Site-Wide Activity Forums Tea Conversations Why you should be selling tea online

19 replies, 8 voices Last updated by riccaicedo 11 years, 5 months ago
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    • #8423

      peter
      Keymaster
      @peter

      Did some research about the volume of interest online about buying tea online. Using Google Trends, it is possible to track the historical interest in keyword searches. It’s pretty powerful tool and provides a nice visual of the information.

      The below graphs compare two searches, buy tea online and buy coffee online. While there are interesting things to infer from the comparison of the two searches, the more interesting aspect of this is the increasing demand for it.

      I would think that if you need convincing to be inspired about starting up a small online tea business, then this is the sort of thing that would help. The chart shows several years of increasing demand for buying tea online worldwide, however, the second chart shows the US searches for the same keywords. While there are some interesting dips and peaks in the US result, the overall number of requests is increasing.

      Move your mouse over the charts to see the details.

    • #8431

      Gingko
      Participant
      @gingkoseto

      *Very interesting!

      I’ve got quite a few people asking me when I’m going to have a bricks and mortar store. But so far I’ve never had such intention. It would be too expensive and involving too much dish washing type of work. My ideal tea business is let tea be the major business cost and let tea cost be the major component of prices (both are rare in business practice). So it sounds pretty much like an online business 🙂

      I buy my coffee online too, and it’s by an American dealer who gets the coffee directly from a plantation in Guatemala. 

    • #8433

      Xavier
      Participant
      @xavier

      Looking for is one thing. Really buying it is another one.

    • #8442

      ThePurrfectCup
      Participant
      @thepurrfectcup

      @Xavier make a good point. I’ve looked at loads of sites online, but buy from very few. I always end up returning to the same online retailers and hardly shop new online places. I’ll have to take some notes the next time it happens.

    • #8445

      riccaicedo
      Participant
      @riccaicedo

      Getting your new site to rank in the first page of google for important keywords is extremely hard.

      What happens is that the increased demand isn’t distributed equally. The big players will get most of it.

      Of course, you’ll never know what will happen unless you try it out.

    • #8448

      peter
      Keymaster
      @peter

      Ranking is one of the hardest parts of selling online, but I’m surprised at how much the first page of Google changes over time for the keyword in question (buy tea online). I just checked it and there are some companies I’ve never heard of. In fact some of them are outranking Adagio.

      I remember when Tony Gebley had the top spot for that keyword with his Chicago Tea Garden company. I examined his site’s code and saw what he did internally to get it and support all the external stuff that he was doing. In fact, because of the good design of his site, it took him less than a month to make the top spot. That was a position he held onto for a while.

    • #8449

      Jackie
      Keymaster
      @jackie

      @thepurrfectcup aka Courtney;  I’m with you there. I almost always buy from the same people. That’s why I don’t search “buy tea online” because I already know who I’m going to buy from. I’m assuming @xavier, that the people who type in “buy tea online” are perhaps more open to trying new companies than Courtney and I am. Mostly because they are newly interested in tea, or have moved to a new area.

    • #8450

      ThePurrfectCup
      Participant
      @thepurrfectcup

      @jackie don’t get me wrong I do try out new companies. BUT usually through a promotion offering free samples on say Steepster or if a company contacts me for a review. Even after World Tea East I would have to say there are a few companies on the web I might look out for. But generally I know what  I like and I know where to go to get it.

    • #8456

      Xavier
      Participant
      @xavier

      The big question is why type “buy tea online” rather than “tea companies”, “buying tea”, “tea online shops” or anything else?

    • #8465

      Xavier
      Participant
      @xavier

      What can we learn from that? That people are looking for tea coupons online and then tea companies?

      How would it compare to the same keywords but with coffee instead of tea?

      Any guess? 😉

    • #8466

      peter
      Keymaster
      @peter

      @xavier, let’s have a look and see what Google tells us about those keywords. The first graph below adds in your additional keywords for a US search. The second graph adds in the keyword “tea coupons”, which interestingly really skews the concept of graph and illustrates what people may be looking for.

      Graph 1

      Graph 2

      (I couldn’t get the embeds to work this time so you’ll have to follow the links)

    • #8467

      peter
      Keymaster
      @peter

      You can always try out different searches at the links above to see how things compare. I find that analysis tool intriguing. It really provides a wealth of knowledge.

    • #8470

      bram
      Participant
      @bram

        @peter *Link to second graph is incomplete.

    • #8471

      peter
      Keymaster
      @peter

      Fixed.

    • #8476

      peter
      Keymaster
      @peter

      Yes, green tea has been one of the most searched tea keywords for some time. One of issues I’ve found when researching keywords is that in the case of the tea types (green, black, etc.) they are extremely competitive. Even when the volume is high like that, its hard to get a ranking.

      I’m getting different results with your keywords from the Adwords tool. These are the results I got for monthly searches with the limiters of United States, Desktop and Laptop Devices:

      buy tea online: 12,100; High Competition

      tea coupons: 33,100; Medium Competition

      matcha: 368,000; High Comp.

      Rooibos: 201,000; Medium Comp.

      green tea: 1,830,000; Medium Comp.

      One of the questions I ask myself when I see a keyword that has a decent number of searches with low to moderate competition is, “What kind of product or service can I develop within the Tea Trade brand to reach that niche?” One of the nice things about Tea Trade being such a broad service is that I can create new websites or services as I need to to target keyword niches. My plan doesn’t always work, because I don’t always have the time to work on the projects I want, but the idea behind it is sound.

    • #8478

      Xavier
      Participant
      @xavier

      When I read this, I have two questions :

      1. what are they looking for? or rather why are they looking at it? Is it because of this health hype?

      2. I thought of that one while listening to a radio interview about Groupon China. Does it work? I mean, I am on the social media and Internet but I never look at the pop-ups, banners and all… They just annoy me.

      In other words, how do you convert these people from seekers to buyers?

    • #8479

      riccaicedo
      Participant
      @riccaicedo

      @peter, you are searching with “broad” match, which means that related keywords are also included, that’s why your results are so high. It is selected by default.

      On the google adwords keyword tool look at the left toolbar and in Match Types select “exact”. That way you’ll look only at searches with that specific keyword, nothing else.

      Also, note that the competition refers to advertiser competition in adwords. A low competition means that there is little adwords adevertisement in that niche, but it doesn’t tell you how many websites are competing there. The best way to find your competitors is just by looking at the search results on google.

      Hope that helps : ).

    • #8480

      riccaicedo
      Participant
      @riccaicedo

      @xavier, you’re right, some keywords are more “purchase oriented” such as “matcha reviews”. As you say, some people only want to learn about something (like tea’s health benefits) but that doesn’t mean that they are willing to purchase online, or at all.

      I don’t click on advertisements that often, but sometimes I’ll do. I image that there’s all sort of behaviors regarding that. In essence, if you have volume then you’ll get your clicks, that’s why traffic is important. It’s a numbers game.

      In other words, it’s best to have more traffic, and a good way to obtain it is by ranking high on many important keywords regarding your niche. However, you’ll find that it’s easier said than done.

    • #8494

      Anonymous
      Inactive
      @

      @riccaicedo, Thanks for the tip! I guess it should have been obvious, but I didn’t realize the competition levels were based on Adwords volume!

    • #8509

      riccaicedo
      Participant
      @riccaicedo

      @teacoupons, I made that mistake the first time I built a few niche websites to make some adsense revenue.

      I should have chosen keywords with high competition, that way there would always be relevant advertisements in my websites! If there’s no targeted ads google just places some random ads that have nothing to do with your topic.

      Needless to say, all of my websites failed. The only one I’m keeping makes about a dollar per month, lol. Ranking in the first page of google for good keywords is incredibly hard, or perhaps I haven’t learned how to be good at it yet :).

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