Update: Last week we told all our wholesale customers that we are converting to a subscription model. They were all good with it.
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Starting this week, we’re offering to allow our customers to only pay for what they sell (so they can’t lose money).
Why?
In our conversations with prospects, customers, and advisors, it seems like:
Existing client coffee shops are afraid of ordering the wrong amount. If they order the wrong amount and don’t sell everything, they could lose money
Prospects are hesitant to start carrying us because they don’t know if they can do so profitably.
How It Works
As an extension of our subscription plan, we’re trialing a “no loss” promise: Only pay for what you sell.
Coffee shops tell us how many units they sold
We only charge them for what they sold
We automatically recommend their next order volumes, based on what they sold (and just send it to them if they don’t confirm or modify)
Why We Think It’s A Good Idea
It removes:
Risk/concern about losing money for potential customers
Anxiety of ordering the wrong amount for existing customers
The step of even thinking about how much to order
Additionally:
For us, it helps us have confidence that our coffee shops are going to order again, so it helps us with production stability/predictability (which is important to us right now as we’re getting started)
It aligns our incentives, because now they want to move more product and feel more comfortable trying to take that risk.
We hope that prospects who were on the fence start converting to customers.