Hello there, coffee entrepreneurs!
Welcome to this new article in the #Tips&Tricks series, in which today we will cover the seasonal drinks system, its relationship to market trends and consumer expectations, and the consequences that a good or bad choice of ingredients will have on the reputation of your business. Soon you'll realize that, despite its complexity, this feature is quite easy to understand!
Seasonal drinks include products that people believe to be appropriate for each season of the year, like eggnog in Winter or flowers in Spring. Once the lab at your headquarters is unlocked, you’ll be able to create lots of them by mixing several types of base drinks, syrups, and toppings. Some ingredients of these categories will be suitable for all the year, but others will turn your creation into a seasonal drink. You’ll realize that after seeing the icon that will appear on the top right corner of the screen.
You'll notice up to four different icons there depending on the seasonal ingredients you've added to your drink, but keep in mind that you'll have to choose a prevailing season before finishing the process. Any seasonal effect the other ingredients may have will disappear. This is a feature of the game that you will have to master since customers may request the craziest combinations ever seen. And this is where trends come into play!
From a certain point in the game, you will be presented with challenges associated with ingredients that have become fashionable. You can let the opportunity go, but if your competitors get ahead of you, a reputation debuff will be applied and you will be visited by fewer consumers for a certain period of time. But if you take the chance to feature a new special beverage, there might come a day when a lot of people decide to visit your shop. It all depends on your capacity to hit the nail on the head!
Another factor to consider is the temperature expected for each drink. In both spring and summer, customers will prefer colder beverages; and in fall and winter, you'd better serve them warm and smoking!
But it doesn't end there! We still have to tell you about the pre-market testing of the new beverages. When your drink is ready to go, you will test it with a representative sample of each target audience: that is, young people, casual consumers, and coffee experts. The rating of each group will tell you who has liked it, and which people would rather drink sewage water than take another sip of your new idea.
It’s pretty usual to prioritize one target audience or another according to the type of clients you expect to come to your business — this is one of the aspects of your empire you’ll have to manage shop by shop to obtain the best result possible! And remember that if you want to take advantage of this to modify your user base, a paid marketing campaign will be the ideal complement.
And… that’s all for today, folks! However, if you have any questions in this regard, we are available to answer them. It may take a while, as we are busy preparing the new major update for June, which will bring options to set the individual price of drinks. You can learn more about this topic in the announcement we dedicated to Coffee Shop Tycoon’s roadmap.
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Enjoy your next coffee,
Riff Studios