5 Ways to improve Cafe earnings without relying heavily promotions

To increase revenue and profits, cafes and restaurants look toward creating promotions and running attractive customer rewards programs but this eats into profit margins and is not a sustainable business model.


However, cafes differ from restaurants as customers are not there just to have a good meal. Often patrons at cafes consist of 4 main groups. Those that are looking for a place to eat, those that want to hang out with their loved ones over food and drinks, those who use your cafe space for work and those who are looking for a place to sit down for a beverage and snack and to unwind or “chill”.


Sell cooking or beverage-making classes

Café setups are often conducive environments for work and thus conducting classes as well. Since the pandemic happened, self-cooking has become an interest and hobby of many Singaporeans.


Your café can capitalize on this consumer trend and host some cooking, baking or coffee-making classes during your off-peak hours.


This serves as an additional revenue stream for your café and also helps build your cafe’s brand awareness.


Start selling alcohol

Quiet hours of cafes are usually after 9 pm where most people have already had their meals, and most cafes start closing for the day. If you are looking to extend your operating hours well beyond that, your café has to offer food and drinks that consumers look for during those hours which include finger food and alcoholic beverages.


This will help you reach out to a larger group of consumers beyond your usual target audience and extend your operating hours thus, increasing revenue


Host events

Another way to increase customer awareness of your café and in turn, is through hosting events such as networking sessions, cooking classes, etc.


When hosting these events you can choose to charge a fee for the use of your café space and also serve food and drinks to people attending the events. This way, earn from rental of space at your café, and let more consumers try out your cafe’s food and beverages to boost café awareness.


Offer free WIFI when customers order food and drinks

Many consumers go to cafes for a place to study and work. During off peak hours, you may want to consider offering free WIFI to customers who spend at café. This is similar to what Starbucks offers to their customers.


By allowing consumers to access your WIFI for free when they purchase from you, your café attracts more customers during off peak hours to boost revenue.


Sell some merchandise

Selling merchandise branded with your cafe’s brand like tote bags, tumblers, bottles, and even your own coffee beans adds a revenue stream to your café and also boosts brand awareness and loyalty.


This is because branded merchandise helps your café stay on top of the minds of your customers.


iMakan’s solutions for cafes and restaurants

iMakan provides self ordering solutions such as QR ordering, self ordering kiosks and online ordering solutions that helps your F&B business digitalize order taking to reduce dependency on manpower and receive more orders during peak hours.


Click
here to get a free demo of iMakan’s self ordering solutions for your F&B business

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