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June 2005
Newsletter
As promised, this month's special is a ripper. I
won't keep
anyone in suspense, it is
Yemen Mokha Ismaili
$50.00/kg
"Subtle front palate acidity, moving into a
malty, fruity middle
palate. The finish and aftertaste is
absolutely smooth, pure
chocolate. This is an exquisite,
aromatic, complex coffee with a
full body and beautiful
balance."
If anything, this year's offering is even better
than last
year's, with the deep toned fruit & chocolate
tones clear in the
cup. Quantity limit will be maximum 1kg per
person.
Due to a software problem I wasn't able to send
out last month's
newsletter by email, (it is online at
http://www.coffeeco.com.au/newsletter/may2005.html) but hopefully
everything will work out this month.
In the lead-up to the end of
financial year I hope to have a
couple of "Reconditioned Machine"
bargains available for those
quick off the mark. I'll be sending
out a "mini newsletter" mid
month to let people know.
The new financial year will bring in a host of
changes, most of
them due to the continuing rapid growth of the
business. One of
them has already happened, and I'd like to
introduce my new
packing person Tmanna.
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Tmanna | She started work
with me in April, and has proved to be a steady and meticulous
worker. Note that Tmanna is involved solely with
the packaging
of the coffees from the orders placed via the secure order pages on
the website. She doesn't have access to my
phone or incoming
email, which means that orders emailed to me or placed by phone
basically "go to the back of the queue" until
such time as I can
get them to her.
Her assistance has freed some of my time up and
I've been able to think about where I want the business to go. I've
also been able
to pay a lot more attention to my
roasting.
One major upcoming innovation will be the update
of the secure
order pages to work with a "Gateway" credit card
charging system,
(directly associated with the major Banks) so
that your card is
debited as soon as the order is placed. At
present, we manually
bill your card some time after we've filled
and despatched your
order. The sheer number of orders these days
has meant that I
often have to set aside a whole day, usually on
a weekend, just
to catch up. Add in the complications of expiry
dates, changed
cards and other "bounces" and it's getting to be
quite a
headache.
If we get the Gateway thing working it will also
enable us to
stop storing customer credit card details offline
and to include
a combined packing slip/tax invoice with every
order. The main
problem (as I see it) will be more details
needing to be filled
out on the order forms, but I believe this
will be an acceptable
trade off for increased online credit card
security and reduced
card problems.
Due to the complexity of what I sell and the
possible variations
in delivery methods and costs I'll also be
looking at reducing
the number of equipment items I stock, and
concentrating on my
main job. Which of course I regard as
locating and roasting the
best quality coffees available in
Australia, bar none. One set of
items guaranteed to disappear
will be the Moka Pots. I've sold 4
this year, down from 60 a few
years ago, so they are not really
worthwhile keeping in
stock.
Until next month,
Alan.
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