CASE STUDY — NEPALI TEA TRADERS
How a premium tea brand earned more from a smaller, sharper audience.
When Nepali Tea Traders paired founder-led stories with sharper audience segmentation, AOV climbed, engagement deepened, and the email program finally felt like the brand itself.
+31%
AVERAGE ORDER VALUE
Year over year
39x
REVENUE PER RECIPIENT
Story-led VIP send vs. sitewide discount
-76%
UNSUBSCRIBES
A healthier, more engaged list
Results measured Feb-April 2026 vs. Feb-April 2025
THE CHALLENGE
A premium brand with one missing piece.
Nepali Tea Traders sells some of the rarest tea in North America to an audience deeply invested in the people and story behind each cup.
The brand, the product, and the audience were already there. What hadn't been built yet was the strategy connecting them—the who, the when, and the why behind every send.
Without it, email leaned on broader sends and seasonal promotions that never fully reflected what made the brand special.
THE SOLUTION
One thesis guided the work.
The right story to the right person.
Broad sends gave way to founder-led stories tied to specific teas: the harvest, the farms, the people behind each cup. Send frequency dropped from twice weekly to once weekly.
Audiences were narrowed around what each customer cared about most. Loyal buyers heard the story behind the cup. Lapsed buyers got reasons to come back. VIPs got the brand at its most personal.
Each campaign sounded like the founder, not a marketing team.
THE RESULTS
Smaller list. Sharper sends. Stronger revenue.
Average order value climbed 31% year over year. A single Valentine's Day campaign to VIPs drove 39× the revenue per recipient of a sitewide discount sent the same day and that pattern held across the quarter. Story-led sends to high-intent segments outperformed broad discount campaigns on revenue and engagement.
Unsubscribes dropped 76% as sends became more targeted and the list focused on engaged buyers.
Behind the scenes, a sunset flow quietly retired unengaged contacts. Platform costs dropped 40%, freeing budget without losing reach to the customers who actually buy.
The program got smaller, sharper, and more profitable in the same motion.
The right customers were already there. They just needed the right story.
IN THEIR WORDS
"
We were throwing spaghetti at the walls. Milane gave us a strategy, proved it with data every single time, and brought us back to who we are as a brand.
Sunita Karrma
Owner, Nepali Tea Traders