Teekampagne – a model for sustainable entrepreneurs
The Teekampagne (tea campaign) is quite a simple concept. Günther Faltin (professor for entrepreneurship in Germany & founder of the tea campaign) asked himself: why is tea affordable in China but so expensive in Europe?
After some investigations he finds: the reason are neither the transport nor the custom expenses but rather the fact that tea is not available all year around which means that distributors need to pay rent for an appropriate storage space. Another reason is the packaging: the tea has to be packed into consumer friendly small packs which does cost quite some money as well.
Günther Faltin decided to break this cycle and to sell tea directly to customers (using the web) in big packages and only when it is available. He did further research and found one type of Darjeeling tea that even has a quality certificate today which he now sells (less choice, high quality). Thanks to his direct contact to the manufacturer and his unusual business model he can sell the tea to a very affordable price.
However, the Teekampagne is not only a good place to buy tea, it is also a very simple and effective businessmodel, that can work with almost any product (e.g. energy saving light bulbs or vegetable oil).
Today everyone can be a successfull entrepreneur. In a postindustrial society ideas gain more relevance than capital.
For more information visit the Teekampagne website.
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March 7th, 2009 at 9:59 pm
Hmmm … personally I think the innovation in doing bulk mail order sales is very limited, and the days where ‘over the internet’ brings instant innovation merits are gone as well, I guess
In the beginning they did what you might call guerilla marketing: convincing a large number of shops here in Berlin with no relation to tea to sell the Teekampagne tea alongside for no charge (they didn’t earn anything or only very little on the tea, if I recall correctly). It was just a marketing exercise for them. So the Teekampagne and a large number of unrelated shops basically conspired against the tea shops … sounds like a valid example of guerilla marketing to me.
Here’s the book they produced about their business and innovation (german only):
http://www.teekampagne.de/buchtipp
They actually do sell the lightbulbs as well:
http://www.co2kampagne.de/
(Disclosure: I’m buying a lot of tea from them each year, although I am also used to much higher quality tea, so they must be doing something right
)