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Shoreditch brews up a dis-loyal community
Shoreditch brews up a dis-loyal community
February 08, 2010
Shoreditch’s bustling café society is thought to be the first place to offer customers a disloyalty card in order to drum up business for local independent baristas and reward customers for trying new places in the area.
The loyalty card is a well-established consumer psychology tool but the idea of collecting stamps from eight different coffee houses in order to gain a free coffee was dreamed up by award-winning barista Gwilym Davies to combat the homogenised high street coffee culture.
The reason behind teaming up with fellow independent coffee shops arose due to the overwhelming demand and lengthy queues at Mr Davies' shop on the back of winning the World Barista Championship.
Initially he tried suggesting nearby alternatives that he recommended on a whiteboard, something that might be the last thing a small retailer might want to do in a very competitive and cost-sensitive industry. But as a supportive gesture for fellow traders and to help satiate the increasing lust for good coffee, it still wasn’t enough and so the disloyalty card was born.
Speaking to the Evening Standard, Mr Davies' business partner, Jeremy Challender, said: “There are a lot more places opening, and as prices are the same, it seems a shame a lot of people haven’t experienced high quality coffee. It’s totally different to what you get in a high street chain.”
The partnership has seen eight independent coffee shops join in with the venture which, if successful, could see the consumption of 45,000 coffees and a new culture of using local coffee traders and award winning baristas that are passionate about the content of the cup they vend.
As a retailer, would you try a similar scheme with fellow businesses?
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Comments
Great idea.
This is one of those businesses where the smaller companies tend to have a superior product, but have suffered at the hands of the coffee giants' massive marketing budgets.
Ok, so independent coffee shops are in rude health in this part of London. But for my money, anything which encourages people to try great quality coffee is a good thing.
(As an aside, check out http://www.cosycoffeeshops.co.uk/ and London Blend on Londonist (http://londonist.com/tags/londonblend) for help tracking down these independent gems!)
Thanks for the comment John.
I think it is going to be a more prominent trend that small businesses in close proximity will 'buddy up' in order to generate more mutual business benefits.
I sense it is something that goes against the grain and natural instinct of some businesses to work hand in hand with fellow competitors but will increasingly become a necessity in order to take on the chain competition. Of course this method won’t work for all industries and is largely dependent on location. London's pockets of commerce may well be in a stronger position to take on dis-loyalty schemes with a safety in numbers approach.
Sounds like a slightly new take on traditional "clustering", where you get a number of businesses in the same industry setting up shop in the same location. All benefit from the increased trade that their joint presence brings into the area. Think of Hatton Garden with all the jewellers' shops. On another point, I wonder how long it will be before these "clusters" start using mobile apps such as Foursquare to bring people to their businesses?
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