White-label apps: Making technology accessible for independent coffee businesses
Written by Carolina Pirola - sponsored by Savor Brands
Mobile technology has not only changed the way in which we communicate with our friends and family but also how we shop and interact with businesses. While many coffee retailers and roasters had stayed on the sidelines of this shift until 2020, social distancing measures and other restrictions brought significant changes to the industry. According to research conducted by the National Coffee Association, drive-through and app ordering were both up 30% by the first quarter of 2021, while the Specialty Coffee Association reported a 109% increase in coffee subscription sales in the U.S. between 2019 and 2020.
Nowadays, customers look more than ever for convenience, speed and personalization when interacting with coffee brands. Integrating technology is often the go-to solution for those seeking flexibility and innovation. Think of Starbucks’ app, which allows customers to order ahead, pay in-store, earn rewards, and much more. Or Costa Coffee’s Costa Club, which offers free cake on your birthday and free drinks every few purchases. However, developing tools from scratch is an expense that not every business can afford.
Addressing the need for cost-effective, highly customizable digital solutions for small coffee brands, coffee packaging company Savor Brands has launched Savor Live, a subscription-based tool created with the mission of delivering technology to lift up specialty coffee roasters and cafés by providing them with their own branded mobile app.
Picture credit Savor Brands
A customizable mobile app to enhance the shopping experience
Savor Live offers small, independent specialty coffee businesses a range of features that help them engage with their customers in exciting, innovative ways for a fraction of the price of developing the technology themselves. “We believe that businesses of all sizes should have the opportunity to share their unique stories, showcase the producers they partner with, and educate their customers on the coffee they serve,” says Chelsea Hayhurst, Client Success Lead for Savor Live. “Our custom app platform offers the perfect opportunity to expand the reach of the specialty coffee community, foster brand loyalty, and level the playing field for independent businesses who deserve the same opportunities as large corporate coffee chains.” Savor Live’s four-tier subscription-based pricing model starts at 20 USD per month.
The platform – which is currently only available in the U.S. – includes features such as content delivery, livestreaming, and traditional mobile ordering. Through Augmented Reality, Virtual Reality and Mixed Reality, customers can engage with specialty coffee brands in a variety of ways, including scanning logos to trigger three-dimensional elements or videos; entering virtual spaces through their phones, and participating in games. Thanks to these alternative reality capabilities, CxT Roasting Company is able to offer perks outside of their usual services. “We don't have a drive-through at our locations,” explains co-owner Mitchell Popadziuk, “and the app would give us a way to offer the convenience of order-ahead capability, as well as the personalized experience a subset of our customer base is looking for from our brand.”
Beyond the features for customers, Savor Live also offers a secure, user-friendly partner portal so that specialty coffee businesses can tailor the app to their style, including customizing the app photos, colors and branding; uploading and managing content delivery features; creating an inventory of products with customization options, and managing incoming orders. Without the option to use a white-label tool that offers all of these features and more at an affordable monthly rate, small, independent brands would remain at a disadvantage. To Clancy Rose, co-founder of Wild Gift Coffee, the benefits of partnering with Savor Live are clear: “One of the things I’m most excited about with the app is that we’ll be on the leading edge in our market of companies to have their own app.”
Picture credit Savor Brands
Boosting sales and brand image through genuine engagement
Providing small and medium specialty coffee businesses with the opportunity to interact with customers in new, highly innovative ways is not only a pathway to boost sales but also to make a brand more attractive and unique. “An app gives us the ability to present our company to our customers in the way that speaks to our values, goals, and aesthetic,” says Mitchell. “With an app we are able to be in direct contact with the people who love our product and share the exciting and new things going on in our company in a personal way.”
Mehmet E. Sogan, of Memli Coffee Lab, agrees. To him, one of the app’s greatest potentials is in helping specialty coffee brands bring to the forefront some of the industry’s most pressing sustainability matters. His business will be using Savor Live’s Augmented Reality features to connect the audience with Memli’s producing partners through behind-the-scenes insights from the farm. “We believe that this will bring more awareness about farming conditions and provide further transparency. On a long-term vision, we hope that it will show coffee brewers the impact they have by choosing carefully sourced, picked, processed and roasted coffee.”
Technology can help brands capture a larger market share by enhancing shopping experiences and maximizing customer engagement. However, embarking on such a resource-consuming project is beyond the possibilities of most independent specialty coffee brands. By offering these businesses a chance to tailor an app with predetermined and optional features, Savor Live allows them to save while enriching their interactions with customers.
Carolina Pirola
Carolina Pirola is a journalist and communications specialist based in Madrid, Spain. A personal interest in sustainability led her to investigate coffee farming communities in the Canary Islands and northern Argentina, where she discovered the multitude of challenges & inequities that smallholder producers face.