How do I increase revenue at my café in Ireland?

To increase revenue at a café, work on three numbers: how many customers you have, how often they come back, and how much they spend each time. Small gains in each multiply together. The quickest wins are usually at the counter (a well-judged add-on, a sensible bundle, the right opening hours), followed by a loyalty scheme that turns a weekly customer into a three-times-a-week one, and order-ahead coffee that wins the morning queue.

Revenue is customers, times visits, times spend

Write the three numbers down, even roughly, before you change anything.

• Customers: how many different people buy from you in a month.
• Visits: how often each one comes back.
• Spend: what they spend on an average visit.

Lifting each by a modest amount compounds. A tenth more customers, coming a tenth more often, spending a tenth more each time, is about a third more revenue, without any single change being dramatic. It also tells you where to look: a café with loyal regulars and a small average spend needs a different fix from one with a big ticket and no repeat trade.

Raise the average spend without being pushy

The cheapest revenue is the extra item someone was happy to buy and nobody offered.

• Suggest a pairing, not a product. "Would you like a pastry with that?" works better when it is specific: "The almond croissant's just out of the oven, it's lovely with a flat white."
• Share a genuine opinion. Staff have tasted everything. When someone hovers at the counter, a sincere favourite and why is more persuasive than any sign.
• Ask one friendly question. If someone says they love chocolate, point them to the brownie rather than the scone. It is service, and it sells.
• Read the room. The aim is to help people find something they will enjoy, not to push every customer. A regular in a hurry wants their coffee.

Train it once, model it yourself, and let staff use their own words.

Use bundles that work for you and the customer

Bundles make a decision easy and lift the average order.

• Coffee and a pastry or scone for the morning.
• A toastie or soup with tea or coffee for lunch.
• Multi-buys on things you bake in batches: three pastries for the price of two, or a deal on sausage rolls at the end of the day.

Two rules. Know your margins first: a bundle should still make money on every sale, so cost the items and check the discount leaves you ahead. And bundle items that move together naturally, so you are not giving away margin on something that would have sold anyway. The menu price calculator helps you check each price with VAT included.

Open when your customers are actually around

Look at your sales by hour for a few weeks. Two common patterns:

• You open after the commuters have gone. If people are walking past at 7.30 with a coffee from somewhere else, an earlier start may pay for itself.
• You close while the afternoon is still busy, or stay open through a dead hour that costs more in wages than it takes.

Change one end of the day at a time and give it a month before judging.

Bring regulars back more often

For most cafés the habit is the business. A loyalty scheme rewards it.

• Reward visits, not spend. A visit-based reward (for example, every tenth coffee) suits a café, where the ticket is small and frequency is everything. Asking people to keep a running total of spend in their heads does not.
• Make the first reward reachable. A reward nobody reaches teaches customers the scheme is decoration.
• Let it run itself. On Mosey loyalty is free to run, with no commission on the spend it rewards, and a visit records itself when the customer pays through Mosey, so there is no card to stamp. Read more in how to start a café loyalty scheme.
• Message the ones who drift. A win-back message to a regular who has not been in for a while is the cheapest revenue you will find. Mosey's automations can send it on a schedule you approve.

Win the morning queue with order-ahead coffee

The morning rush is when you lose customers who will not wait. Order-ahead coffee keeps them.

A customer orders and pays on their phone, picks a time and walks in to collect. You can cap the number of orders in each pickup slot so the rush cannot land on one five-minute window. A coffee run that takes four minutes instead of twelve is a reason to choose you over the place next door. On Mosey, Order Ahead is 1.5% commission, and each order counts towards loyalty automatically.

Fill the quiet hours

Most cafés have a dead stretch, often mid-afternoon. Price it rather than accept it.

• A time-limited price on chosen items, such as coffee and a slice after 3pm. Deal Hours on Mosey applies a discount to the items you choose in the window you set, then lifts it, with nothing to switch on and off each day.
• A reason to come in: a quiet table for laptop workers, a kids' snack deal after school, a study-friendly afternoon.
• Tell the people nearby. A notification to your followers on a quiet afternoon does more than a post nobody sees.

Add new income without new premises

• Gift vouchers. Easy to sell at Christmas and for birthdays, paid for before anyone visits. Vouchers are 4.5% commission on Mosey, and the buyer pays a small booking fee on top.
• Small events. A coffee tasting, a baking class, a breakfast meeting, an evening with a local producer. Tickets are paid in advance at 4% commission.
• Platters for local offices and meetings. It uses kitchen capacity in quiet hours, and one good office customer can be worth a lot of single coffees.
• Seasonal menus. Soups and warming drinks in winter; iced coffee and fruit-led bakes in summer, which also photograph well, so customers post them for you.

Keep more of each card payment

Card fees eat into small tickets. If customers pay you through Mosey Pay in the café, it costs 0.5%, capped at €149 a month, with no booking fee for the customer, tips passed on in full, and a loyalty visit recorded automatically.

Where to start this week

1. Write down your customers, visits and average spend.
2. Agree one pairing suggestion with your staff.
3. Cost and launch one bundle that makes money.
4. Check your sales by hour and decide whether to open or close at a different time.
5. Start a visit-based loyalty scheme with a reachable first reward.
6. Offer order-ahead coffee for the morning rush.

Claim your business free and set up loyalty and order-ahead in one go, or see pricing first.