{"id":14923,"date":"2024-05-23T17:39:05","date_gmt":"2024-05-23T13:39:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.cs-cart.com\/blog\/?p=14923"},"modified":"2025-08-07T14:27:30","modified_gmt":"2025-08-07T10:27:30","slug":"case-study-fete-du-cafe","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.cs-cart.com\/blog\/case-study-fete-du-cafe\/","title":{"rendered":"Case Study: F\u00eate du Caf\u00e9\u2014Europe’s First Coffee Marketplace Built with CS-Cart"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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2,500<\/strong>
products in a few months<\/h3>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n
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5,000<\/strong>
euros to launch MVP<\/h3>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n
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100,000<\/strong>
orders planned for 2025<\/h3>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n
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F\u00eate du Caf\u00e9<\/a> is a unique marketplace focused on coffee and tea. The idea for this platform came from its founder, Jeroen van der Geest, who noticed the huge coffee market in the Netherlands, valued at about 5 billion euros.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Jeroen van der Geest<\/strong><\/a>
The Founder of F\u00eate du Caf\u00e9<\/strong><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n
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Coffee is a very large market in the Netherlands, worth about 5 billion. It’s huge, immensely huge. I never knew that. I only started a year ago with zero knowledge of coffee. I just knew that coffee was a big market and figured it would be exciting to sell coffee. As I explored the idea, I initially wanted to start with a webshop to sell products online.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

During my investigation, I found that there were already numerous coffee workshops. Then I wondered, why is there no marketplace for coffee?<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Why does every webshop have to sell their coffee through either Amazon or similar platforms? Webshops have to advertise on Google, but there’s no other marketplace for them. That’s how I came up with the idea.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

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<\/span>From Idea to Launch<\/span><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Launching a marketplace for coffee that unites coffee workshops was something new in the local market. There was no such platform yet, so the niche was unoccupied. Therefore, Jeroen decided to act fast.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

With a background in software development and experience running a software company, Jeroen chose CS-Cart for its built-in multi-vendor features, which were essential for creating a marketplace. Instead of building from scratch, which would have cost around \u20ac100,000, he opted for CS-Cart, which provided a comprehensive solution for \u20ac5,000.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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F\u00eate du Caf\u00e9, Europe\u2019s 1st coffee marketplace<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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<\/span>Development and Customization<\/span><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Development started in 2023 and took about six months. The team began onboarding sellers in November-December, and now the marketplace has around 2,500 coffee products, making it the largest coffee web shop in the Netherlands.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The design is based on UniTheme<\/a>, customized to meet specific needs. Jeroen appreciated the flexibility of CS-Cart, allowing for significant customization and control over the platform\u2019s functionality.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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\n “I thought a lot about Shopify and Magento, and they had plugins and layers you can put on top of them. CS-Cart was the first stop that actually had a built-in multi-vendor solution. I found it very appealing. The price was OK. If you build it from scratch, it would cost around \u20ac100,000. This could get me started with \u20ac5,000. So I think it was well worth it,” says Jeroen.\n <\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n
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Modified Unitheme<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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<\/span>Expansion and Challenges<\/span><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Currently operating in the Netherlands and Belgium, F\u00eate du Caf\u00e9 plans to expand into France and Germany in 2025. However, challenges such as complex tax regulations in Germany<\/em> need to be addressed first.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Finding the right multi-vendor platform<\/a><\/em> was also a significant challenge. After evaluating options like Shopify and Magento, Jeroen chose CS-Cart for its integrated multi-vendor solution, which simplified the development process.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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\n \u201cThe challenge was to find a multi-vendor platform that was kind of like an all-in-one solution. I didn\u2019t want to go for the headless solution. I know headless is very popular, but it makes things much more complicated and time-consuming, or more likely, more expensive. So, I looked at different platforms and companies. It took me 2 or 3 weeks to decide; it didn\u2019t take a lot of time. We just wanted to get started, and this was a good option to help us do that. So the MVP idea evolved into the current marketplace,\u201d says Jeroen.\n <\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n
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<\/span>Key Features and Support<\/span><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Jeroen needed a platform where multiple vendors could log in, upload products, and maintain a unified catalog. CS-Cart\u2019s ability to handle different shipping rates for various vendors and manage a single master product with multiple vendor listings was crucial. Although vendor administration could be improved, the overall functionality met the marketplace\u2019s needs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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\n\u201cI think your support team is very good. They respond very quickly and are very clear with their answers, so there’s no second-guessing. You get good answers, and even if it’s not the answer I’m looking for, it’s still helpful because I then know what’s going on. And that was fine,\u201d says Jeroen.\n <\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n
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Feature Explainer:<\/b> Jeroen says it was crucial for his marketplace to have a single master product with multiple vendor listings. This is a built-in CS-Cart feature called “Common Products for Vendors.”<\/p>\n

This feature allows the marketplace owner to create a product catalog and share it with the vendors so that they can sell only those products that are in the catalog. It\u2019s a great way to eliminate duplicate listings and bad product descriptions that don\u2019t align with the marketplace\u2019s rules, keeping the catalog nice, clean, and unified.\n<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

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