How to choose the right coffee machine for your business
Choosing a coffee machine can be a daunting prospect if you have little to no experience within the coffee industry or of making coffee yourself – we’re not counting making coffee from granules as ‘experience’!
Making the decision to buy a coffee machine is a process that you should never take lightly, due to many factors, especially cost.
Without a sales hat on, we’re going to give you some advice on how to choose the right coffee machine for your business – or potential business.
The decision to purchase a coffee machine should not be taken lightly, so it’s important to consider a few key points before making any snap judgement and ordering the machine you ‘think’ you need.
What training do you have?
This is likely to affect what types of machines you will be able to use from the get-go, a traditional espresso machine requires training (albeit not intense) to master the art of making espresso.
Luckily we offer full barista training on how to use any espresso machine that we stock, with training free for you and your staff with any coffee machine purchase.
Whereas a bean to cup coffee machine often requires little to no training, simply fill the ingredients sections, power-on and push a button for quality coffee.
How much coffee do you expect to serve?
Although we understand that this might be difficult to estimate, it’s yet another important aspect to what machine will be best suited to your business.
Espresso machines have varying coffee output capabilities, with bean to cup machines similar coffee making potential, but with stricter limits to the coffee they can make per day.
Having an idea of the kind of foot-fall within your establishment will help you decide on the machine that best suits your coffee making requirements. It may be wise to ask local shopkeepers, cafes and coffee shops what levels of business they current attain before making a decision.
Bear in mind that overestimating your customer levels will have less effect and underestimating.
What is your budget?
Budgeting it an important part of any business, especially those within the coffee shop or cafe industry. Having control of your finances is important, it is important to invest wisely if you are planning on making coffee the cornerstone of your business.
This may mean opting for a slightly cheaper coffee-making option if your budget won’t quite stretch to your ‘dream machine’.
We do offer some stellar finance options to alleviate the burden on your bank balance when it comes to purchasing the most important portion of your coffee shop or cafe.
Is mobility a must?
Coffee is found absolutely everywhere within our society now, and so those enterprising enough will understand the customer demand for access to truly quality coffee wherever they happen to be.
Mobile coffee pods, vans and more are able to get directly into the heart of any area unlike a permanent base of coffee operations.
There are some minor sacrifices that need to be made in order to take your coffee on the road, such as a direct power source.
Gas-powered and dual-fuel coffee machines alleviate the issues surrounding access to a power source, utilising a combination of gas and intermittent electric power (or a small generator) to allow you to provide delicious hot drinks and more to customers in even the most remote locations.
Is design important to you?
Coffee machines come in many shapes, sizes and of course designs.
Each manufacturer will have it’s own design language or feature-set that has an affect on the look of a potential machine.
It’s important to consider what your machine will look like in position. Will your machine be the flagship item within your coffee shop? Prominent and proud? Or placed in an out of the way position?
If you’re looking to offer self-service coffee, then what your machine looks like will again affect how customers interact with your biggest investment.
Design is just as important to coffee machine manufacturers, with many different and beautifully crafted machines to choose from, we are sure there will be one suited exactly to your colour scheme/layout/presentation.
Still undecided on what type of coffee machine to purchase?
There is a lot of information to process, and if you are on the fence then here’s a few reasons to go for one type of machine over the other:
Five reasons to choose an espresso machine
- Coffee is going to be focal point of your business
- You want to produce the best coffee possible
- Presentation, style and tradition is important
- Busy periods are expected where multiple drinks will be required quickly
- You aren’t a traditional static seller
Five reasons to choose bean to cup coffee machine
- Ease of use is important to you
- Staff turnover is high, hence training is difficult
- Coffee, whilst important, isn’t a primary focus of your business
- Self-service will be required
- Staff will need to multi-task
Still unsure or confused?
We’ve laid all this information on thick, and of course, we completely understand how daunting this process can be. Choosing a coffee machine shouldn’t be something that is taken lightly, and if all this information has you feeling confused, then we are more than happy to offer advice or answer any burning questions you may have.
Our showroom is open to those looking to get to grips with a machine, come and see all of our machines for yourself and get a demo of what could be your biggest potential purchase!
If you’d like to speak directly to a person or would like a quote for a specific machine our friendly team are always happy to give you advice and support just by calling 01977 687 580.
For anything else regarding our machines, showrooms or advice and support then just pop us an email, and we’ll get in touch!