Blue Team

Metropolis Coffee Company Web Analysis

1. What is the value proposition of the site? What type of e-commerce site?

Metropoliscoffee.com is the website for Metropolis Coffee Company, a father and son owned “small batch artisan roasting” company located in the north side of Chicago. “The company focuses its beliefs on creating a supreme tasting cup of coffee to its community while paying respect to the famers and the lands that provided the coffee.“ (Metropolis Coffee)

The website offers a subtle approach to showing their recognition in the coffee roasting community by providing numerous links to their awards and noteworthy write-ups in different publications via the “Metropolis in the News” link.

The website offers the value proposition that it is a local community coffee shop that provides international sourced coffee, which they roast and sell to their consumers in their local Edgewater neighborhood retail location as well as to their community of followers online. The company presents their retail location as a friendly neighborhood establishment that caters to Chicago community by establishing personal relationships while offering an inviting and relaxing ambiance for people to socialize or get work done. The company presents Metropoliscoffee.com as both a Business to Consumer (B2C) and Business to Business (B2B) website offering a variety of teas and freshly roasted coffee beans to its consumers, while offering information and training to its wholesale partners.

2. Who are their primary competitors? What is their revenue model?

The Metropolis Coffee revenue model focuses on three different aspects of their business; in store “Café”, online retail “Shop”, and business partnership “Wholesale.”

The “Café” portion of the website informs and drives customers to the retail location in Edgewater for those customers who want a place to go to relax, socialize, and get away from their home or office to work.

The “Shop” section of the website leads customers directly to all of the coffee and tea products online by promoting the individual purchases or by signing up for a coffee or tea subscription.

Lastly the “Wholesale” division of the website educates and provides information to other retails stores on how they can brew and sell Metropolis coffee in their hotels, restaurants, and other business storefront locations.

By understanding the Metropolis Coffee’s business model we can better understand their competition. Metropolis directly competes with a few Chicago based coffee roasting companies that offer roasting, a local retail location, and also an e-commerce website such as:
  • Asado Coffee: http://www.asadocoffee.com - promotes coffee sales through their ecommerce site and informs customers of their retail store location.
  • Bow Truss: http://bowtruss.com - Similar to Metropolis in that they offer online sale of their coffees through their e-commerce site, promote their two storefront locations, and also offer a wholesale division.
  • Intelligentsia Coffee: http://www.intelligentsiacoffee.com - Similar to Metropolis but on a much larger scale. They offer many storefront locations, an e-commerce section of the website to retail their coffee and a large wholesale division.
In addition to the small coffee shops they also complete directly with the national commercial companies such as:

3. How does the website integrate with other channels?

Through the use of an email newsletter and social media marketing via Facebook, Twitter, Flicker, YouTube, Instagram and their Blog, Metropolis Coffee is able to directly connect their website to their community of followers.

In addition, Metropolis Coffee also links to and promotes they are a partner and member of “Chicago Coffees and Teas, who is a direct distributor to Chicago’s fine dinning and hotel businesses.” (Chicago Coffees)

4. Who are the intended customers for the website?

Being that Metropolis Coffee Company focuses its business on both the B2B and B2C clients, the intended customer for the website is the following:
  • The artisan coffee drinking customer looking to purchase premium roasted coffee.
  • A member of the North Chicago community looking for a retail coffee shop to go to in order to meet their coffee and social interests.
  • A Chicago based food service business that wants to gather more information about partnering with the wholesale division of Metropolis Coffee Company.

5. How does the site market and advertise in order to attract consumer interest?

“Metropolis Coffee Company doesn't do any traditional advertising,” however, they do utilize the following sources: (435 Digital)
Social Media – Connecting and interacting with to their local community of followers on a regular basis.
Email Newsletter – Customers can sign up to receive updates at Metropolis Coffee Company in order to stay on top of features products and specials.
Claim their 3rd Party Review Sites (Google+, Yelp, and Urban Spoon)

6. How does the site attract different types of customers such as impulsive, patient, and analytical buyers?

The impulsive buyer is immediately greeted with the large, prominent, center focused “Shop” section that links directly to the e-commerce section of the website where they can find coffees and teas to purchase. They site also utilizes the words “Get It While You Can“ in large bold letters at the top of the “Shop” page. This gives consumers the idea there is a limited supply and that they need to order to before they run out. The “Our Picks” section, will entice the impulsive buyer to purchase simply based on the recommended pick. Lastly, the site also employs a section at the bottom of the product page that suggest other products to consider giving the impulsive buyer more options to add to their shopping cart.

The patient buyer is interested in reading product description and finding products they are interested in. They are given easy access to sort and find the products that interest them based on the Blends, Single Origin, Decaffeinated and Unroasted products.

The Analytical Buyer is similar but are more interested in the product descriptions and “product Sheets” that the site offers. The product sheets provide a full description along with the “flavor overview” that specifies the Flavor, Body and Acidity levels.

7. What types of tools and features does the site provide to enhance customer experience? Consider how the site applies web 2.0 tools and personalization.

The site integrates video in several sections of the site that give the viewer better insight into the feel and experience of being in the “Café” location as well as learning about the coffee roasting and brewing processes in the “Coffee University” section.

The site also utilizes a way for the consumer to create a personalized account, which will store shipping and billing information in order to allow for a seamless and fast checkout process. In addition, the account allows the user to manage their subscription and newsletter preferences, and review order history.

8. How does the site process order placement and payment?

The site allows for a smooth and straightforward ordering process that is consistent with other large retail e-commerce websites.
  1. The customer is given the link on the homepage that states “Shop”.
  2. Upon clicking the link the costumer is proved with the a few “Featured” and “Our Picks” items to chose from. On the left hand side of the page, the secondary navigation orders all of the coffee by categories; Blend, Single Origin, Decaffeinated, and Unroasted. The customer can select the product they think will match what they are looking for. This will load the product-listing page that gives the customer a full description of the product, available quantities and possible grind options to choose from.
  3. Once the customer makes the selection and clicks “add to cart” there is a notification message that appears at the top of the page to inform the customer the product has been added to the cart. The customer can click on the “View Cart” button provided in the message or continue shopping.
  4. Clicking on “View Cart” takes you directly to the Shopping Cart Page where you are given the options to modify the quantities of your selection, remove a selection, return to shopping, or continue to checkout.
  5. By clicking Continue to Checkout takes you to a page that asks if you are a returning user or if you would like to Checkout as a Guest.
    • Selecting to login will automatically pre-populate your preferred shipping method, address, contact information, and payment information.
    • Selecting to Checkout as a Guest will take you to the Checkout page and ask you to fill in the required contact information, shipping address, payment information. Customers can pay via Visa, Master Card, Discover, American Express or PayPal.
  6. You are then prompted to select your preferred shipping method enter a promotional code if you have one and select “Submit Order”

9. How does the site handle delivery, shipping and returns?

The website promotes that “all orders are roasted to ship in order to ensure freshness.“ “We only roast coffee Mondays through Thursday for web orders. Orders placed before 8am CST on those days will be processed and shipped that day. Orders placed before 8am CST will be pushed to the following roasting day. “(Metropolis Coffee) The website however does not state how it handles returns but they do offer an email and also phone to contact for online retail orders. Orders are packaged and shipped via USPS or FedEx. “Orders of $50 or more are shipped FedEx Ground For Free.” (Metropolis Coffee)

10. How does the site maintain customer service and support?

The website encourages contacting each division of the company based on the support you need. Web Order Information, Retail Café Information, and Wholesale Information all offer pages that provide address, phone, and email contact methods for the Metropolis Coffee Company. The website does not provide any support information such as FAQs or Self Help online beside the stated contact pages.

11. How useful is the site’s special interface feature and arrangement of content?

Metropoliscoffee.com offers a well-organized layout that focuses the content to the center of the page around each division of the company. The navigation is straightforward and the labeling of links are easily understandable. Content is organized in a clear manner allowing users to find the content or products they intend and also provide for a consistent return visit for future purposes.

12. Describe how the site provides a utilitarian and hedonic shopping experience?

The site provides a utilitarian shopping experience because it offers a simple and functional navigation that allows the customer to easy find the products they intend. The check out process also offers a simplistic step by step process and guides a user through adding a product to the shopping cart and then forward through the checkout process.

The website offers a hedonic shopping experience by providing thorough product descriptions that touch on the essence of the coffees being offered which elicits the emotional side of the shopping experience.

13. What are some possible improvements or enhancements you would recommend in order to improve customer loyalty?

One possible improvement would be to allow consumers to post reviews and ratings directly on each product listing. This will entice other users to read the reviews and take these posts into consideration when purchasing. This will promote the emotional or hedonic shopping experience as well as the analytical shopper who takes rating and review seriously before they decide to buy.

Secondly, I feel the site needs more information surrounding Customer Satisfaction, Order policies, and Shipping Policies. As I stated above, Metropolis Coffee does not state if or how they handle return orders. A FAQ would be highly beneficial to offering customers more information up front.

References:

Metropolis Coffee. Metropolis Coffee Company, n.d. Web. 25 Sept. 2013. <www.metropoliscoffee.com>.

Asado Coffee. Asado Coffee Company, 2013. Web. 25 Sept. 2013. <www.asadocoffee.com>.

Bow Truss Coffee Roasters. Bow Truss, N.d. Web. 25 Sept. 2013. <www.bowtruss.com>.

Intelligentsia Coffee. Intelligentsia Coffee and Tea Inc., 2011. Web. 25 Sept. 2013. <www.intelligentsiacoffee.com>.

Chicago Coffees. Chicago Coffees and Teas, N.d. Web. 25 Sept. 2013. <www.chicagocoffees.com>.

"435 Digital." 435 Digital Blog. 435 Digital. A Tribune Company, 11 Jan. 2011. Web. 25 Sept. 2013. <http://435digital.com/blog/2011/01/11/the-social-media-marketing-strategy-of-metropolis-coffee-co/>.