ART OF SELLING TEA.
The dealer having succeeded in selecting and blending Teas that will please his customers, the next most important consideration for him is how best to bring them before the notice of his trade and the public generally. In this case he must not treat his Tea as a “staple” article, but as an entirely new commodity requiring a special effort for its introduction. Nothing gives such a bad impression to Tea customers as careless and slovenly packing of Tea. All Tea bags should be of fine quality and neatly, if not artistically, printed, and great care should be taken to obtain neatness of appearance in tying them up. The dealer should also have some special and appropriate name for his blends, this brand appearing prominently on the package, together with specific instructions for drawing the Tea. Small hand-bills, brief, pointed and attractive, describing the merits of the blend may also be placed in every purchase of other goods and sugar, and other bags or wrappers should contain special notices so that they may reach others who do not buy Tea, and the clerks or salesmen should also be instructed to talk up the Tea frequently but judiciously as possible.
The dealer should ascertain where customers for other goods get their Tea, what variety or grade it is, what price they pay for it, and, if possible, obtain a sample of it. Then test it carefully and be prepared to show that he can not only match it, but furnish a better one in both price and quality, giving them samples at the same time to prove it. And again, if a tea customer should quit dealing suddenly he should immediately find out the cause and endeavor to remedy it. He should also send out samples occasionally throughout the neighborhood of a line of Teas that he may deem suitable to the locality. But above and beyond all other efforts to increase his Tea trade, he should handle only high-grade Teas, endeavoring at all times to prove that the finer Teas are the most economical and satisfactory to purchase in the end, as the finer grades yield a larger margin of profit to the dealer and better satisfaction to the consumer, while it has a tendency to create favorable comment and win an increasing Tea trade.
Latterly, a new development in the Tea trade has, to the surprise and loss of the older generation of retail grocers and Tea dealers, assumed quite a prominence, for, if the glowing advertisements and startling placards in stores and on fences form any criterion, the public are taking a liking to the cheap and trashy-blended Teas put up in tins, lead, paper and other Tea-deteriorating packages under fancy names which have no relation whatever to the variety, district or country where they are grown, it being an acknowledged principle that Teas blended in bulk and put back again in their original lead-lined chests undoubtedly keep better, preserving its strength and flavor longer than when exposed to the oxydizing influences of the atmosphere during its transference to the tin, lead or paper packets ornamented with a cheap and showy label, which the more gorgeous they are the more apt to communicate the taste of the ink, paste, glue or other foul-smelling material in which it is packed to the Tea they are intended to adorn.
And still another reason why the Grocer and Tea dealer should avoid these blended packet Teas is that the cost of the packages, labels and labor, adds from eight to ten cents per pound to the original price of the Tea, in addition to the cost of advertising and flaunting them before the eyes of the public, an expense which is simply enormous in itself, and which the dealer and consumer must eventually pay for, either by a higher price or inferior quality of the Tea. Again, engaged as most dealers are at the present time in trying to stop the plague of all sorts of proprietary goods put up in cheap and oftentimes ill-smelling packages, which yields them so little profit and makes them only the servants of the packers, it is astonishing, to say the least, that any dealer can be found to adopt the same system with Tea when they can put up some favorite blend, and pack it themselves in cleaner, cheaper and more stylish packages, if their customers should desire it in that form, and sell them under their own brand and name, and not work to make money and a reputation for others who dictate to him as to what he shall or shall not do with regard to selling Teas. For instance, you are paying 43 cents for Package Tea with premiums, if you handle it. You sell this Tea at 60 cents, making 17 cents per pound profit. Now by putting up your own blend and giving your own premiums you can buy just as good Tea, or better, for 20 cents per pound. You can buy just as good premiums to stand you 12 cents per pound, making 32 cents instead of 43, or a saving of 11 cents or 33⅓ per cent. Besides, you control your own Tea trade and have the advertising free.
The art of selling Tea is even a much more difficult one than that of buying, owing to the numerous different and varying tastes to be catered to. For this reason alone the dealer should learn all he possibly can about the article, in order that he may be enabled to suit each particular liking and at the same time answer any and all questions about it intelligently. Find out what grade and variety as well as the desired strength and flavor of the Tea your customers prefer, and occasionally give them small samples of the different blends to try until you have caught their taste. Make a note of same, and always afterwards endeavor to give them as near the same kind and quality. Talk up your Teas in a clear and practical manner, and be sure your scales, weights and scoops are always clean and shining, and keep a small memorandum book in which to mark the kind and retail prices of your Teas, the date in which the caddie has been filled and the quantity it holds, as this method gives an accurate idea of the quantity of Tea sold in a certain time, which will be found particularly useful when Blended Teas are largely sold.
In brief, advertise your Teas freely but judiciously and modestly, never claiming too much for them, that is, let your advertisements be brief but novel, and change the same at least once per week, and always push your high-grade Teas first, last and all the time. Now and then give a Tea-testing exhibit in your store by fixing up a space near the door or window as a Tea-room surrounded by Tea-boxes with fancy faces, hanging some Chinese or Japanese lanterns around with which to light up at night to attract attention. Inside of which place a small Tea-table, a small gas stove, with kettle and cups for drawing the Tea. By this means the dealer will be enabled to prepare fresh-made Tea at all times, with fresh-boiled water, of any kind the customer may desire to taste or to push the sale of any particular blend he may desire to introduce among his trade. But it is advisable at these exhibits to use only fine Teas, using the common grades only by way of comparison. By this means the dealer can conveniently and readily point out to the customer the great advantages to be gained and economy of purchasing only high-grade Teas. Instruct your patrons meantime how to properly prepare Tea for use, emphasizing the fact that Tea must be brewed and not stewed, as is too often the case among consumers.