What's Next for LiberTEAS

I like the idea of both sizes, since I am usually a fan of small sizes in general, if only the larger sizes were available I doubt I would buy it.

Something that Frank suggested and I think is a really good idea is to offer the small sizes for the subscription and then the larger sizes offered as the purchase size. What do you think of that idea?

As someone who has been disappointed with 52teas lately, but would be willing to give you a chance. I can not speak for the subscription – I would never do that, I would like to see both for purchase too. As a Canadian, I wouldn’t buy one package at a time (shipping is not economical). I would like to be able to pick up 4 or 5 of the smaller size to be able to give your new blending a fair chance. If I did want more of a tea that I enjoyed the larger size would be a nice option. I can only speak for myself, but that’s how I feel….
Wishing you all the best LiberTEAS :))

If small sizes were only offered for subscription I am pretty sure I would not be getting any more tea. I do not do subscriptions and I get so many teas (with the blog reviews, I get swamped) that the idea of having a massive thing of tea that I may or may not like, I just do not think I would buy it.

If I got a small size and realized I loved it, I could always buy a bigger package (assuming any was left)

I like the idea of smaller subscription sizes! That much tea delivered a month and one may be drowning in tea. I think you should do both sizes for regular orders though. That would definitely entice more customer traffic. I personally don’t like to invest in such large sizes of tea unless I am really going to be going to town with drinking it.

I would like to have both sizes offered for all of the above reasons. Best of luck and enjoy the journey of working with your daughter-how lucky you both are to have each other!!

I tend to be a budget tea buyer…. I see tea purchases as a treat and try to keep my cart not too expensive. Wanting to try different teas, I tend to love smaller sizes. I keep going back to the companies that offer the smaller sizes because of this. And as far as subscriptions, I just don’t do those. Just my two cents, and they don’t mean much…
Wishing you ALL THE BEST!!

I’m all about small samples. If I have to buy more than 1oz/25g, I probably just won’t. Even when I find something I love, I prefer not to buy more than 2oz/50g at a time.

I also don’t do subscriptions – it just doesn’t make sense for me to pay a lot for monthly shipments to Canada instead of just ordering what I want in one big order.

Best of luck!

Would carrying both sizes be much more hassle? The vast majority of online tea retailers I’m aware of offer at least two sizes for their products.

@adagio breeze: It wouldn’t be that much more of a hassle, but because the idea behind 52Teas is a new tea every week, storage becomes an issue, especially if there’s a size that isn’t selling. It doesn’t do me or the customers any good if I’m offering a 2 ounce size and nobody’s buying it.

After reading the many different comments here, I think what I’ll do is offer the 1/2 ounce ‘taster’ size in both the subscription and for individual sale, and offer a limited number of 2 ounce packages for those who might fall in love with a particular flavor and want more.

If we happen to find that the 2 ounce size simply isn’t selling, we’ll change that down the road. But, we think that offering the customers a choice is the right decision until they show us by the choices that their making that they don’t want the larger size. It seems that there is an overwhelming consensus that the smaller size is wanted.

I think having limited 2 ounce sizes is a smart idea. Besides saving your inventory space it will also encourage people to buy the larger size quickly if they purchased the sample size first and then loved the tea.

Yeah, I’d love to see both sizes for sale!

Thanks, everyone, for your input on this. It helps me out a lot. If there was a Steepster way back when I was first starting out with LiberTEAS, you guys could have helped save me from making so many mistakes. LOL

I agree. Please keep the small sizes; at this point I’m unlikely to purchase anything larger because I have too much tea. With the 2oz. bags, we were splitting them upwards of 2-3 ways anyhow, just so we wouldn’t be stuck with too much of an unfavourable blend.

Perhaps you could implement some sort of ‘prepay/preorder’ system for reblends (if you choose to do such things) where the 2 oz. size is offered at a discount (compared to the 4×0.5 oz size), and you make just enough as are desired, storing only the smaller sizes.

I’m popping in to say I think offering the samples and a limited inventory of the larger size is really smart.

I’m yet to get a tea subscription, although 52teas is the one I’m the most interested in at the moment. I quite like the idea of small bags for a smaller price, because then I would be able to drink more than just the teas in my subscription. For me flavored teas are more of a “once every few days” thing than an everyday one. I do think that being able to have an option to get larger bags if you find a tea that you want to have a stash of is an excellent idea though.

I’ve moved to smaller sizes and they seem to sell better (for my tea subscription) then offer larger sizes to non subscribers – but i only do monthly so not sure if it translates.

I would also love for you to offer both 2oz and smaller samples :)

If demand for them is there, I will probably keep on reblending. I do like Kittenna’s idea of doing a pre-sale type of thing for reblends, so I’ll probably utilize that when there’s a strong demand for something.

I’m also going to be letting one plan/cat out of the bag here. For the ‘fifth Monday’ of the quarter – most months have just 4 Mondays but in every quarter there’s a fifth Monday … instead of utilizing a unique base (like gyokuro or something like that), my plan is to have “Retro Monday.”

At the beginning of the quarter, we’ll have a poll on the website that you can go to and vote on five pre-selected flavors from past blends that Frank created. I have to admit that one of the reasons I want to do this is that I want to try some of the flavors he created before I became a customer. :)

But it’s also a chance for me to ‘remember’ some favorite flavors of the past that I enjoyed.

So, on Retro Monday, whatever tea receives the most votes is going to be the tea that I attempt to recreate. I will have Frank’s recipe book, of course, but I might try to improve upon it a little (I do this with most recipes. Especially if they call for chocolate, like chocolate chip cookies, for example. If the recipe calls for two cups of chocolate chips, I think that three cups of chocolate chips would improve this recipe.)

That’s what I plan to do with the fifth Monday is bring a blast from the past. It will be my way of celebrating the flavors that were here before and also a chance for me to explore some flavors that I haven’t been able to try yet.

I love the idea of Retro Monday – I’m really curious to see how you re-imagine those blends, and I’ve got a few ideas on which ones I’d like to see come back. (ahem, browncoats genmaiciha…)

Please do comment on the website (when we’re up and running) to let me know what teas you’d like to see for Retro Monday. The first Retro Monday will be one where I focus on black teas because there are some that I really want to try.

That sounds like a really fun idea. I’m quite looking forward to this whole endeavour!

Good luck LiberTEAS! I like the idea of Retro Monday. I too look with longing through all the blends created long ago. Also, would love a chance to try your now-famous caramel tea :) With your knowledge and tea tasting experience I am sure you will take 52Teas to new heights.

Tell me, will pricing and shipping rates stay as they are? (I’m interested in international shipping).

@ssajami: for the immediate time, we’ll probably keep the pricing in place. After the first month or two, we’ll evaluate the pricing and see if any adjustment needs to be made, and we’ll also evaluate the shipping. We want to keep the shipping as close to actual charges as possible. We don’t want to take a loss on it, obviously, but we aren’t interested in overcharging our customers for it either, so we want to take a look at it after we’ve had some time to actually see the numbers.

Also … we are probably going to be bringing back the caramel in late summer/early fall.

That hasn’t been something we’ve talked a great deal about but we are open to all ideas at this point. I’m not opposed to the idea because I love unflavored teas too.

Thank you very much for your kind words. I appreciate it. :)

You’re welcome :-)

The thing about unflavoured blends in that many companies already do them and do them well (Andrews & Dunham spring to mind as well as all the places that do single source teas like Verdant and Tea Vivre), while 52Teas’ current format is more of a unique thing. Not that one or two unflavoured teas would be amiss but I honestly don’t think it would be a major selling feature.

@Jillian: Agreed. I might come up with maybe a breakfast blend. My “LiberTEAS” breakfast blend was a ‘lightly’ flavored vanilla tea. I might consider offering my new black tea base as an unflavored thing if there’s enough demand for it. But I won’t do a lot of unflavored teas because really, I feel like our focus needs to be primarily on the flavored teas.

Later on, down the road, we might get to a point where there are certain teas that are popular enough to keep on hand on a regular basis (not just as the occasional reblend) and we might make a ‘separate’ company under the umbrella of 52Teas that offers just those popular favorites. We might consider having one or two unflavored blends under that umbrella. But that would be some time from now, because right now we need to focus on the objectives that we’ve set up for ourselves to accomplish right away.

Jillian, There’s significant competition in all sectors of the loose leaf tea business including flavored teas. LiberTeas advantage lies in her passion, significant background, experience, and numerous contacts. Add to that high-quality ingredients and first-class customer service and she should easily do as well as Butiki.

A few creamy-smooth, rich, unflavored tea blends that provide a full-mouth feel to appeal to those who prefer unflavored teas won’t change their core business and may enlarge their customer base.

A&D’s unflavored blends, while popular with Steepster members, are not the highest-rated black teas and they’re pricey.

I think that if the core business is to sell subscriptions, it makes sense to focus on mostly flavoured tea, especially with the significant competition in all sectors as looseTman says. It’s better to focus on one thing and do it well.

I love both flavoured and unflavoured, but I know some people really prefer one over the other and by mixing the two in the subscriptions, you might limit the people who want to subscribe. Offering them in the store later on though would be an excellent compromise for those who are interested in both, and I would be interested in looking there (especially if I have to pay for shipping to Canada – makes sense to order more) ! Can’t wait to see what you do!