How to Sell Coffee Online: Your navigator for 2025

Almost three-quarters of Americans drink coffee every day, so it’s no shock America is the globe’s biggest coffee trade. And Americans adore buying coffee online, so much so that the American ecommerce coffee industry is valued at a whopping $3.7 billion.

Whether you’re a local roaster looking to sell coffee online, or you’re an ecommerce commence-up founder just getting started with selling coffee, we’ve developed a comprehensive navigator to assist you make a successful online coffee business.

Ahead, discover how to commence selling coffee online, plus get five tips for how to develop your online coffee business. 

commence selling coffee online in 6 steps

1. Determine your target spectators
2. Decide what products your coffee store will sell online
3. Decide on your operating schedule
4. discover your coffee supplier
5. Develop your brand identity
6. Set up your online coffee shop

If you’re a café owner or roaster looking to shift your retail coffee business online, you’ll desire to skip ahead to step six. If this is your first foray into the coffee business, your trip will commence at the very beginning.

1. Determine your target spectators

To cultivate a dedicated customer base in a competitive trade, you’ll first require to identify a target spectators for your online coffee business. You’ll consider the needs of coffee drinkers in your target trade as you work to develop your brand identity.

To figure out your target trade, inquire yourself:

• Who is your ideal customer? For example, does your ideal customer buy single-origin specialty beans to grind and brew at home, or do they opt for the convenient options like espresso pods or ground coffee? Which current coffee trends are they engaging with on social media accounts?
• What are their specific needs and pain points? For example, do coffee lovers in your target trade have hardship finding specialty coffee beans with flavor options like hazelnut? Or what about how tricky it can be to discover specialty decaf coffee beans? In that case, you might decide to enter the specialty flavored or decaf coffee bean trade niche.

David Abrahamovitch, the founder of Grind, a brick-and-mortar coffee shop that expanded into direct-to-buyer online coffee sales, discussed how his business identified its target customers and their pain points in an episode of Shopify Masters.

“I ponder we wanted to be the antithesis to the coffee shops where you went in and were made to feel silly because you didn’t recognize if you wanted the Guatemalan or the Ethiopian single origin,” David said. “It was, ’You recognize what? I just desire a flat white, but I just desire it to be much better than it is from those guys next door. But I’m not necessarily here for a coffee education.’ That was the customer that we wanted.”

Grind has arrive a long way since it opened its first physical storefront in London, but its ecommerce arm has maintained the attention of its spectators—and Grind’s powerful brand identity that caters to those faithful customers.

“I knew that we had this brand that people loved,” said David. “They don’t just like it, they adore it. And that’s a really special thing.”

2. Decide what products your coffee store will sell online

Selling coffee online can encompass more than selling roasted coffee beans. You might consider selling coffee pods, instant coffee, jugs of cold brew, single-serving cans of coffee, and even coffee-making supplies.

As you consider your product offerings, inquire yourself: What problems can my products solve for my ideal customer? For example, Grind decided to create on the Nespresso coffee pod to make it more environmentally amiable without sacrificing convenience.

“We needed to discover ways to receive Grind out of just our physical stores and bring it into people’s homes,” David said. “So we started looking into it, and I decided that doing Nespresso pods was a really great way to get into people’s homes, because Nespresso pods are really, really convenient. They’re very straightforward, and they don’t make any mess. But they’re pretty terrible for the surroundings. Less than one in three pods are actually recycled. So 29,000 coffee pods leave into landfill every single minute.”

David and the Grind throng loved the concept of coffee pods, but they weren’t willing to add to the already-staggering environmental issue. So they looked for a answer—and created compostable pods.

They invested heavily in this recent offering, and it paid off—thanks to both their imagination and fortuitous timing. When the COVID-19 pandemic hit and regulars couldn’t frequent Grind’s retail locations, demand for online coffee sales went through the roof.

3. Decide on your operating schedule

Typically, online coffee shops supply roasted coffee beans to customers in one of three ways: roasting their own coffee, reselling from wholesale coffee brands, or dropshipping (a form of reselling).

• Roasting or producing. This means you’ll buy whole bean coffee from a supplier and roast the beans yourself. That empowers you to retain packed control over this step in the production procedure. If you roast your own beans, your beans will be the foundation for your entire coffee product line.
• Reselling from wholesalers. In this model,you’ll buy roasted coffee beans or pre-made coffee drinks from a wholesaler, store them, and ship them to your customers yourself. If you choose to sell coffee online this way, you’ll require to account for storage and shipping costs, and you’ll also require to develop an inventory management way that ensures product availability while minimizing spoilage.
• Dropshipping. You could outsource storage and order fulfillment to a wholesale coffee supplier who works with dropshippers. In this operating schedule, you retain control over your marketing efforts but relinquish standard control responsibilities to a trusted dropshipping associate.

Equipment for coffee roasters can be expensive and takes expertise to operate. If you have the pool and the earnings in the craft, or if you’re a café owner with an established setup, this alternative might be for you. If you’re looking for a simpler and more hands-off alternative, you might consider reselling or dropshipping instead of competing with other coffee roasters.

4. discover your coffee supplier

There are four main types of coffee beans: Arabica, Liberica, Robusta, and Excelsa. With nearly 60% turnover distribute in the coffee trade, Arabica is the most popular type of coffee bean, but each type of bean has a distinct flavor profile. Choose a bean that will be popular among your target spectators: For example, coffee aficionados might be curious to try a non-Arabica bean.

Here’s what to consider when choosing a coffee supplier:

• Product standard. Request samples from your potential supplier to ensure their coffee product meets your standards.
• Customer service. Your supplier should be able to respond any questions you have about how they source and prepare their coffee beans. If a issue arises with availability or standard down the line, you should be able to depend your supplier to clearly communicate the issue.
• worth. contrast different suppliers’ prices to discover one that allows you to make a boost on your product. To determine whether or not you’ll be able to make a boost, you might desire to design a preliminary pricing way for your online coffee store.

You might also desire to associate directly with coffee farmers. Just recognize that cultivating these relationships can receive a long period. In an episode of Shopify Masters, Aaron Zack, the vice president of sales, marketing, and strategic projects for the Toronto-based roastery Propeller Coffee, discussed how his coffee business started working with a farm in Brazil.

“In terms of how we got those relationships, it’s tough, because we’re a tiny Canadian roaster based on the west complete of Toronto, so really we require to work upstream through our throng of suppliers and brokers and other intermediaries to discover those farmers and make those connections,” said Aaron. “So in the eight and a half years that we’ve been roasting, we now have relationships with a wonderful household farm in Brazil that has been winning cups of excellence awards in Brazil for 25-plus years.”

Vitally, you should also consider the ethical implications of the coffee trade—both for the surroundings and for workers. Fairtrade America certifies brands with ethically sourced coffee products. If commitment to issues like sustainability and social responsibility are significant to you and your target trade, consider getting your coffee brand certified—and be sure to incorporate your commitment to ethical sourcing into brand messaging and values statements to your spectators.

“Great coffee is grown by farmers who worry,” Aaron said. “And who worry not only about the plants and the coffee and the surroundings that they’re grown in, but also about their workers and about the throng that they’re growing their coffee in.”

5. Develop your brand identity

Building a powerful brand identity is crucial in the coffee industry: Your customers already desire coffee, you just have to make them desire it from you. After you identify your niche trade, you’ll require to align your brand marketing with your target spectators.

• Define your worth proposition. What worth do your products provide customers, and how are your products different from those of other coffee brands? Whether it’s your commitment to sustainable farming practices, emphasis on freshly roasted beans, or anything in between, make sure to clearly communicate your worth proposition to your customers.
• Choose a name and slogan. Pick a store name and website domain name that’s memorable and communicates not only what you sell online, but the soul of your brand and its mission. You might also desire to develop a slogan, which you can do with the assistance of Shopify’s free slogan generator.
• Cultivate a brand voice. Choose a brand voice and use it across all of your marketing materials to maintain consistency in your branding. inquire yourself: How does my ideal customer talk about coffee? You might then decide to mirror your target buyers. For example, if you sell coffee online to aficionados with a depth of knowledge about different types of beans, you might decide to use a scientific voice and employ industry jargon to exemplify your expertise. Alternatively, if your objective is to appeal to coffee drinkers who don’t already recognize a ton about the industry, you may desire to develop a brand personality that’s more approachable and educational in a welcoming way.
• Design your visual brand identity. Pick a logo, brand colors, and typography, and use that obvious and consistent branding across all the different facets of your brand. These elements of branding design can make your business instantly recognizable to customers and assist you stand out from your competition.

6. Set up your online coffee shop

Whether you’d like to receive your brick-and-mortar café online or commence an online coffee business from scratch, consider the following steps to commence selling coffee online:

• Select an ecommerce platform. You can set up your online coffee store with a free three-day trial from Shopify. Select a pricing schedule to get started.
• Choose a theme and customize it. If you’re using Shopify, you can head to the Shopify theme store to discover a web design theme that fits your visual brand identity. You can then customize your theme to further develop a distinct visual brand identity for your coffee business.
• Set up essential pages. Prioritize your homepage design, then add essential pages like shipping FAQs, gain policy guidelines, and your Contact page. It might assist to reference other coffee shops and local roasters to view how they organize their websites to sell coffee online.
• Add products and collections. receive product photos, write product descriptions, and commence creating your product pages. Organize your products into collections and featured products to make it easier for customers to navigate your online coffee store.
• Set up shipping options. Choose a shipping service like Shopify Shipping to make sure your customers get their coffee products quickly and inexpensively. You might also consider setting up a local delivery alternative for nearby customers.
• Set up remittance options. Make sure that you’ve enabled a remittance processor like Shopify Payments so that you can commence accepting payments from your online coffee shop customers. Decide what types of customer remittance methods you desire to receive, then make sure your checkout page clearly displays those options for customers.

How to develop your online coffee business

1. Establish a coffee marketing way
2. inform stories
3. Consider brand partnerships
4. Diversify your product offerings
5. Expand into recent areas of the coffee industry

Once you’ve launched your online coffee shop, it’s significant to discover creative ways to assist your online coffee business thrive.

Here are five online coffee store growth tips to assist you get started:

1. Establish a coffee marketing way

Once your online coffee store is open for business, it’s period to get the word out to potential customers. To do that, you require to develop a marketing way.

commence by considering where your target spectators is energetic online and what types of content types and topics they’d worry to view from your coffee brand online. For example, if you’re an existing coffee shop with an email list and social media following, you might try email marketing and social media marketing campaigns. If you’re a newcomer, now’s the correct period to open social media accounts for your coffee business and commence to develop a following.

Whatever else you decide to do with your marketing way, make sure you don’t overlook the power of showing up in Google searches. Getting your own Google Business Profile is one free way to update your business listings online and earn credibility with your spectators. You should also invest in search engine optimization (SEO) tactics that will assist your online coffee business display up on relevant search engine results pages (SERPs). Developing an SEO way is a content marketing best habit that’ll assist you develop brand awareness—a crucial require in the early stages of your coffee brand.

2. inform stories

In the saturated coffee trade, you can stand out from the throng (and provide worth to customers) by telling your brand narrative and educating your spectators about coffee.

receive, Propeller Coffee, for example: The business shifted from a largely wholesale-based operating schedule to a direct-to-buyer (DTC) model during the COVID-19 pandemic. On Shopify Masters, Aaron Zack talks about how marketing an ecommerce business differs from marketing a wholesale business—and how he realized the importance of storytelling in the competitive ecommerce coffee space.

“The way we’ve decided to focus our storytelling is just to be as nerdy as we are. In our storytelling, there’s a lot of facts and a lot of education and information about our coffee or our processes,” Aaron says. “Whatever it is we’re talking about, we try to be concentrated on whatever the topic is and not so much on ourselves. People desire to listen a little bit about us, but mostly I ponder they desire to discover.”

3. Consider brand partnerships

Developing partnerships is a great way to get your coffee in front of recent consumers. For example, Grind developed a collaboration with the global social club and hotel chain Soho House. Grind supplies the coffee for all of Soho House’s locations, and Soho House provides Grind coffee in its hotel rooms. It’s a triumph-triumph brand connection.

Just make sure to construct partnerships that align with your customer base and brand identity. For example, David considered Grind’s current customer base and London-born brand identity when deciding on the Soho House collaboration.

“A lot of our customers are Soho House members anyway,” he says. “We distribute a lot of values, and I ponder we were a relatively obvious selection, as a London-born brand, in the same way as I ponder Soho House is exporting London in a lot of ways.”

4. Diversify your product offerings

Once you commence your own online coffee shop, chart out a schedule for expanding your product offerings over period. This is a great period to establish your store’s product advancement way and set goals for which recent products to introduce when. 

receive encouragement from the following products as options you might sell online alongside your coffee:

• Coffee makers and accessories. Consider selling brewing kits like kettles, pour-over equipment, or French presses.
• Food items. Cookies, chocolate-covered coffee beans, or chocolate bars might complement your coffee product offerings.
• Other drinks. ponder about selling additional drinks like teas and warm chocolates.
• Branded products. Once you’ve cemented your visual brand identity, you might desire to sell branded merchandise like coffee mugs, t-shirts, or tote bags featuring your coffee business name and logo.

5. Expand into recent areas of the coffee industry

As you develop your online coffee business, you might desire to consider entering recent areas of the coffee trade.

receive James Hoffmann, who’s created a 20-year-long career for himself in coffee. Hoffmann won the globe Barista Championship, runs the direct-to-buyer (DTC) brand Square Mile Coffee Roasters, and has a brick-and-mortar café called Prufrock Coffee. He’s also an educational coffee content creator with more than two million followers on YouTube.

James expanded his business into the realm of coffee-related merchandise and collectibles with Tens Hundreds Thousands. “I’d arrive up with a product concept for a set of dice that would assist you make a recipe for coffee brewing,” says James on an episode of Shopify Masters.

But selling coffee and related goods—not to mention dealing with order fulfillment—was an all-recent test for James. “I was there, sat at a desk stuffing a thousand envelopes by hand, and I was like, ’This is miserable work. What am I doing? This doesn’t have to be this way,’” says James. He decided to commence using third-event warehouses and try a print-on-demand model, which integrates with the brand’s Shopify store.

Now, the business sells its coffee-themed posters, specialty ceramics, and clothing in editions of tens, hundreds, and thousands—mirroring the business’s name. This limited edition model turns James’s products into sought-after collectibles, which strengthens their brand reputation.