mailordermasterclass

4 “Our subscriptionoffer is the thing that gets us closest to our most engaged customers” M yself and my business partner Glyn are chefs by background so when we started making out live kimchi, kraut and hot sauces food service was a big part of our market. Of course that hit the skids in 2020 so we were able to focus on DTC. Top of our list was subscription because it pays to engage with your most regular customers. Our website’s not very sophisticated so our sub isn’t fixed: people can change what products they want month to month and we keep track of that that manually. Seeing what people want gives us the chance to improve; it gives us the chance to speak to them directly. Otherwise, running a web shop you find your correspondence ends up being about issues and problems. User experience is the big buzzy thing; lack of contact with your customers when you’re digital and online explains why big brands work so hard to build engagement. As a tiny business when it comes to DTC, it’s been great to be able to gather some insight and get some engagement in an organic way. With the pandemic PAT BINGLEY CO-FOUNDER OF EATEN ALIVE, SOUTH LONDON we haven’t had lots of money washing around to activate market engagement so this has been a great tool to help us understand our customers better and learn how people react to our offer. Both Glyn and I come fromMichelin- starred kitchens and if someone turns up saying ‘I don’t want to eat any of the food on the menu’ then you send someone to the shop and you make it for them. So within reason we try to be as flexible as we can with all our customers – trade and consumer. We can do that is because our products are chilled and packed in glass, which means we have to fulfil orders ourselves. Almost everything sold online is fulfilled by a third party. We would do that to if we didn’t have some products which can be tricky to handle! Bi-monthly – we had to think what was reasonable so we looked at our best customer: what they order, how often, and also what works for us in terms of picking and packing these products. It’s aimed at relatively dedicated customers; for chilled products eight weeks allows people to eat what they have before the next box arrives. Subscription has gone back to being a small percentage of our revenue now our main channels have normalised. It’s also emotive: we’re doing something we care about and the subscription is the thing that gets us closest to our most engaged customers. It helps us know we’re making our products for people that care about them. POSTING PROFITS: HOW MAIL ORDER WENT BIG Dispatching orders used to be a simple business; now delivery models are diversifying... 1 LETTERBOX HAMPERS Frommeal kits to flattened wine bottles and cocktail kits to cheeseboards, the letterbox format has revolutionised the way we get curated hampers direct to the customer. Reduced delivery costs and increased customer satisfaction are important factors. 2 ’INSTANT’ DELIVERY APPS Have you hooked up with an app yet? Grocery apps such as Dija, Getir, Beelivery and Gorilla that promise ultra-fast delivery (as speedy as seven minutes in some postcodes) attracted over £5 billion of funding in 2021. Big growth is on the cards. 3 CHILLED PACKAGING Not new, but certainly working harder than ever as meal kits, and chilled and frozen groceries are increasingly ordered remotely. Frozen has been a particularly high performing category since the start of the pandemic. FISH AND NON-ALCOHOLIC BEVERAGES WERE CONSUMERS’ LEAST POPULAR ONLINE GROCERY ITEMS IN 2021 Source: Statista 55% OF ONLINE SHOPPERS IDENTIFY ALCOHOL AS THEIR MOST FREQUENT ONLINE GROCERY PURCHASE IN 2021 Source: Statista 42.6% OF UK SHOPPERS PLAN TO CONTINUE SOURCING THEIR GROCERIES ONLINE ONCE THE PANDEMIC IS OVER Source: Statista 45-54 YEAR OLDS WERE THE BIGGEST DEMOGRAPHIC FOR ONLINE FOOD AND DRINK PURCHASES IN 2020 Source: Statista IN PARTNERSHIP WITH