Coffee Shop Business Plan – not quit for this new brand that is about to launch in the mother city of South Africa. A rather more sophisticated and complex business model but with a simple, straightforward and enjoyable offering from a public and customer perspective. We believe this is something South Africans, business people and the virtual and home based working class with enjoy.
The Beverage Traders is a startup that was born in Cape Town by entrepreneur and retail & food expert, Michael Joubert. Joubert has over 20 years retail and food experience having worked for some of South Africa”s top retailers until recent years. Joubert is also the Co-Founder of Unique Business Plans and is permanently involved in the Property Practitioning sector.
“Hot beverages, and in particular coffee and fresh confectionery has always been one of my favourite frequent experiences, just like so many other South Africans and people across the globe. If you can afford it, who does not enjoy sitting down, catching up on some work and having some good coffee, a fresh croissant and perhaps a delicious gourmet toasties or sandwich when you start feeling peckish?” Joubert explains.
The Beverage Traders was co-founded by Joubert after years of experience in the industry and seeing an opportunity for what he calls a “global beverage experience bar”. This is a place where you can experience various blends of coffee, tea, beer and wine from across the globe. “It’s like having a slice of heaven from all the most beautiful parts around the globe”. We also decided to add a range of different confectionaries and gourmet sandwiches which we produce fresh on site. We felt we did not want to have a ”full on kitchen” that offers full meals, since the bar was created to give everyone an opportunity to experience good beverages. We also specifically wanted to offer a decent sit-and-work style offering as well inviting individuals to come and enjoy our products in either an open or semi-private seating setting.
“We knew that we might have a bit of a problem with running out of space if we allowed people to sit and catch up on some work on our free top-notch Wifi facility, so we decided to limit the connectivity offer in our open-seated (main bar and floor area), but offer a hourly, half-day or full-day visitor pass to our semi-private areas. So anyone can come in and book a seat in a semi-private area if they wish to work for longer than 30minutes. And of course, we’d hope you’d support our bar as well.”
The first bar is expected to open late 2022 in Cape Town with it’s exact location currently withheld until lease negotiations are finalised. According to Joubert The Beverage Traders are in discussions with some pretty exciting brands both locally and internationally and they expect to eventually host and sell coffee, tea, wine and beer from at least 45 countries.
Which brands can we expect to see coming to South Africa?
“Our first premium Italian Coffee has just arrived in South Africa, and we are in the stages of finalising our license with this exclusive importer very shortly. We will also be running a local team of representatives that will be putting these fantastic products on the shelves of all major retailers in South Africa, for everyone to enjoy. It’s sort of where we believe we want to create brand awareness but at the sane time being able to sustain our own brick & mortar model during it’s uptake period. Of course we expect to get to a profitable level as quickly as possible, but having over 20 years experience in this industry I understand how difficult of a market this is to enter, so we are not blind sighted by this, therefore we intend to also run a successful distribution business exclusive to our local and international “beverages of the world” suppliers and partners”.
What can we expect to find inside a The Beverage Traders bar?
“Keeping in mind we’ve built this concept for both enjoyment and business comfort. The store will obviously be offering a semi-private work space in a single-seating setting, where the customer will still be served as well. Then product wise, from an on-site consumption and buy-for-home-or-office perspective, we’ll be offering local and international coffees, teas, internationally important sweets and chocolates, international and local wine and beers. Then to top it off, we’ll be preparing fresh croissants, confectionary, cakes, tarts, quiches, sandwiches and toasted sandwiches.
Will you be franchising this business?
“It’s way too early to say, but I do not believe this model will be fully scalable into a traditional franchising model should we decide to eventually go that route, and because we’re responsible for some pretty big brand names and their products, we’d want to make sure we focus on keeping a tight grip on operations and brand management, but we are also not oblivious to the fact that we would have to grow, so we’re looking a possible futuristic joint-venture model. When the time comes, we might offer an investment opportunity to potential franchisees, but on a 50/50 split example. We believe this will allow us the opportunity to both control and manage a strict business model but also at the same tome give us enough scope to make sure the new franchisee’s properly coached and trained before we let them run the business on their own. I’ve seen way too many brand simply chasing numbers to open up as many stores as possibly possible and in the process loosing focus on long term sustainability issues. Too many times I’ve also seen way too many people loose everything, including their pensions. And although there are so many contributing factors to mention, so its not just always the franchisors fault, I still believe as a franchisor you reserve the responsibility to ensure to do the right thing, both from a moral perspective and a business perspective. It’s the franchisor’s responsibility to ensure the new jockey they onboard is firstly financially sound a d secondly, that they actually do have the stamina, aptitude and understanding of how a franchise actually works. Its one of key-core values, highlighted, in bold and underlined in our business plan, When the time comes to scale, we intend for the sake of being able to sleep at night to truly make sure to onboard the correct investors and try and avoid to the absolute best of our ability from endangering people’s pensions or livelihoods. We’ve actually adopted a ratio to net wealth margin model where potential investors would, by means of a very simple, yet highly effective formula have to prove to us that their investment into The Beverage Traders would not have a significant impact on your financial income in the event of your business failing. We intend to most certainly, for all intended purposes to make 100% sure that the JV-franchisee’s business works, but we promised ourselves that we want to do the social and moral correct thing.” Joubert explains when asked about franchising plans.
Who owns The Beverage Traders?
“At the moment it is myself and a confidential private investor / partner”.
Who prepared your business plan?
“Well, I think this one’s rather self-explanatory. Unique Business Plans is the only reputable business consultancy I’d trust and recommend to draft my business plan. They really have a fantastic team of experts and they’ve been doing this for over 14 years now. Our business model was rather difficult and we were in need of just a traditional Coffee Shop Business Plan, but the team at Unique Business Plans including their new Client Relations Executive, Charlotte Freeman was rather impressive.
Is there any current investment opportunity?
“There is, but we’re looking into a few other interested parties at the moment as well…”
For more information or if you are interested to either become a supplier, key partner or investor at The Beverage Traders, email mjoubert@thebeveragetraders.com or call Michael Joubert at +27615471240.
