First Order Feedback

We're always open to a little constructive criticism.


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Sep 9th, '07, 21:52
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First Order Feedback

by kive » Sep 9th, '07, 21:52

Just made my first purchase ($200+) last night, and I'm looking forward to a great experience and a long ordering relationship. =)

Little tidbits of feedback (a.k.a. how to make it so that you're the *only* tea shop that I order from), that I'm offering up in case they might be useful.

1) Overnight shipping calculation - it sure would be nice if I could see the shipping rate earlier in the ordering process. I would have been tempted to split my order into multiple pieces to take advantage of multiple shipping options (overnight shipping on what I need sooner, ground on the less time-sensitive items). Unfortunately - not being able to see the overnight shipping rate until after I've provided much of my billing information, and the need to use the 'back' button to change shipping methods, etc... I suppose I know better for next time, but that one thing would have satisfied my needs a little bit more on my first order. ;)

2) Lack of herbal selection - I can definitely stock up on peppermint and chamomile, but I think XIxZer0xIX hit the nail on the head in his thread back in December. - I can buy a lot from Adagio, but most of my herbals aren't really covered. Many of those are staples: ginger, clove, cardamom, etc...

3) Lack of large quantity support - why can I only purchase 8oz bags of chamomile? I *love* that your smaller quantities ship in tins - that made me immediately comfortable with purchasing sample sizes, but why can't I order 8oz/16oz tins (preferably filled with my goods, but separately if necessary). I cringe when I think of having bags of teas near each other (and the inevitable contamination) - especially when the pictures on your website show those as paper bags. Also, when I purchase 2-6 pound quantities, I typically expect better discounting - but my only option is to purchase in quantities of 8oz or 16oz packaging. In all, this basically makes me need to limit my purchases to a single type of bagged item per shipment, and prevents me from purchasing larger quantities through you (great for sampling or purchasing smaller quantities of teas, though)! :P

I definitely loved the level of information provided on your website. And I also really appreciated some of the little details, such as having your infuser samplers not overlap with your larger tea samplers. I think it would have been nice to have a couple of larger sampler selections, with some small discounting. Something like 12-18 teas per sampler, again non-overlapping. Really, if you packaged your entire stock into four to six of these sampler types, I'd probably just have picked up a sample of everything you have.

On your $5 gift certificate promotion - I hated seeing that I could take the time to get someone to 'refer' me, but couldn't take advantage of this. It's like I knew that I could get $5 off an order, but I'd have to expend too much effort to do it. A 5% first-order discount would have been really attractive. I don't want you to go applying discounts to my order after the fact, but I think you may convert more business if you have this edge.

A second comment on the gift certificate promotion - asking me to send one of those out immediately after my first order isn't likely - I want to see how a few orders go before I go around recommending you to the world! BUT, one idea that might get you high-quality lead referrals: have you thought about the ability to send a 'gift' sample to someone as part of the ordering process? Some logic like once per order, or once per $100 revenue attained, provides me with the ability to send a small sampler of 3-4 teas to someone I know? Add a quick database check to verify that the person I'm sending the 'gift' to hasn't been shipped to before, and you're probably getting another tea-loving friend of mine, and I don't have to worry about the credibility concerns of just sending what is effectively a coupon on to someone.

Anyways, sorry for the book - and please don't take any of this as complaining - it's offered purely in the spirit of constructive feedback, since I won't be a 'first-time order' again. =)

Thanks!

-Chris

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Sep 9th, '07, 22:46
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by Mary R » Sep 9th, '07, 22:46

kive wrote:Looks like my rather long post titled "First Order Feedback" didn't go through - got a message back from "teachat" after it was accepted saying, "This is a warning. You have tried to post a word that is defined as spam on this website. Please refrain from doing so again." Might help if it mentioned the word? :P -Chris
Hello, Chris/Kive, and welcome to the forum!

I am so sorry you had trouble posting this message earlier. One of the things the Adagio spam filters are set to catch are variations of slang terms for certain female anatomical features. Clearly, you've not posted on a particularly nice set of bristols, but the words 'quantities' and 'titled' do contain one particularly popular synonym. Unfortunately, you have to make a certain number of posts to this forum before the filters bypass you and let you use all sorts of these words. Post a couple more times and you should be fine. :)

Mary R
(Lowly Forum Mod)

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Sep 9th, '07, 23:23
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by scruffmcgruff » Sep 9th, '07, 23:23

Quantities.

Bwahahahaha!
Tea Nerd - www.teanerd.com

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Sep 9th, '07, 23:57
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by Space Samurai » Sep 9th, '07, 23:57

That is kind of funny.

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Sep 10th, '07, 00:10
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by Chip » Sep 10th, '07, 00:10

It is funny but unfortunately necessary.

Until I started moderating this forum, I had no idea how much this forum is spammed, mostly by first time posters.

Oh, welcome to the forum.
blah blah blah SENCHA blah blah blah!!!

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Sep 10th, '07, 00:17
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by Wesli » Sep 10th, '07, 00:17

spacesamurai wrote:That is kind of funny.
No way man, this is downright disturbing.

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Sep 10th, '07, 01:17
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by tomasini » Sep 10th, '07, 01:17

:shock: not at disturbing as your display pic :shock:


:D

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Sep 10th, '07, 12:57
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by xine » Sep 10th, '07, 12:57

Thanks for the feedback! I will pass it along to customer service-

:D

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Nov 18th, '07, 03:08
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More Feedback

by kive » Nov 18th, '07, 03:08

Just a little more brainstorming/feedback, now that I've placed a couple more orders....

1) Holiday Selection looks great - but why not offer these in larger sizes? *boggle*

2) You should have some means of letting me know what new teas and products you offer! It'd make me buy more! Newsletter, "new teas" post, whatever - right now there's no way that I can find to see what's new except for looking through each and every category. I almost completely missed the holiday teas!

3) Product Gaps - you have tons of roobois mixes, but not a single honeybush. You're also missing Yerba Mate - which seems to be getting more and more popular. Linden and ginseng root would also be good complementary additions to your existing herbal offerings.

4) You might consider selling bulk-packs of your glassware? 4-packs and 8-packs at a discount might be nice. People seem to rate your glassware pretty highly, but the stuff is too expensive to order at small quantities.

5) You really, really, really need to sell your tins as standalone items. At least give us some idea of who retails these things so we can go and buy them - you have obviously put in a good bit of work into getting them right - but I purchase from 7-8 different tea suppliers, and I hate having different types of containers.. I haven't ordered bulk items yet, but I'm hoping that you include labels with your bulk bags of product that fit onto your large tins?

6) I was really happy to see you start offering rock sugar as a sweetener - I hope you'll continue increasing the varieties of sweeteners you offer. Various honey strains, agave nectar, organic non-nutritive sweeteners... it's something I noticed that all of my other tea suppliers have but you don't. For that matter, people here on the forums ask about what scales and thermometers to purchase, but you don't sell any. You inevitably send your business to Hudson and WalMart/Target by leaving that gap open.

7) Duplicate order promotion is confusing - specifically, when I place an order, you offer to let me ship that to someone else at a discount. But you won't allow me to ship a subset or other items entirely. On my last order, if I'd been able to ship a sampler + 8oz earl grey to my mother at a discount, I would have bitten. But when I place orders at $200-$500 there's no way I'd want to ship the same order to someone else. I'm not sure how you can better implement this, but hopefully that feedback helps a tiny bit. Ditto for repeat ordering - what if I want to remove a couple of items?

8) Discounting expedited shipping on large orders would be nice. You offer free ground shipping on orders over $50, but you don't seem to provide any discount on overnight/2-day shipping on orders over $50. Realistically, you're the only supplier that I use that even charges for shipping at my normal order volumes. Maybe a token shipping discount of $5 if your order is over $50 or something would work?

-Chris

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Nov 19th, '07, 13:48
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Re: More Feedback

by xine » Nov 19th, '07, 13:48

kive wrote:Just a little more brainstorming/feedback, now that I've placed a couple more orders....

1) Holiday Selection looks great - but why not offer these in larger sizes? *boggle*

2) You should have some means of letting me know what new teas and products you offer! It'd make me buy more! Newsletter, "new teas" post, whatever - right now there's no way that I can find to see what's new except for looking through each and every category. I almost completely missed the holiday teas!

3) Product Gaps - you have tons of roobois mixes, but not a single honeybush. You're also missing Yerba Mate - which seems to be getting more and more popular. Linden and ginseng root would also be good complementary additions to your existing herbal offerings.

4) You might consider selling bulk-packs of your glassware? 4-packs and 8-packs at a discount might be nice. People seem to rate your glassware pretty highly, but the stuff is too expensive to order at small quantities.

5) You really, really, really need to sell your tins as standalone items. At least give us some idea of who retails these things so we can go and buy them - you have obviously put in a good bit of work into getting them right - but I purchase from 7-8 different tea suppliers, and I hate having different types of containers.. I haven't ordered bulk items yet, but I'm hoping that you include labels with your bulk bags of product that fit onto your large tins?

6) I was really happy to see you start offering rock sugar as a sweetener - I hope you'll continue increasing the varieties of sweeteners you offer. Various honey strains, agave nectar, organic non-nutritive sweeteners... it's something I noticed that all of my other tea suppliers have but you don't. For that matter, people here on the forums ask about what scales and thermometers to purchase, but you don't sell any. You inevitably send your business to Hudson and WalMart/Target by leaving that gap open.

7) Duplicate order promotion is confusing - specifically, when I place an order, you offer to let me ship that to someone else at a discount. But you won't allow me to ship a subset or other items entirely. On my last order, if I'd been able to ship a sampler + 8oz earl grey to my mother at a discount, I would have bitten. But when I place orders at $200-$500 there's no way I'd want to ship the same order to someone else. I'm not sure how you can better implement this, but hopefully that feedback helps a tiny bit. Ditto for repeat ordering - what if I want to remove a couple of items?

8) Discounting expedited shipping on large orders would be nice. You offer free ground shipping on orders over $50, but you don't seem to provide any discount on overnight/2-day shipping on orders over $50. Realistically, you're the only supplier that I use that even charges for shipping at my normal order volumes. Maybe a token shipping discount of $5 if your order is over $50 or something would work?

-Chris
Hey Chris! Thanks for all the suggestions and your order!

As for your points:

-We do offer out holiday teas in the sample, 4oz, and 1lb. We don't offer them in the larger 8oz tin size, because- eek! We don't have enough room for them! It's a simple answer I know, but the are where we keep our teas in the warehouse doesn't allow for us to keep larger tins, so we decided this year just to offer the 3 sizes.

-We have teamuse.com- in Monthly Musings I usually try to cover any new products that are coming out. But we are also adding lots of new items as of late, so sometimes I don't get a chance to! You can subscribe to our e-newsletter by going to

http://www.teamuse.com

-I don't find our lack of some tea products 'product gaps' but rather room for development. We don't offer every tea product under the sun- just yet. It's not a matter of never-ever offering such products, but we always see room for more product development and to release more products. We also like to research quite a bit before buying our tea or coming up with a new type of tea ware. If you don't find us carrying something you'd like for us to, let us know! Posts like these are great, cos we know what customers are looking for. Obviously, it will not show up overnight (especially Yerba Mate- hehe, the owner hates the stuff, so uhhh that might be a losing battle. I've tried myself! )So, please be patient, and keep an eye out for any new product

-Bulk-pricing for glassware. We find that many customers buy just one or two pieces- two glasses or what not. The bulk pricing might be nice, but we haven't found a need for it. If people want to purchase a whole lot of glassware, for a complete setting, they do not mind purchasing it per piece, as most often the price is the same for a good set of glassware you might find at a department store.


-We tried selling out tins alone several years ago. However, since we were sending tins without any thing in them- what a different tea leaves make!- more than half of the order for empty tins would arrive dented and we would end up sending replacements for these tins, that were most likely ordered for replacements. A deadly, vicious cycle, I know! :)

-we offer teachat.com as a forum to discuss all sorts of tea and tea products- not just adagio's. So, in that spirit, since we don't offer things such as scales or thermometers, we see that people will come here to ask other tea connoisseurs their advice and guidance. As with the sweeteners- product development! We can't possibly offer everything, but we're trying out best :)

-Our replica order program rarely gets any slams- but the replica programs is what it is-to share the same exact order that you received and enjoyed with another loved one, friend, co-worker, etc. We don't offer the option to change out the order, because then you wouldn't be sending the same exact order- that is the reasoning behind the replica orders. We see your point in making large orders and not wanting to send the entire order to a friend, but those who take advantage of the replica program do make smaller orders, such a starter set, like it and figure that maybe someone else would like it. You can always send mom a nice tin of earl grey on it's own, and get it gift wrapped for free :)

-I do a lot of online shopping; all sorts of different sites- specialty food sites, clothing, accessories, the whole shebang. I find that Adagio's rates are very reasonable. I just placed order at another company, not tea related, but the order were for items that probably weight the same as a couple tins of tea, and is going to be sent to me right from NYC, and the order was at $75.00 (early holiday shopping! got to get it done!), and my shipping was 9.75. For regular ground, which will get to my house in like 2 days. Now, we offer 9.75 for 2Day shipping. 3.75 regular, and if you are ordering overnight express, it is by weight. Also, it looks like from your orders you are in a 2-Day shipping area according to FedEx, so most of the time, I don't think you would have to expedite your tea to be shipped via 2Day. All your orders look like they're quite large, so you haven't have to pay for shipping, unless you definitely needed to get it to your destination in 2Days.

whew! Thanks for letting me respond back. I hope you are enjoying your tea, nonetheless, and we always appreciate feedback. :D

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Nov 19th, '07, 13:59
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by kive » Nov 19th, '07, 13:59

I'm definitely enjoying the tea. Don't get me wrong - I'm perfectly happy, so everything I write is feedback, not whining!

And not all of my feedback will be useful, either, obviously. ;)

Thanks for your response!

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Nov 19th, '07, 15:34
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by xine » Nov 19th, '07, 15:34

:D

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Nov 20th, '07, 11:21
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by kive » Nov 20th, '07, 11:21

Another small tweak - in Firefox, when you go to open a longer invoice (under my account, talking about the pop-up window that shows the order details)... you can't see everything, and your web devs have it configured so there's no scrollbar and no way to resize the window.

Also, a status of "On Hold" would be less nerve-wracking if it had a description of what that could mean. ;)

-Chris

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Nov 20th, '07, 18:35
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popup window fixed

by ilya » Nov 20th, '07, 18:35

Kive,

We have updated the invoice page to include a scrollbar, so you should now be able to see your entire invoice. Thanks for catching this oversight.

As for the 'on hold' status, this is usually a temporary setting that is assigned to a small percentage of order. Usually these orders require some additional info (shipping info missing, credit card verification, etc. ) The status is usually changed within a few hours once the issue has been addressed.

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