"Life is like riding a bicycle. To keep your balance, you must keep moving." – Albert Einstein.
myCuppa August 2024 Newsletter
Welcome.
It's been a while, and things look remarkably different now.
That's just what we wanted.
We appreciate your patience as we improve our systems and newsletter services. We're sorry if you got this message after unsubscribing some time ago.
Customer data resided across three different platforms; sometimes, they failed to synchronise properly, and the worst part was that those legacy systems did not alert us to incidents despite all our efforts to maintain our data as "clean and compliant" as possible.
If you no longer wish to hear from us, we respect your decision. Please use the unsubscribe link below. The process will be swift and effective now that our platforms run on new technology.
What's happened and why?
Our mycuppa store had been running on ten-year-old systems, which had become difficult to support and change.
In online shopping, that's almost a certain future death sentence.
We started to develop a plan to shift our systems onto new platforms in late 2019. But then the pandemic hit, and we had to abandon our plans to focus on the incredible surge in demand for our products.
Fast-forward to 12 months ago as we picked up the pace to start on a long, hard slog to rebuild mycuppa on a new platform.
Starting with a clean slate, we re-created every word, image, and object from new to enhance the user experience and help our customers make better choices when selecting delicious-tasting coffees.
Completing this in-house project without using tools or external agencies has been a monumental effort, showcasing our dedication to providing you with the best service.
On July 17th, we flicked the switch that changed to our new platform. At the same time, we attempted to communicate these changes to our known subscribers and customers.
Unfortunately, the new platform issued us a big fat speeding fine after we somehow exceeded their (undocumented) "new sender reputation threshold."
Barely 10% of our subscribers received the message about the new changes, and we apologise for not issuing this notification sooner.
We are excited about the new platform's amazing potential for the future, including improved usability, faster order processing, and better customer support. We hope you enjoy these benefits as we continue to enhance your shopping experience.
Key differences exist between the old and new systems, especially regarding removing legacy order history and how customers set delivery preferences for enabling Authority To Leave on parcels.
If interested, please read our summary below to understand what's changed.
Please remember that our physical site will be shut down all day on Thursday, August 15th, and Friday, August 16th, because of changes required at the premises.
During this period, we are unable to ship customer orders. However, our store will continue accepting new online orders.
We'd like to ask our customers to place their orders before midday on Wednesday, August 14th, to avoid any delays in shipping.
To finalise the main power changes, another physical site shutdown is required at a later date (to be confirmed).
We are committed to providing the best service and will let you know about any further disruptions.
August 2024 Secret Label
We may have been burning the midnight oil on the project to change our mycuppa platform; however, we continued to invest our expertise in developing our incredibly important and popular Secret Label program.
Secret Label has been a welcome respite from the arduous hours of data changes, and we have enjoyed preparing some epic creations over the last few months.
For August, we moved full circle with Secret Label and crafted another amazing blend for you.
Ironically, there is an interesting statistic regarding which months are our most popular. August's Secret Label coffees have won the contest seven of the last eight years since we started the Secret Label program.
Will August take the gold again?
Caramel and toffee are nice, but sweet apple pie floats our boat here. Of course, let's remember that important, delicious milk chocolate finish that runs on forever. Wowsa.
Grab it here Secret Label
Coffee Prices Continue to Rise
Can I say upfront that nobody wants to hear about things getting more expensive? I certainly don't, and the media's 12-month rampage beating our eardrums into submission about the constantly lingering "cost of living crisis" has become annoying and only serves to force us to switch off or ignore the endlessly looping narrative.
Unfortunately, coffee prices have continued to rise, up another 30% over the last four months after almost doubling in 2022 and 2023.
Today, coffee and cocoa stand out as the only two global commodities whose prices will not decline in the short term. Everyone in the coffee industry, including us, is deeply worried.
On our side, it's black eyes all around as coffee sits at 25-year highs. There is no place to hide here, folks, and it's not as simple as "buy cheaper." There's no such thing as cheap coffee, which disappeared in 2021.
We continue absorbing cost increases at dangerous levels, and our offers will soon change again. The global coffee industry has been hurting just as much as craft breweries, which have recently closed at alarming rates.
Once upon a time, a buyer could search different origins for value—just like property buyers looking at suburbs or areas that are lower priced. That strategy no longer works, as all coffee-producing countries, these days charge eye-watering premiums for even the most basic or entry-level qualities.
It will be a tough ride over the next 12 months, and we assure you of our ongoing pledge to offer the best quality, freshness, range, speed and value in the Australian market.
myCuppa Store Changes
Besides the cosmetic differences between our old and new stores, there are many changes to how our customers use the new system.
Passwords
Finally, passwords have been eliminated (hooray).We used to receive far too many calls or emails daily from customers needing help reset their passwords or log into the system.
The new store uses a one-time 6-digit code. Instead of a password, you can enter your email address and a code.
No, we are not harvesting email contact details - this is a highly secure and legitimate method stores use globally.
Order history
A major concession involved the loss of order history from the old system. Unfortunately, the data was incompatible between the platforms, and records for the products, customers, and orders differed greatly.While it will be a short adjustment period, once you are up and running on the new platform, the history of your orders will be maintained going forward.
Authority To Leave
Despite using the world's most popular e-commerce platform, there are no easy or simple ways to capture a customer's preference for "Authority To Leave" (which means having your parcel left without a signature).It is a truly bizarre situation, and this feature is not available out of the box. Even after two years of using this platform, we still can't believe that a giant, global e-commerce platform misses the point entirely on why providing a feature for customers to set Authority To Leave is important.
Part of the problem here, folks, is that the new system has a tightly locked-down checkout for increased security compliance. Even we, as the store's owners, can't access it.
Customers must set Authority To Leave (ATL) in the Cart (either the sliding Cart drawer or the main Cart) before proceeding to the Checkout. I bet nobody will remember this;-(
A drop-down tab called "Add order note" allows you to set Authority To Leave (in a check box) and enter instructions for the delivery agent.
OK, we get it. The new system needs an obvious way to set Authority to Leave - it's the one feature that does not match the old system.
It's no surprise that ATL rates have plunged from 64% to barely 1%. Blimey, that will hurt, and I'm already searching for the tin hat and bulletproof vest.
In response, we have set all parcels to a default of Safe Drop, which allows the receiver to request Authority To leave whilst the parcel is in transit.
Yes, we will continue to look at how to make the Authority To Leave setting more prominent and visible within the order workflow.
Tax Invoices
Another characteristic of the new system is that customers are not sent an attached tax invoice receipt when ordering.The propeller heads in charge of the platform believe that sending attachments is a security risk, so we have added a special feature that includes a link for customers to download the PDF Tax Invoice receipt.
So please remember—no attachments will be sent, and you must download the invoice from a link in the email notification. Alternatively, you can log into the myCuppa store, and the link will be shown on the Order Status page.
Address Verification
Invalid shipping addresses cause us nightmares.Not only are we under time pressure to ship orders fast, but when we encounter the wrong address, the workflow immediately halts, and we can't ship your order.
Making matters worse, customers rarely answer their phones or may not read emails often, so it's become difficult for us to reach customers quickly to obtain corrected address details.
Invalid addresses are occurring more frequently—almost a 4% failure rate, whereas 2 years ago, it was barely 1%.
This is often caused by outdated address details stored within a customer's PayPal account.
The problem with invalid addresses is caused by junk and errors stored in global databases over time— these are not our databases but the systems used by secure platform checkouts. Unfortunately, we cannot eliminate these invalid address records, and they continue to populate faster than a COVID outbreak.
Here's how it happens: The customer starts typing their address and a few characters into the address, and the "global junk address database" attempts to autocomplete the remainder of the customer's address by throwing up best-match suggestions that might be similar.
Often, the customer fails to notice or realise the differences between their address and the proposed suggestion from the junky address suggestions. Hence, the customer presses enter on an invalid address as it looks close to their address.
We ask customers to please make sure that your address is correct.
Invalid addresses are a preventable expense that we cannot control. We have extra tools to detect or trap invalid addresses, but the time spent dealing with these errors is significant, as is the risk of extra charges AusPost automatically levy upon us when the address is invalid.
Payments
ShopPay processes credit card payments, and our customers can have ShopPay remember their details for faster and simpler future checkouts.
