Apr 10th, '10, 15:16
Posts: 852
Joined: Mar 4th, '10, 22:07
Location: somewhere over the rainbow
Re: My experience at Teavana.
As mentioned earlier, it seems that Teavana preys on the ignorant. Last time I was in a Teavana store, they really relaxed when we struck up a conversation about different brands of mate. They abandoned their sales pitch at that point as well.
Re: My experience at Teavana.
And yet another person makes their first post in response to this thread... I ran across it looking for something else. 
I can't say my experience with Teavana was anything to write home about, good or bad. The one time I went, I went to the one in Cincinnati with my boyfriend. The salespeople left us pretty much alone, when the standard "Can I help you?" was answered with "Not at the moment." We got some of the dreaded tins (actually, the washi tins)--the salesperson found us the gift sets that were on sale at the time, so it came out cheaper in the end. Yes, she did go over the 2oz weight, but not significantly (0.1-.2 oz for all of the ones I ordered). We went in there knowing generally what we wanted, so that may have helped avoid the pitch. The only thing that left me cold was the fact that when BF asked for an oolong, she went for the Eastern Beauty, which at 18.00 for 2 oz...is stretching the budget for a college student a wee bit. They don't seem to have much in the way of unflavored oolongs, though.
As for the tea...Overpriced, but not bad, for the most part. I don't know if the significant other is enjoying his oolong, but I liked what I bought (the white Earl Grey is becoming a favorite...)
Edited because I meant to say something else and forgot because I posted at 5AM:
I've never gotten this in the store, obviously, but every tea on their website has "health benefits". No, Teavana, your product is not a cure-all. If I lose any weight while drinking tea, it's because (unlike coffee) I don't need to put a kilogram of sugar in it so I can drink it. (My Assam gets half a kilogram!
)
I can't say my experience with Teavana was anything to write home about, good or bad. The one time I went, I went to the one in Cincinnati with my boyfriend. The salespeople left us pretty much alone, when the standard "Can I help you?" was answered with "Not at the moment." We got some of the dreaded tins (actually, the washi tins)--the salesperson found us the gift sets that were on sale at the time, so it came out cheaper in the end. Yes, she did go over the 2oz weight, but not significantly (0.1-.2 oz for all of the ones I ordered). We went in there knowing generally what we wanted, so that may have helped avoid the pitch. The only thing that left me cold was the fact that when BF asked for an oolong, she went for the Eastern Beauty, which at 18.00 for 2 oz...is stretching the budget for a college student a wee bit. They don't seem to have much in the way of unflavored oolongs, though.
As for the tea...Overpriced, but not bad, for the most part. I don't know if the significant other is enjoying his oolong, but I liked what I bought (the white Earl Grey is becoming a favorite...)
Edited because I meant to say something else and forgot because I posted at 5AM:
I've never gotten this in the store, obviously, but every tea on their website has "health benefits". No, Teavana, your product is not a cure-all. If I lose any weight while drinking tea, it's because (unlike coffee) I don't need to put a kilogram of sugar in it so I can drink it. (My Assam gets half a kilogram!
)Re: My experience at Teavana.
This is unbelievably disheartening. My best friend and I were just hired at Teavana for the opening of a new store and up until I decided to do a google search for employee reviews, I was excited to begin. I am absolutely mortified by the themes that have come up again and again: lying, ignoring guest wishes, disrespecting employees and guests, rampant upselling. I've worked in retail for over five years and I wouldn't dare dream of employing/dealing with those tactics. So far from what I've seen people come from great stores with great environments, or awful stores scarcely entering 20th century employment standards.
Re: My experience at Teavana.
Well maybe there are some good stores out there that don't fall in line with the basic tactics. But now you know, so if it starts to go south, you can be prepared. Hopefully your store will be different, I hope so. Good luck to you!
Re: My experience at Teavana.
This is the first post I found after getting worked up about Teavana selling my wife $160 worth of tea and knick knacks after she went there to buy my monthly pound of Earl Grey.
Apparently, she asked for some sort of Diet Tea (which she needs only in her mind) and next thing you know she walked out $160 poorer.
I have had my own experiences at my local Teavana with the assistant manager (a portly, pushy and highly annoying fellow) trying to sell me always the most expensive item and only reluctantly offering less expensive wares. I may be anything, but I am not a push over.
This is, in Chronological order my overall experience at Teavana at the Arden Fair Mall in Sacramento:
1st time: I go in to look since I wanted to buy a gift for my wife. The Assistant manager glues himself to me like a cheap suit and pesters me until I ask him to go take care of some other customer.
He returns and overhears I was looking for a gift.
He picked the most expensive item of each class so transparently I started ignoring him out of principal. My budget was actually quite generous, but I can't stand pushy salespeople.
I end up buying a 1lb of Earl Gray with which I was quite happy, but I was given the tea in a $8 container I didn't ask for and assumed came with the tea. Not. But I realized that only much later.
2nd time: I send my wife to buy more Earl Grey with Specific instructions not to buy the Can along with it.
She comes back with 1.2 lb of earl gray and 1/4 lb of Withe and Cream Earl Gray each.
Turns out that was all the regular Earl Gray they had (which was finely crushed and rather weak in aroma since it was, litterarly, the bottom of the barrel.
The White and Cream Early Grays I hated. The White EG was tasteless and the cream EG tasted like a Popsicle.
However, except for the 2nd can, this was a minor upsell and I was not upset with them yet. One could have confused it for overly zealous customer service.
3rd time: This time they surpassed themselves. They call to tell me the Earl Grey was in. By now I have found a much better EG online from another vendor and I am quite happy with it. But, I am one for giving my business to the local whenever I can, even when they are a franchise on the theory that they have at least a local owner.
My wife goes there and she sees a "Diet tea" on display. Of course Captain "upsell" (the portly, obnoxious, chatterbox assistant manager) Immediately starts preparing the concoction and next thing she k nows she is at the cash register paying for it.
At that point, she tried mentioning that the "Diet tea" was rather expensive, but Captain Upsell started quoting a bunch of BS and pretty much sent her on her way.
Once she got home she was in tears. $160 for us is not a tremendous amount of money, but it was the whole experience that upset her. She was basically played for a fool, she was taken advantage of and dismissed summarily when she tried to complaint.
Once I went through the receipt, trying to figure out which was which proved very hard. But eventually I figured out (By comparing the items with their web store) that not only she was sold a rather expensive tea without the slightest of warning, but the guy also added 8oz of Oolong tea she never ordered along with her "diet tea" (only because she wanted to buy a diet tea didn't mean she wanted to buy "all" the diet teas in the store) and this little puppy was another $40 for something like 6oz.
Mind you: this is tea she never ordered at all. What she ordered was the Diet Tea Blend, already a paltry $48.00 for 8oz and somehow ended up with the Oolong as well.
At this point I was fuming. I know how pushy Captain Upsell can be and not everyone has the fortitude to resist a guy like that. My wife hates confrontation and they obviously thrive on taking advantage of their customers. A deadly combo.
But it is not over. I call the Teavana store and ask to speak to the manager. A chipper girl answers and tells me the manager is not in. I ask:
"Do you know when she is going to be in?"
- "Sometimes tomorrow" - is the response.
At which I ask:
"Any idea if Morning or Afternoon?"
Big pause............
"I am actually not supposed to say - tomorrow sometimes"
Not supposed to say? It's a retail store. She is a manager, not a dishwasher. Apparently, it's some sort of "privacy". Right now I suspect I am far from the only customer with "buyer remorse".
What upsets me is not so much the money. The Oolong smells like old compost, but the Diet tea smells delicious. It's their tactics that I abhor.
Where do they get off selling a tea that's easily 4 times the price of their average tea without bothering to mention how expensive it is?
And where do they get off adding items that were never ordered?
How about selling tea in a $8 in can and not mentioning that it's not just a "container" but an actual item you have to buy?
The can is an "opt out" item. If you bring it up they use a paper bag instead, but if you forget they ring it up and by then it's too late.
I really have to wonder how effective those tactics are from a sales point of view. By my calculation, I now spent $200 at Teavana.
Considering that wild horses could not take me back there to buy a bag of diet sugar for $0.10 and considering that in the next 5 years or so I will buy about $500 worth of tea (from someone else) it doesn't seem so smart to me.
Add the fact that I am a web professional (I make websites for a living and I publish several podcasts and blogs) and I'll make sure to mention a shortened form of this post every chance I have and I'll post it on every tea and E-commerce forum I frequent (and I will frequent many just for them).
In addition I will write it about it on my own e-commerce blog which is read by about 30K to 70K people a month (not hits, unique visitors).
let's say that 500 people will either stop shopping at Teavana or will be warned and wary about their tactics and shop less. My guess is that that extra $40 worth of tea they squeezed in their sale to my wife is going to cost them easily at least $1000 to $5000 in lost revenue (and hopefully a lot more). Is that smart?
One thing I have learned in working in retail and e-commerce, it never pays to pick a fight with a customer. In the era of the internet regular people have more power than they used to.
just recently, we were trying to refinance our home to get a fixed (and lower) rate. We hit a wall with the bank for a year.
Then we decided to do some.... online and telephone magic and when the bank heard about our posts and articles and the people we organized, purely online, mind you, next thing you know we got an offer to refinance at about 1/2 the rate we asked. Even banks, even this particularly evil bank was afraid of where our little ruse could lead. Teavana hasn't got a chance. I wonder if the domain name "teavanasucks.com is taken.
(Edit: It is, it resolves Teavana.com as does teavana-sucks.com - what does that tell you?)
And, by the way, on Monday I'll call the bank and reverse the charges. That done I am going to drop the Oolong on their counter and just walk away.
I think this is an evil company. I think the folks boycotting Starbucks should reconsider their aim and move on to Teavana. Say what you want about Starbucks, but their customer service is excellent and if something of theirs doesn't completely satisfy you, they'll bend backwards to correct the problem.
Instead the Teavana people treat their customers like they were cattle. A money making necessary evil.
Tomorrow I was going to go to Teavana and I was fairly sure that I would have been able to reason with the manager and get some satisfaction. Right now I am not so sure. In fact, I am positive I'll encounter a wall.
So I am going to the offensive right away:
DO NOT BUY FROM TEAVANA - They are dishonest and deceiving.
Apparently, she asked for some sort of Diet Tea (which she needs only in her mind) and next thing you know she walked out $160 poorer.
I have had my own experiences at my local Teavana with the assistant manager (a portly, pushy and highly annoying fellow) trying to sell me always the most expensive item and only reluctantly offering less expensive wares. I may be anything, but I am not a push over.
This is, in Chronological order my overall experience at Teavana at the Arden Fair Mall in Sacramento:
1st time: I go in to look since I wanted to buy a gift for my wife. The Assistant manager glues himself to me like a cheap suit and pesters me until I ask him to go take care of some other customer.
He returns and overhears I was looking for a gift.
He picked the most expensive item of each class so transparently I started ignoring him out of principal. My budget was actually quite generous, but I can't stand pushy salespeople.
I end up buying a 1lb of Earl Gray with which I was quite happy, but I was given the tea in a $8 container I didn't ask for and assumed came with the tea. Not. But I realized that only much later.
2nd time: I send my wife to buy more Earl Grey with Specific instructions not to buy the Can along with it.
She comes back with 1.2 lb of earl gray and 1/4 lb of Withe and Cream Earl Gray each.
Turns out that was all the regular Earl Gray they had (which was finely crushed and rather weak in aroma since it was, litterarly, the bottom of the barrel.
The White and Cream Early Grays I hated. The White EG was tasteless and the cream EG tasted like a Popsicle.
However, except for the 2nd can, this was a minor upsell and I was not upset with them yet. One could have confused it for overly zealous customer service.
3rd time: This time they surpassed themselves. They call to tell me the Earl Grey was in. By now I have found a much better EG online from another vendor and I am quite happy with it. But, I am one for giving my business to the local whenever I can, even when they are a franchise on the theory that they have at least a local owner.
My wife goes there and she sees a "Diet tea" on display. Of course Captain "upsell" (the portly, obnoxious, chatterbox assistant manager) Immediately starts preparing the concoction and next thing she k nows she is at the cash register paying for it.
At that point, she tried mentioning that the "Diet tea" was rather expensive, but Captain Upsell started quoting a bunch of BS and pretty much sent her on her way.
Once she got home she was in tears. $160 for us is not a tremendous amount of money, but it was the whole experience that upset her. She was basically played for a fool, she was taken advantage of and dismissed summarily when she tried to complaint.
Once I went through the receipt, trying to figure out which was which proved very hard. But eventually I figured out (By comparing the items with their web store) that not only she was sold a rather expensive tea without the slightest of warning, but the guy also added 8oz of Oolong tea she never ordered along with her "diet tea" (only because she wanted to buy a diet tea didn't mean she wanted to buy "all" the diet teas in the store) and this little puppy was another $40 for something like 6oz.
Mind you: this is tea she never ordered at all. What she ordered was the Diet Tea Blend, already a paltry $48.00 for 8oz and somehow ended up with the Oolong as well.
At this point I was fuming. I know how pushy Captain Upsell can be and not everyone has the fortitude to resist a guy like that. My wife hates confrontation and they obviously thrive on taking advantage of their customers. A deadly combo.
But it is not over. I call the Teavana store and ask to speak to the manager. A chipper girl answers and tells me the manager is not in. I ask:
"Do you know when she is going to be in?"
- "Sometimes tomorrow" - is the response.
At which I ask:
"Any idea if Morning or Afternoon?"
Big pause............
"I am actually not supposed to say - tomorrow sometimes"
Not supposed to say? It's a retail store. She is a manager, not a dishwasher. Apparently, it's some sort of "privacy". Right now I suspect I am far from the only customer with "buyer remorse".
What upsets me is not so much the money. The Oolong smells like old compost, but the Diet tea smells delicious. It's their tactics that I abhor.
Where do they get off selling a tea that's easily 4 times the price of their average tea without bothering to mention how expensive it is?
And where do they get off adding items that were never ordered?
How about selling tea in a $8 in can and not mentioning that it's not just a "container" but an actual item you have to buy?
The can is an "opt out" item. If you bring it up they use a paper bag instead, but if you forget they ring it up and by then it's too late.
I really have to wonder how effective those tactics are from a sales point of view. By my calculation, I now spent $200 at Teavana.
Considering that wild horses could not take me back there to buy a bag of diet sugar for $0.10 and considering that in the next 5 years or so I will buy about $500 worth of tea (from someone else) it doesn't seem so smart to me.
Add the fact that I am a web professional (I make websites for a living and I publish several podcasts and blogs) and I'll make sure to mention a shortened form of this post every chance I have and I'll post it on every tea and E-commerce forum I frequent (and I will frequent many just for them).
In addition I will write it about it on my own e-commerce blog which is read by about 30K to 70K people a month (not hits, unique visitors).
let's say that 500 people will either stop shopping at Teavana or will be warned and wary about their tactics and shop less. My guess is that that extra $40 worth of tea they squeezed in their sale to my wife is going to cost them easily at least $1000 to $5000 in lost revenue (and hopefully a lot more). Is that smart?
One thing I have learned in working in retail and e-commerce, it never pays to pick a fight with a customer. In the era of the internet regular people have more power than they used to.
just recently, we were trying to refinance our home to get a fixed (and lower) rate. We hit a wall with the bank for a year.
Then we decided to do some.... online and telephone magic and when the bank heard about our posts and articles and the people we organized, purely online, mind you, next thing you know we got an offer to refinance at about 1/2 the rate we asked. Even banks, even this particularly evil bank was afraid of where our little ruse could lead. Teavana hasn't got a chance. I wonder if the domain name "teavanasucks.com is taken.
(Edit: It is, it resolves Teavana.com as does teavana-sucks.com - what does that tell you?)
And, by the way, on Monday I'll call the bank and reverse the charges. That done I am going to drop the Oolong on their counter and just walk away.
I think this is an evil company. I think the folks boycotting Starbucks should reconsider their aim and move on to Teavana. Say what you want about Starbucks, but their customer service is excellent and if something of theirs doesn't completely satisfy you, they'll bend backwards to correct the problem.
Instead the Teavana people treat their customers like they were cattle. A money making necessary evil.
Tomorrow I was going to go to Teavana and I was fairly sure that I would have been able to reason with the manager and get some satisfaction. Right now I am not so sure. In fact, I am positive I'll encounter a wall.
So I am going to the offensive right away:
DO NOT BUY FROM TEAVANA - They are dishonest and deceiving.
Re: My experience at Teavana.
[edit] ^ to the guy above, I've found that starbucks employees are generally very happy with their jobs and even though it's not cheap, they're sales tactics are more "make you look trendy by purchasaing our product" and less "trick you into purchasing our product so that our particular store will have good numbers".
To the first poster: Great story, I'm sorry you had to go through all of that... I too have had bad experiences working in retail, and it doesn't feel good to be accused of something you did not do.
First time I went in teavana I was wicked excited there was finally a tea store nearbye, I thought it would be like starbucks where I could buy cups of tea (slightly overpriced of course!), but found out the truth after they ignored my for 15 minutes trying to sell someone a rediculous amount of tea... nobody could drink that much before it went stale! I then asked about one of the oolongs "do you sell tea buy the cup?" (because it barely looked like they did) "we do" she said "but we aren't supposed to, it's very expensive, and you'll save alot of money if you just buy it loose", "well I'd like to TRY it before I buy a pound of it" (I never inteded to buy a pound of tea, i just wanted a cup, but I figured that would get her off my back"... she looked around nervously (like she didn't want her manager to see that she was just selling a cup of tea) and made it for me... that whole experience wasn't BAD, but it made me never go back. I could tell management of the company was completely sales driven (not that surprising for any retail store) and not really focused on customer needs.
To the first poster: Great story, I'm sorry you had to go through all of that... I too have had bad experiences working in retail, and it doesn't feel good to be accused of something you did not do.
First time I went in teavana I was wicked excited there was finally a tea store nearbye, I thought it would be like starbucks where I could buy cups of tea (slightly overpriced of course!), but found out the truth after they ignored my for 15 minutes trying to sell someone a rediculous amount of tea... nobody could drink that much before it went stale! I then asked about one of the oolongs "do you sell tea buy the cup?" (because it barely looked like they did) "we do" she said "but we aren't supposed to, it's very expensive, and you'll save alot of money if you just buy it loose", "well I'd like to TRY it before I buy a pound of it" (I never inteded to buy a pound of tea, i just wanted a cup, but I figured that would get her off my back"... she looked around nervously (like she didn't want her manager to see that she was just selling a cup of tea) and made it for me... that whole experience wasn't BAD, but it made me never go back. I could tell management of the company was completely sales driven (not that surprising for any retail store) and not really focused on customer needs.
Re: My experience at Teavana.
Ok, I'm back to the THREAD OF DOOM (TM)(R)(C)(SM)(LLC)(INC). And let me first say WOW!
I'm back though because I was hired by Teavana.
I'm going to try to cover some various aspects of my Teavana experience thus far. For those that don't remember me I posted in January after applying at Teavana, and noted that I'd post again if I was hired.
I'm an avid tea drinker, and have bought from Adagio and Stash as well.
(I have a business background, and retail sales experience, I also own my own company and am only working 15-20 hours a week to get out of the office)
Teavana itself: Teavana is going through some fairly obvious growing pains which is resulting in the following problems:
1. stock availability: availability of stock, especially cast iron is not consistent, and hard to predict. Also the automated ordering system is hit or miss at best.
2. the DREADED training manual. Yes the stories are true, yes "ARE YOU SURE" is in bold, but after speaking with my GM I told her I'd rather use alternate wording, that I have no concerns about hitting sales goals, and that she could come to me if she had concerns with my sales methods. "ARE YOU SURE" has now been deleted from my life.
Otherwise nothing in there is horribly outside of any sales training I've had. Sales is an artform which results in people who can do it (me), those who can't (some that have left because they can't make numbers, or are suffering from a store where the numbers aren't possible), and those who won't (those who are cheating the scale).
3. the INFAMOUS scale. Guys the scale works, I'm usually within .1 lb, and anyone else using a scale should be as well. There are MULTIPLE accurate ways to tare the scale. Anything outside .2 lb shouldn't happen. As this is my second week I'm assuming I'll get more accurate as I learn the ins and outs of each tea. (to be clear here nothing in the manual advises the sales rep to overfill the bag)
4. Teavana itself: Teavana seems to be going through some significant growing pains, and the corporate structure itself is highly divided between the officers and the original founders. This won't hold forever, and could potentially get uglier (I own a company and so I speak here from experience). There's a wide difference between a small tea shop, and an international tea company. Teavana needs to become more serious about fixing it's identity as one or the other, or it will suffer quite a bit in the way of additional growing pains.
5. what's been said here: I for one will not contest any accounts of customer service experiences recorded here, I wasn't there, I haven't been to any Teavana other than my local stores, and for all I know they may be dens of PURE EVIL. I also have not run into this trainer which has been mentioned repeatedly. Perhaps she has moved off to greener pastures (or been planted in them!)
6. final thoughts.
6a: I like my GM
6b: none of the complaints that have been expressed here should be happening, feel free to take the other GM's head off when they happen to you.
6c: overall my opinion of Teavana is positive.
6d: not everyone can do retail sales. If you can't do it, liking tea, and then trying to sell it won't help you do it any better than if you were selling something else.
As we've seen here, integrity is critical, and if you sell that out, you're pretty much screwed.
7. Two notes
7a: opinions above are my own, and are retained by me to the maximum I am allowed under both law and forum AUP (in other words I am not speaking for Teavana, and my statements are mine, and you can't have 'em!
)
7b: any moderators questioning the veracity of my statements, or my identity (as there seem to have been some shills or at least very noisy people), may feel free to contact me privately for offline contact information, provided that they both maintain my privacy and provide the results of such confirmation to the thread.
I'm back though because I was hired by Teavana.
I'm going to try to cover some various aspects of my Teavana experience thus far. For those that don't remember me I posted in January after applying at Teavana, and noted that I'd post again if I was hired.
I'm an avid tea drinker, and have bought from Adagio and Stash as well.
(I have a business background, and retail sales experience, I also own my own company and am only working 15-20 hours a week to get out of the office)
Teavana itself: Teavana is going through some fairly obvious growing pains which is resulting in the following problems:
1. stock availability: availability of stock, especially cast iron is not consistent, and hard to predict. Also the automated ordering system is hit or miss at best.
2. the DREADED training manual. Yes the stories are true, yes "ARE YOU SURE" is in bold, but after speaking with my GM I told her I'd rather use alternate wording, that I have no concerns about hitting sales goals, and that she could come to me if she had concerns with my sales methods. "ARE YOU SURE" has now been deleted from my life.
Otherwise nothing in there is horribly outside of any sales training I've had. Sales is an artform which results in people who can do it (me), those who can't (some that have left because they can't make numbers, or are suffering from a store where the numbers aren't possible), and those who won't (those who are cheating the scale).
3. the INFAMOUS scale. Guys the scale works, I'm usually within .1 lb, and anyone else using a scale should be as well. There are MULTIPLE accurate ways to tare the scale. Anything outside .2 lb shouldn't happen. As this is my second week I'm assuming I'll get more accurate as I learn the ins and outs of each tea. (to be clear here nothing in the manual advises the sales rep to overfill the bag)
4. Teavana itself: Teavana seems to be going through some significant growing pains, and the corporate structure itself is highly divided between the officers and the original founders. This won't hold forever, and could potentially get uglier (I own a company and so I speak here from experience). There's a wide difference between a small tea shop, and an international tea company. Teavana needs to become more serious about fixing it's identity as one or the other, or it will suffer quite a bit in the way of additional growing pains.
5. what's been said here: I for one will not contest any accounts of customer service experiences recorded here, I wasn't there, I haven't been to any Teavana other than my local stores, and for all I know they may be dens of PURE EVIL. I also have not run into this trainer which has been mentioned repeatedly. Perhaps she has moved off to greener pastures (or been planted in them!)
6. final thoughts.
6a: I like my GM
6b: none of the complaints that have been expressed here should be happening, feel free to take the other GM's head off when they happen to you.
6c: overall my opinion of Teavana is positive.
6d: not everyone can do retail sales. If you can't do it, liking tea, and then trying to sell it won't help you do it any better than if you were selling something else.
As we've seen here, integrity is critical, and if you sell that out, you're pretty much screwed.
7. Two notes
7a: opinions above are my own, and are retained by me to the maximum I am allowed under both law and forum AUP (in other words I am not speaking for Teavana, and my statements are mine, and you can't have 'em!
)7b: any moderators questioning the veracity of my statements, or my identity (as there seem to have been some shills or at least very noisy people), may feel free to contact me privately for offline contact information, provided that they both maintain my privacy and provide the results of such confirmation to the thread.
May 13th, '10, 12:19
Posts: 2625
Joined: May 31st, '08, 02:44
Scrolling: scrolling
Location: Portland, OR
Contact:
Geekgirl
Re: My experience at Teavana.
I won't question your subjective experience, but I would like to point this out - if your scales are this inaccurate, it's unacceptable. .1LB? up to .2lb? For the top tier teas, .1lb variance could be as much as 1.6 oz. (3.2oz for .2 variance.) So lets say someone comes in and orders 4oz of Monkey Pick at $25/2oz. Your scale tares off by the LOWER figure of 1.6 ounces. You've just sold them 2.4 oz of tea, for $50 - thereby cheating them out of $20.trelane wrote: 3. the INFAMOUS scale. Guys the scale works, I'm usually within .1 lb, and anyone else using a scale should be as well. There are MULTIPLE accurate ways to tare the scale. Anything outside .2 lb shouldn't happen. As this is my second week I'm assuming I'll get more accurate as I learn the ins and outs of each tea. (to be clear here nothing in the manual advises the sales rep to overfill the bag)
In a store that sells by the OUNCE, the variance should be off by no more than .1-.2 OUNCES, not POUNDS.
This alone should be good enough reason to keep anyone from ever shopping there again.
May 13th, '10, 15:33
Posts: 1574
Joined: Dec 30th, '08, 21:16
Location: The foot of the great Smoky Mountains
Re: My experience at Teavana.
+1 GG I was gonna say something about that .2lb off too..yeesh!?? really?? on the high end of being off thats about 90 grams!! like a whole bag of sencha!Geekgirl wrote:I won't question your subjective experience, but I would like to point this out - if your scales are this inaccurate, it's unacceptable. .1LB? up to .2lb? For the top tier teas, .1lb variance could be as much as 1.6 oz. (3.2oz for .2 variance.) So lets say someone comes in and orders 4oz of Monkey Pick at $25/2oz. Your scale tares off by the LOWER figure of 1.6 ounces. You've just sold them 2.4 oz of tea, for $50 - thereby cheating them out of $20.trelane wrote: 3. the INFAMOUS scale. Guys the scale works, I'm usually within .1 lb, and anyone else using a scale should be as well. There are MULTIPLE accurate ways to tare the scale. Anything outside .2 lb shouldn't happen. As this is my second week I'm assuming I'll get more accurate as I learn the ins and outs of each tea. (to be clear here nothing in the manual advises the sales rep to overfill the bag)
In a store that sells by the OUNCE, the variance should be off by no more than .1-.2 OUNCES, not POUNDS.
This alone should be good enough reason to keep anyone from ever shopping there again.
May 13th, '10, 19:36
Posts: 20891
Joined: Apr 22nd, '06, 20:52
Scrolling: scrolling
Location: Back in the TeaCave atop Mt. Fuji
Re: My experience at Teavana.
IF and that is a realllly big IF I ever bought tea at a Teavana, I would surely bring my 20 dollar scale that is certainly more accurate. Or maybe a calibration weight ...
However repeatedly failing to tare the scale after placing really large tins on it, then placing tea in the tin ... that is worse yet. Been there and saw it first hand!!!
May 14th, '10, 22:21
Adagio
Posts: 29
Joined: Jun 10th, '05, 13:20
Location: Garfield, NJ
Contact:
michael
Re: My experience at Teavana.
Trelane,
Hoping you're taking copious notes, for the story of tea renaissance in America is sure to be written, and the rise and growing pains of Teavana will surely merit a chapter of its own.
Until such time, hoping you may provide a first-person account of this evolving, and to someone who shares your business background, fascinating story.
Looking forward to your updates.
Hoping you're taking copious notes, for the story of tea renaissance in America is sure to be written, and the rise and growing pains of Teavana will surely merit a chapter of its own.
Until such time, hoping you may provide a first-person account of this evolving, and to someone who shares your business background, fascinating story.
Looking forward to your updates.
Re: My experience at Teavana.
I often buy tea by the gram in local shops and they´re always accurate within 1 or 2 grams AND they make sure not to charge for the weight of the bag or tin.
Re: My experience at Teavana.
haha so true!! currently I am a "key-holder" at Teavana. I've been there for about 3 months now with no prior sales exp before this. Teavana as a whole does not care about the customer at all, they want your money. I am Buddhist too, once my boss found that out she asked to to use that to sell more cast-iron and more Yixings. She wants me to exploit my entire religous belief system for a sale, it is not right and I out right refused to do it. Since then, my sales "aren't high enough" granted I sell about $97 an hour in the store but my "average ticket" is only $38.
Teavana = Suck. Enough Said.
Teavana = Suck. Enough Said.
May 17th, '10, 16:26
Posts: 1051
Joined: Jul 7th, '07, 01:37
Scrolling: scrolling
Location: Portland, OR
Contact:
ABx
Re: My experience at Teavana.
I don't think he was saying that the scales are inaccurate, but rather his ability to hit the target amount. The thing is that as long as you're not touching the tea with your hands, there's no reason you can't put some back.
Even besides that, though, Teavana must be the only place in the world that's that incapable of hitting target amounts with a scale. I can understand it when you're ordering something from a deli and a single chunk of food makes the difference between woefully under and a little over, but dry goods are easy. Even if you accept that tea can't be put back, there's no reason that you can't take a few extra seconds to under-shoot the amount you're aiming for and then add the remaining amount slowly until you hit your target.
Many places will even give you the extra amount for free or cheap. At the very least they will ask you if it's okay, and make adjustments if not.
Even besides that, though, Teavana must be the only place in the world that's that incapable of hitting target amounts with a scale. I can understand it when you're ordering something from a deli and a single chunk of food makes the difference between woefully under and a little over, but dry goods are easy. Even if you accept that tea can't be put back, there's no reason that you can't take a few extra seconds to under-shoot the amount you're aiming for and then add the remaining amount slowly until you hit your target.
Many places will even give you the extra amount for free or cheap. At the very least they will ask you if it's okay, and make adjustments if not.
Re: My experience at Teavana.
This is incredibly sad. What kind of person asks you to belittle your personal beliefs to sell crap? "I know that you take your beliefs very seriously, but since I don't share them, could you please exploit them for money?" Honestly...bigboddy wrote:I am Buddhist too, once my boss found that out she asked to to use that to sell more cast-iron and more Yixings.