How to open a successful coffee shop coffee shop has replaced fast food restaurants and become the first choice for parties or killing time. In the annual entrepreneurship exhibition, cafes are always voted as the top ten entrepreneurial industries, which shows that opening cafes has a fatal attraction to many entrepreneurs. How wonderful it is to smell coffee every day, chat with guests and make money! Although liking coffee is the basic condition for becoming a coffee shop owner, after all, drinking coffee and opening a coffee shop are completely different things. "Drinking coffee is romantic and opening a coffee shop is realistic." The first lesson of coffee shop: positioning-dreaming, but also having a sense of direction. Determining the positioning of a coffee shop is the first step to successfully open a coffee shop. For example, is it a luxury cafe, a takeaway cafe or an in-seat cafe? Do you only sell coffee, or "coffee+cake" or "coffee+cake+light meal"? In addition, is it a single-store operation or a compound cafe with different industries (such as operating with a bookstore)? This was all planned from the beginning. The management orientation of the cafe determines the capital, personnel, menu, location and even the design and decoration of the storefront; First determine the business direction, and then plan other details. On the contrary, many shopkeepers often decide on the design, decoration and location first, and then consider what kind of coffee shop to open. For example, "I really want to open a coffee shop full of Provence." Their brains are focused on how to decorate the Provencal style, which is the most common and fatal mistake of coffee shop owners. Coffee shop lesson 2: financial planning-opening a shop, abacus should be accurate. The software and hardware required for a coffee shop are as follows: 1. Menu (including coffee, cake and light meal) 2. Money-making equipment (coffee machine, oven, microwave oven, gas stove, milk shake machine, refrigerator, freezer, etc.). Hardware equipment (air conditioning, lighting equipment, etc.). 4. If you just want to open a "coffee+cake" cafe at first, the bar design is relatively simple; However, if you find that you can't maintain your operation like this after opening, you will find that there may be no room for smoothies at the bar when you want to add smoothies. In case of adding a light meal and not planning the kitchen at the beginning, the problem will be even bigger, and even some parts need to be renovated, which is not a small expense. So at the beginning of your business, you must think clearly about the items sold in the cafe. The decoration budget is the easiest to get out of control. The following expenses must be included in the fund planning of cafes: 1. Money-making equipment Hardware device 3. Vessel 4. Design and decoration. Rent (first month rent +3 months deposit = 4 months rent) 6. Raw materials. Personnel expenses (such as the salary of timekeepers) 8. Miscellaneous expenses (utilities) 9. A reserve fund that can maintain the deficit operation of the cafe for at least 5 months. As for the rent, it is variable when it comes to the choice of lots. "Why do we always warn entrepreneurs not to start with design and decoration when opening a store? Because experience tells us that when many entrepreneurs have millions of cash, the first thing they do is to find a design and decoration company. At that time, they had abundant funds. In order to build their dream cafe, the decoration budget often increases. Obviously, when the budget is only 200 thousand, they often spend 500 thousand when they finish it. After deducting the four-month rent and deposit paid to the landlord, there is not much left. As long as there is a little trouble, the cafe is likely to be unsustainable, either closing the store or letting go. Every penny is spent on the blade. " Some people are willing to buy chairs made in 500 yuan to decorate cafes, but others buy second-hand chairs made in 50 yuan, and the effect is just as good after adding a chair cover. "Coffee brewing equipment and bar are the core of the whole cafe." In fact, a good two-hole or three-hole espresso machine costs tens of thousands to hundreds of thousands of yuan, which is enough to meet the guests of a large cafe with a square area of 150. Never ignore the after-sales service of coffee machine. His experience is that if the espresso machine breaks down and the supplier can't come and fix the machine within 4 hours, then the coffee machine is useless, "because there is no need to do business all day! In fact, the design and decoration are very flexible, so we should adjust measures to local conditions and not invest too much. As for the pure takeaway cafe, the decoration is even simpler. As long as the bar is well designed, others can hardly spend any money. Coffee shop lesson 3: major-nothing is possible without technology. Since it is a coffee shop, the quality of coffee beans and the technology of brewing coffee are the key to determine the customer's return rate. People in China like the new and hate the old in restaurant decoration. The decoration of a shop may be out of date after three years. If you just want to win with the decoration atmosphere, maybe the media effect will bring crowds at first, but what can a bad coffee shop rely on after the heat goes down? It is suggested that since you are interested in opening a coffee shop, it is best for entrepreneurs to take charge of the bar at the beginning of opening the shop, and invite 2 ~ 3 full-time or part-time work-study students in the field, which is enough to cope with the daily operation of the coffee shop. This not only saves the staff cost, but also can make coffee by hand, and also avoids the situation that the quality of coffee will be different in case the bar staff leaves their jobs and the manpower is green and yellow. How much do you know about the characteristics of coffee beans? Many people don't even know how to make coffee before opening a shop. Before opening a shop, they must spend more time tasting other coffee beans from all over the world. Besides training their sense of taste, they can also study the quality and taste of different coffee beans, find out their favorite coffee beans, or bake their own coffee beans. It takes time to cultivate experience. There are many importers and sellers of coffee beans in China, so it is not difficult to understand coffee beans, because you can surf the Internet more or consult people in the industry, and bean merchants or coffee machine suppliers have offered relevant courses. In addition, we should read more books on coffee and listen to related activities, because the threshold of cafes is not high and the competition is becoming more and more fierce. Only making quality coffee is the only way out. Lesson 4 of coffee shop: location-don't be superstitious about the prime location. Many people think that the key to the success of opening a store is "location, location, location". As long as you open a shop in a prime location, you are sure to win. In fact, this statement is only half right. Usually we use Grade A, Grade B and Grade C to distinguish commercial areas. For A-level prime locations, either the rent is too high or there is no market, which is why shops in prime locations usually sell products with high unit prices. Many gold storefronts in first-class war zones have a monthly rent of at least 10,000 yuan. How many cups do I have to sell a day to split the rent? This does not include personnel costs and equipment depreciation. In fact, as long as it is properly managed, B-level and C-level lots can also have the spring of cafes. Only a stone's throw away, entrepreneurs with huge rents have to spend every penny on the cutting edge. The store rent on the main road costs tens of thousands of yuan a month, but if it is in an alley only ten meters away from the road, customers won't mind walking a few more steps, and the rent may vary greatly. The lot can be divided into department stores, office areas, commercial areas, cultural and educational areas, entertainment areas, residential areas, traffic transfer areas and so on. And you can deeply observe the daily activities and people flow in this area and analyze the success rate of running cafes in this area. Every place has a different way of working and sleeping, and people gather at different times. If the coffee shop is located in the office area, noon is the most important business hours from Monday to Friday, and you can rest on Sunday. On the other hand, if you open a shop in the entertainment area or shopping area, it is obvious that it is difficult for you to use money on weekends. The masses are not equal to Qian Chao. However, "crowd" does not necessarily mean "Qian Chao". It is suggested that entrepreneurs should spend at least one week observing the attributes and consumption patterns of local people when choosing a site. Focus on the scheduled opening place, investigate how many competitors (including chain or single-store cafes, fast food restaurants and bubble tea shops) are around 500 meters, record the number of people entering the store every day and the expected turnover, and evaluate how confident you are that if you enter this battle, you can share the cake or make it bigger. Coffee shop lesson 5: cost control-how much is a cup of coffee? Opening a shop, of course, can't lose money. But many people only know how much a cup of coffee costs, but they don't know how much. Usually, it takes1.5 ~ 20g to make a cup of coffee, and a pound of coffee can usually make 25 ~ 30 cups of coffee. The cost of creamer (or milk) and sugar required for a cup of coffee is about 1 yuan, and it also includes materials such as paper cups, facial tissues and stirring rods. The raw material cost of such a cup of coffee is roughly between 2 ~ 4 yuan. In addition, don't forget to add the cost of rent, water and electricity, depreciation of personnel and equipment, and a certain percentage of profit is the price of a cup of coffee. Many shopkeepers don't know how to set the price, so they follow suit depending on how many competitors order. However, this laziness is very dangerous. Later, I found that I couldn't make ends meet and didn't dare to raise prices. I had to switch to cheaper coffee beans, and the vicious circle began. " This is the beginning of preparing to close the store! Coffee shop lesson 6: customer training-building word of mouth is like chasing a girlfriend. Brewing takes time. A few years ago, the profit of opening a coffee shop was quite good, but with more and more competitors and the strong intervention of chain cafes, it is becoming more and more difficult to open a dream coffee shop with its own style. "As long as you are a conscientious coffee supplier, you will warn entrepreneurs not to get rich overnight by opening a coffee shop." Opening a coffee shop is a long-term venture, which is generally in the stage of burning money in the first three months. Many people hope to make themselves famous through various marketing and advertising activities before opening a store. "But don't go to the wedding on the first day of opening! Zhou Wenpei said very seriously. His reason is that the opening ceremony may not be familiar with the dynamic line of coffee making and customer service process, and some even don't know how to use the coffee machine. The more people come, the more customers complain. " As long as two or three kittens come on the first day, they can gradually get familiar with all kinds of skills and workflow, and as long as one cat is not a dumb cat, it will gradually become famous. "Since it is estimated that the crowd flow will not be too high at the beginning, it is necessary to rely on lower operating costs (of which lower rent is the most important) in exchange for time to cultivate customers. Ask yourself three questions to open a coffee shop. In addition to realizing your entrepreneurial dream, you can also make some like-minded friends. However, you must ask yourself three questions: Is the rent of the store reasonable? Are most of the funds for starting a business owned by themselves? Is opening a coffee shop your lifelong interest? If the answer to all three questions is "Yes! Then having your own dream cafe will no longer be a distant dream]