What makes a coffee shop successful on Street 51?

INTRODUCTION
Phnom Penh, Cambodia has a thriving café industry, “over the last few years Phnom Penh has seen

an

explosion of coffee culture1” according to Marketing in

Cambodia. I certainly cannot disagree as I have experienced

this myself. For example, in the compound I live in, a new

coffee shop has just opened and I was able to witness the

building of Costa Coffee. I know there is a wide variety of

coffee shops in Phnom Penh, especially on Street 51, “it seems not a day goes by without a sign going up for

a new café2.”

Julius Thiemann and Poppy McPherson of the Phnom Penh Post have noted on what factors make a

coffee shop successful. They claim that the manner in which a shop is decorated can heavily contribute to the

ambience, that Kiriya has “easy ambience jazz” but “white walls, plain white tables and marble floors3” make

it “soulless4” while True Coffee is “modern and spacious but still a

place to hang-out5”. Ambience is important because at coffee shops, people search for comfort and

homeliness. The article also mentions price, saying in Kiriya it is “$2.25 for a small cup6” and at True Coffee

it is “$3 for a very small cup of black coffee7”. This shows that price appears to be a contributing factor to the

popularity and success of a coffee shop.

When my teacher asked us to pick a stimulus for our exploration, I worked out how many coffee

shops were actually on Street 51. When gathering information for this exploration, I walked down Street 51

between Street 380 and Preah Sihanouk Boulevard (as shown in ​Appendix A​), and determined there were

1
"CAMBODIA'S COOL COFFEE CULTURE." ​Marketingincambodia.com​. Marketing in Cambodia, 23 Jan. 2013. Web. 31 Oct. 2013.
<​http://www.marketingincambodia.com/2013/01/cambodias-cool-coffee-culture.html​>.
Photo - A cup of coffee is my stimulus from topwalls.net
2
McPherson, Poppy, and Julius Thiemann. "Phnom Penh Post - Coffee Culture."​Phnompenhpost.com​. Phnom Penh
Post, 9 Nov. 2012. Web. 31 Oct. 2013.​ ​<h​t​tp://www.phnompenhpost.com/7days/coffee-culture>​.
3
McPherson, Poppy, and Julius Thiemann. "Phnom Penh Post - Coffee Culture."​Phnompenhpost.com​. Phnom Penh
Post, 9 Nov. 2012. Web. 31 Oct. 2013.​ ​<h​t​tp://www.phnompenhpost.com/7days/coffee-culture>​.
4
McPherson, Poppy, and Julius Thiemann. "Phnom Penh Post - Coffee Culture."​Phnompenhpost.com​. Phnom Penh
Post, 9 Nov. 2012. Web. 31 Oct. 2013.​ ​<h​t​tp://www.phnompenhpost.com/7days/coffee-culture>​.
5
McPherson, Poppy, and Julius Thiemann. "Phnom Penh Post - Coffee Culture."​Phnompenhpost.com​. Phnom Penh
Post, 9 Nov. 2012. Web. 31 Oct. 2013.​ ​<h​t​tp://www.phnompenhpost.com/7days/coffee-culture>​.
6
McPherson, Poppy, and Julius Thiemann. "Phnom Penh Post - Coffee Culture."​Phnompenhpost.com​. Phnom Penh
Post, 9 Nov. 2012. Web. 31 Oct. 2013.​ ​<h​t​tp://www.phnompenhpost.com/7days/coffee-culture>​.
7
McPherson, Poppy, and Julius Thiemann. "Phnom Penh Post - Coffee Culture."​Phnompenhpost.com​. Phnom Penh
Post, 9 Nov. 2012. Web. 31 Oct. 2013.​ ​<h​t​tp://www.phnompenhpost.com/7days/coffee-culture>​.
eight coffee shops. On three consecutive Saturdays between 11:00am- 2:00pm, I conducted a survey to

obtain statistics on factors that could possibly make a coffee shop successful.

I have walked down Street 51 several times while researching for this topic, and I have consistently

noticed that it is impossible to tell which coffee shop is more successful, as they all get customers. I believe

that the aim of a shop in general is to have as many customers as possible. Therefore, if there are a bunch of

similar stores near each other, as is the case in this exploration, this inevitably leads to competition for

customers. There has to be a distinguishing factor that contributes to the success of these coffee shops on

Street 51.

Before I surveyed the coffee shops, I decided to make a decision on what factor would contribute the

most to the successfulness of a coffee shop. I decided that ​Location (the distance from Preah Sihanouk

Boulevard) ​and ​Capacity (the number of seats inside a shop) ​were the most important factors. I know that

Preah Sihanouk Boulevard is a busy street as it is one of the main streets in Phnom Penh while Street 380 is

just a side street. I believed that the closer to the boulevard the coffee shop is, the more customers there

would be. The assumption is that if people wished to have a coffee and were travelling on Sihanouk (as many

do), they would not want to go too far off Sihanouk to get a drink. I also believe that the more places to sit in

a coffee shop, there more customers there will be as more will be inclined to visit a coffee shop if it can be

guaranteed that they get a seat, and can relax with their coffee.

The factors that were measured at the coffee shops were used, as I believed they would best represent

the success or failure of each of the coffee shops. At first glance, it is clear that there is a variation in

statistics for each of the coffee shops – none of them are exactly the same. Just by looking at these tables, one

coffee shop may appear to be more successful because it outweighs the others in one particular factor.
AIM
By using Correlation, I aim to prove that capacity is the most important factor in how successful a coffee shop
is.