Nov 27, 2021 5:02 pm

as already mentioned here - depends on concept

1) hobby - you more likely have another full time job. As an enthusiastic tea drinker you feel like to share the best out of you could find and sell it mostly with margins which would cover you shipping fee ( from the source ) or even your share so you get tea for your self for "free". In China this concept might be also a full time ( not sure now though ) ,when you just need to sell 1 cake of your LBZ or BD and pay few months rent of your small shop.
You can guarantee 100% authenticity ( if you personally source from the place of production and have an extensive experience so not getting cheated )
You do not apply any marketing , unless you want to buy some more / other tea and have not enough cash flow at the moment. You more likely interacting / being very active on various forums like here for example ;-)


2) curated selection - small to medium size vendor. At this stage you have to have more professional attitude in sense of the business model it self. Apart of your personal selection based on taste preference ,you are also trying to make a wider selection which would be appealing to your customers. You are constantly scanning market for the products which are quality = price and with least or without marketing margin attached. You have to keep the balance between top end stuff which you keep because personal preference and prestige of the shop but need to offer other price range products in order to be interesting for wider clientele. Yet , you have to keep you standards in quality to sustain your reputation. You are focusing on how to distinguish your self from others by offering some interesting products , lower prices ( in some extend ) and creating solid trusting community ( clientele ) . Of course , finding good tea for low wholesale price with high selling potential is the bonus , but it's not your primary task.
You have more time and patience for tracking down origin of your products so can guarantee the authenticity in most of you products.
You do or don't apply marketing strategy . Really depends on you philosophy of the business you run and you get equivalent clientele to that.
You participate on forums when have time as it's your passion of sharing the knowledge without any thought of some higher cause ;-) .

3) all you can eat - as the name suggests , you source ,buy & sell whatever market / source offers based on what your cash flow allows. At this stage, you are more business orientated in matter of generating more $ . You more likely grow faster than other two as you targeting much wider clientele. You have bigger storage , some / many employees and so the expenses. Therefore your primary concern are then margin$.
When choosing the product for your shop , you think if it's appealing for your clientele and if you can sell it with interesting margin same time.
You hardly have a time and resources to track down each individual product as you can not be at 20 places at the time of the harvest , so you have to convince your clientele by " we have reliable source / trustworthy farmers etc. " claims.
Not saying all farmers are cheating , but many places with sound name do have their own ways how to make easier money.
You do not have a time to bother much with some authenticity ( legit claims ) of your products as it brings you less profit than proper marketing.
Unlike of the other two concepts , you do have to run lot's of marketing - sales, discounts, free shipping , Monday ,Friday ,Xmas sales etc. .
You need constantly fill you offer with new products because it attracts those who believe that with new product they going to discover new taste / experience...those are the best spenders.
You barrier ( bottom line ) of quality tolerance is much lower than other two as you have learned that everybody's taste preference is different and so the quality understanding , let alone the $ . In order to please everybody you can't set your self a limits ( in this case I'm talking about the bottom line because the top one would be suicidal if aiming on western clientele ) , except the very bad stuff like molded tea or something like that.
You get good and bad reviews , your task is to keep the reputation in green numbers , not bothering with those who understand the product it self too much ( those people have wider selection of where to buy ) , because they do not spend as much $ in your shop as those who don't.
You hardly participate on some forums because very busy of course , unless have to defend a reputation somewhere or feel your presence might boost the sales ( but mostly your fans will do the job for you anyway ;-) )

4) money generator - I couldn't find the adequate name for this one, but basically the category of vendors based only on platforms like Ebay , Amazon etc. Place where vendors compete for lower price not for better quality ( of course also there are some exceptions , so I mean in general ) , as that's the mainly the way customers search the products - " name and select by price from Low to High " . I'm not gonna bother to write much about this one as this is kinda clear.

I have included more info / thoughts than related to the topic as it naturally occurred with flow of writing this " expertise " of mine ;-) so please forgive me if it's too off .

And very good points here which I agree with ...Andy and Bok ..thanks for sharing your thoughts.
Ethan Kurland
Vendor
Posts: 1026
Joined: Thu Oct 12, 2017 1:01 am
Location: Boston
Contact:

Wed Apr 20, 2022 3:45 pm

I think this thread is appropriate for mentioning recent occurence.

Down to my last 3 60-gram packets of Father's Love, I decided to keep 1 for myself & sell the last 2. Recently I got a PM asking if I still had FL & I replied, "Yes, 2 packets... what's your address?,,,"

No quick response.

Last weekend had long relaxing meal w/ some friends & relatives Friday evening & then again Sunday afternoon going well into the night. (I bring & prepare teas at such gatherings.) The after-dinner tea on Friday was the medium-roasted organic (HMO) that I now drink & offer; on Sunday it was Father's Love. I did not tell people anything about either.

Both were enjoyed by all. No one said Sunday's tea was better than Friday's tea; no one noticed a difference. They did drink more FL than HMO which may mean it was better to them or FL is a better tea for drinking in large quantities. We were talking long after our meal finished, maybe we were just very thirsty.

Monday I weighed the packet of FL that I have been using. I was down to about 30 grams. I was more careful about preparation than I often am. Like many of the best teas, FL doesn't require perfect practices to brew well; however, doing my best, it seemed very special, giving me what LeoK describes better than I do.
Today I was in good form for preparation, using a white porcelain bowl to watch the leaves & color of the water for timing, remembering to look at the temperature readout on my Bonavita kettle (92C), & anticipating: all help me find utmost enjoyment.

I am not selling the last 2 packets of the FL. It won't matter to the people who never had FL because the HMO is almost the same. It does matter to me.
User avatar
LeoFox
Posts: 1777
Joined: Tue Sep 01, 2020 4:01 pm
Location: Washington DC

Wed Apr 20, 2022 9:40 pm

Here the seller talks about a top tea that he debated over whether to sell or not.

User avatar
Bok
Vendor
Posts: 5782
Joined: Wed Oct 04, 2017 8:55 am
Location: Taiwan

Wed Apr 20, 2022 10:47 pm

Sharing above average tea in limited quantities would be something best suited for people one knows will appreciate it (tea friends, recurring loyal customers), otherwise just consume for yourself... Not everyone needs to have everything.
Post Reply