Pemberley Tea Shop

The following is information taken from an interview with Nenita Miller, co-owner of a privately owned Tea Shop located in Lancaster, Pennsylvania.

As a tea shop, there is competition with the big brand name coffee companies such as Starbucks, but Pemberley Tea Shop rarely feels the strain of this competition. Nenita stated that “we have our own kind of clientele, we are the only tea shop around and what we have here is very unique because we make everything here, and the people we serve come here specifically for that.” However,Nenita admitted that the only clients they may lose to companies who offer coffee as well as tea are the international students from the local college.

The majority of the customers of Pemberley Tea Shop are middle aged and elderly people, ranging from in the neighborhood to as far away as Delaware and Baltimore. As an advertising strategy, Nenita admitted that when they were first starting, “we advertised in every magazine”. However, now that they have developed a secure clientele base, Pemberley Tea Shop has set up a register for their clients to sign up and receive “the latests news and mail.” This is in an effort to advertise to their older patrons who do not use email, and to keep customers in touch and interested. Pemberly Tea Shop also still advertises in the local newspaper website and magazine in order to attract newer and younger customers.

While starting their company, Nenita admitted that there were many obstacles facing them. One of the biggest obstacles was finding the perfect location to open a tea shop, so that it received a lot of attention and interested clients. After they found a location and had already developed a solid customer base, Nenita admitted that “we had problems with our landlords. A new person bought the building and wasn't a good landlord. He wanted to kick us out of the building, but realized he needed tenants. This cost us some customers who thought we were leaving, and three years later came around and saw we were still here.” However, the location turned out to be perfect, located right by a college campus and an up and coming hotel, whose customers often come and eat lunch at the tea shop.