Latest / Best of Business / Jarrod Strong: Eva's Garage director on the café launching a new coffee subscription service

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Jarrod Strong: Eva's Garage director on the café launching a new coffee subscription service · Best of Business

• 0:09
  Speaker 1: You're listening to a podcast from News Talks Be follow
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: this and our wide range of podcasts now on iHeartRadio.
• 0:16
  Speaker 2: A new Wellington cafe is hoping its subscription coffee offer
• 0:20
  Speaker 2: will be the key to finding its feet in a
• 0:22
  Speaker 2: tough hospitality environment. Two months and this is Jared Strong
• 0:26
  Speaker 2: of Eva's Garage seees things are going pretty well, and
• 0:30
  Speaker 2: Jared joins us on the line now, Jared, good, afternoon kidder.
• 0:34
  Speaker 3: Guys.
• 0:34
  Speaker 4: How are we very good? How does it work? Jared?
• 0:37
  Speaker 4: Is it a card a name or do you know
• 0:39
  Speaker 4: your subscribers by face?
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  Speaker 3: Well, hopefully there's going to be too many to know
• 0:44
  Speaker 3: them by faith. Our breath of team's very good at
• 0:48
  Speaker 3: learning and getting to know everyone. No, it's a digital
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  Speaker 3: token that we're issuing to the people that sign on,
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  Speaker 3: and so yeah, they just come and show their token
• 1:01
  Speaker 3: and get their coffee.
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  Speaker 4: How many people have signed on so far?
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  Speaker 3: We only launched on on Friday, so it was what
• 1:11
  Speaker 3: was only on our social media. Then we got a
• 1:13
  Speaker 3: few over the weekend and then it's hit the news
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  Speaker 3: today and our poor website is getting absolutely well.
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  Speaker 4: Hopefully we can help with that a little bit more.
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  Speaker 3: So Yeah, yeah, yeah, no, anything.
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  Speaker 4: Help yeah, so it's it's seventy dollars a month for
• 1:27
  Speaker 4: unlimited coffees. But it can't be completely unlimited, right, What
• 1:31
  Speaker 4: if a workplace got one subscription and someone's coming in
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  Speaker 4: every day and grabbing ten coffees and taking them back
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  Speaker 4: to work. You must have some restrictions on it.
• 1:38
  Speaker 3: Yeah. No, So it's for an individual. So it's unlimited
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  Speaker 3: coffees for that person. They can come and they can
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  Speaker 3: get their their one coffee and take it away. They
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  Speaker 3: can come back and forth as many times as they
• 1:50
  Speaker 3: like throughout the day. But you know it's for that
• 1:53
  Speaker 3: one person to consume, and you know they have to person.
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  Speaker 4: But they have to come in and out the door,
• 2:01
  Speaker 4: so they can can they can they sit at the
• 2:02
  Speaker 4: table and just have coffee if they have to leave
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  Speaker 4: and then re enter it.
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  Speaker 3: The idea is that they leave and reenter. We've we've
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  Speaker 3: sort of modeled the way that it works off our
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  Speaker 3: off our regulars. We've had an amazing amount of support.
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  Speaker 3: We've had customers that have come on our very first
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  Speaker 3: day two months ago today actually and have come every
• 2:23
  Speaker 3: single day since. So we've sort of designed it around
• 2:26
  Speaker 3: them and how they consume their coffees. And and and
• 2:31
  Speaker 3: consume you know, the services that we provide throughout our store.
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  Speaker 3: So yeah, it's sort of built around our most people
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  Speaker 3: and our community already.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, and so at this stage it sounds like you've
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  Speaker 2: had a great response to this offer. Are you hoping
• 2:46
  Speaker 2: that's going to continue going forward and you're going to
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  Speaker 2: make some good money off this and get more people
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  Speaker 2: through the door.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, that's that's sort of the idea we we When
• 2:55
  Speaker 3: we opened, we had, like I say, we had these
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  Speaker 3: regulars quite quickly and and they were asking about you know,
• 3:01
  Speaker 3: coffee cards and things in the past that or that
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  Speaker 3: still exists around We Yeah, I always end up with
• 3:10
  Speaker 3: cards for Africa and none of them ever filled in.
• 3:14
  Speaker 3: They're all half halfway done. So we didn't want to
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  Speaker 3: do something like that. We looked around and thought about
• 3:19
  Speaker 3: other options, and this is sort of what we've what
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  Speaker 3: we've landed on. We've got a couple of different tiers.
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  Speaker 3: So there's a fifteen dollar a month one that does
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  Speaker 3: half priced coffees, and then a thirty dollars a month
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  Speaker 3: one which does two dollar coffee. So there's a bit
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  Speaker 3: of a range for people. But yeah, the idea is
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  Speaker 3: that it will help you build that community, get people
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  Speaker 3: into our store, get people that are on the subscription
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  Speaker 3: to you know, bring friends with them, who who are
• 3:44
  Speaker 3: going to you know, just be there the once because
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  Speaker 3: they live elsewhere or work elsewhere or whatever. And we're
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  Speaker 3: not just a cafe either. We've got a florist, a
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  Speaker 3: gift store, and a barber shop and Eva's Garage too,
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  Speaker 3: So all of our subscribers get they get ten percent
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  Speaker 3: off everything else store wide. So it's just about building
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  Speaker 3: that whole whole community. And the success will be in
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  Speaker 3: the success of all of it, not not in the
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  Speaker 3: coffee it's off as such. So yeah, yeah, it's just
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  Speaker 3: about about building that whole that whole community.
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  Speaker 4: Really love it. We're talking to Jared Strong of Eva's
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  Speaker 4: Garage because I was going to ask you that. So
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  Speaker 4: in a way, it's kind of a lost leave, lost leader,
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  Speaker 4: because it seems to me you've underpriced it. It seems
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  Speaker 4: to me a coffee a day for a month would
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  Speaker 4: be at least one hundred and fifty dollars with yep.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, and that's yeah. Like I say, we've we've sort
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  Speaker 3: of built it off and priced it off. The habits
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  Speaker 3: of our alv our regulars and and certainly we want
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  Speaker 3: to make sure that it's it's you know, a cost
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  Speaker 3: benefit to them. Otherwise why would they do it? Right?
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  Speaker 3: So there there isn't as much margin left as they
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  Speaker 3: could be, or as there is on a normal coffee,
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  Speaker 3: but we have tried to make sure that it's not
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  Speaker 3: going to go too far the other way, and that's
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  Speaker 3: why the caveats are there of you know, so you
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  Speaker 3: can't just sign up once and take your ten coffees
• 5:00
  Speaker 3: up to your workmates upstairs or anything like that. But yeah,
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  Speaker 3: as I say, there's also the other things within our
• 5:07
  Speaker 3: business as well. So yeah, you know, people people bring
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  Speaker 3: other people, people need to you know, buy some flowers
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  Speaker 3: for an anniversary on their way home and get their haircut,
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  Speaker 3: or you know, gifts and bits and pieces as well.
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  Speaker 3: So yeah, it's about the whole thing and how it
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  Speaker 3: all works together. And people love coffee, so that's a
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  Speaker 3: good place to start.
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  Speaker 4: Will you shame people that take the purse within the rules?
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  Speaker 3: Yeah? Yeah, well you get to know them pretty good, right, Yeah,
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  Speaker 3: just a little bit of a ray, be a little
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  Speaker 3: bit a little bit more lenient on when you've got
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  Speaker 3: good relationships with people.
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  Speaker 4: Yeah, Jared, what's the market like out there at the moment,
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  Speaker 4: you know, you're in Wellington, but there's there's challenges across
• 5:45
  Speaker 4: the whole country in the hospital industry. Do you have
• 5:47
  Speaker 4: to be innovative to succeed these days?
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, I think so. I mean, we we're in quite
• 5:55
  Speaker 3: a unique spot down here in Wellington in the Hannahs
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  Speaker 3: Lane Way. We have been running a hotel next door
• 6:02
  Speaker 3: for a couple of years and and that's sort of
• 6:05
  Speaker 3: a little bit easier to break sort of out into
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  Speaker 3: the market. With the likes of you know, online travel
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  Speaker 3: agencies and and things like that, people can find you
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  Speaker 3: a lot easier. We get some good foot traffic, but
• 6:17
  Speaker 3: you know, thinking outside the box and trying to do
• 6:21
  Speaker 3: things a little bit differently certainly helps. I mean, you
• 6:26
  Speaker 3: don't get the opportunity to talk to you guys about
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  Speaker 3: coffee if you're just doing what everyone else is doing, right,
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  Speaker 3: And that's the that's the thing. It is tough out there.
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  Speaker 3: Prices are going up for you know, everything that we do.
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  Speaker 3: But at the end of the day, it's all about
• 6:40
  Speaker 3: people and people are you know, the center of our business.
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  Speaker 3: So if we can help them, they help us. And
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  Speaker 3: that's sort of yeah, how we've tried to model the
• 6:51
  Speaker 3: whole whole thing.
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  Speaker 4: Oh good on you, Jared. And this chat is only
• 6:54
  Speaker 4: going to cost you two subscriptions, one.
• 6:58
  Speaker 2: For tild and you can take the perce with us.
• 7:00
  Speaker 4: We don't mind, that's all right.
• 7:02
  Speaker 3: I'm sure you guys. You're based in Auckland, so struggle.
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  Speaker 2: To Yeah, great stuff, Jared. Hey, thanks for having a
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  Speaker 2: chat with us, and all the beast will check in
• 7:12
  Speaker 2: with you in a couple of months time.
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  Speaker 3: Awesome, Thank you guys, appreciate it.
• 7:16
  Speaker 2: That is Jared Strong from Eva's Garage and by all accounts,
• 7:21
  Speaker 2: in the early day stages two months in working really well.
• 7:24
  Speaker 2: The subscription service getting people through the.
• 7:26
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• 7:29
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• 7:32
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