Peets Coffee Academic Writing

Peet's Coffee and Tea

In 1999 there were 108,000,000 coffee consumers in the United States spending an approximated 9.2 billion dollars in the retail sector and 8.7 billion dollars in the foodservice sector every year (SCAA 1999 Market Report). For how many Americans drink coffee nowadays, it goes way back to the 1960's when Alfred Peet opened his first coffee shop named "Peet's Coffee and Tea". Peet's Coffee and Tea were originally opened by Alfred Peet ("Alfred Peet"). Alfred Peet's father used to own a coffee roaster before the World War 2 and he learned the trade method by helping his father with his family roaster (Patricia Sullivan). When he grew up, he started working as a tea taster and a coffee importing business and with an inspiration of how poor quality coffee Americans were drinking; he was inspired to open his own coffee shop ("Alfred Peet"). His coffee shop began to be the most unique and original coffee shop in Berkeley, California. "Nobody had ever seen top-quality coffee like this roasted in this unique style in America" ("Alfred Peet"). Starting from roasting to delivering his coffees was originally done by hand. There are many who were the "Peet's Coffee and Tea" loyal customers are still coming to the store. The coffee shop was the inspiration to Starbucks (Louis Freedberg). When Starbucks first opened, they used to get their coffee beans supply from Peet's (Jessica Woodard). The two shop owners completely knew each other and have gotten to be a rival (Jessica Woodard).While Peet's was still running as a shop, Starbucks has gotten to be more like a café and growing faster than Peet's (Jessica Woodard). No matter how slow Peet's coffee shop was successful, the loyal customers are still coming for the high quality ("Alfred Peet").

Alfred Peet is a successful entrepreneur in the consumer coffee business. An entrepreneur is an inventive business person who is ready to take a risk in "desire to make the business grow" and "to make their companies successful" (Boone and Kurtz 185). The difference from small business owners and managers is their prevailing responsibility to manage their resources in order to reach their goals (Boone and Kurtz 185). Alfred Peet was successful due to the great services he gave to his customers. Customers began to order their favorite products through home delivery service that didn't exist before. Customer service agents became available to answer questions about ordering. Peet's store was expanding, and opening shops in California, Illinois, Massachusetts, Oregon and Washington means the tremendous growth of his new business founded 40 years ago ("Alfred Peet"). There weren't many gourmet coffee shops and opening his shop so it was a risky step for him. Also his loyal fans that couldn't buy due to their locations can order the products online visiting the website ("Alfred Peet").

Peet's Coffee business accomplished its goals in both marketing and relationship era. The

Marketing era is a period of time when business began to investigate customers' needs before producing goods and services for them. The most important change was a development of "customer orientation" and "brand" that allowed companies build their identity distinguishing from others (Boone and Kurtz 14). In the relationship era, business focuses on creating a long term customer relationships and managing in ways that reduces overall costs. Long term relationships allow companies to understand the consumers' mind and help to raise their loyalty (Boone and Kurtz 15). The marketing era that he did was when he has noticed how poor quality coffees Americans were drinking, Peet was inspired to open his own coffee shop ("Alfred Peet"). The relationship era between the customers were there to help customers learn how to brew a coffee. One of the important issues of the success in both eras was Peet's self confidence that he could provide the high quality coffee and tea to consumers. The long term relationship Peet has made with his customers was that the shop was always available to help the customers and there was a high customer satisfaction ("Alfred Peet"). Peet's believes that working closely with growers in Mexico, Central America, and Africa will gain high quality beans and leaves for the future.

Not only does Peet's coffee maintain a strong relationship with its customers, the relationship between employee and employers. There were factors of the relationship between the employees and the employers. The first factor that makes relationship strong is an employee's acknowledgement (Carolyn Marshall). Peet's consider its workers as a most valuable