mailordermasterclass

6 “ PIVOTING AWAY FROM HOSPITALITY TO ONLINE WAS A HEADACHE , BUT A NECESSARY ONE” SHUMANA PALIT, ULTRACOMIDA 57% 96BN 68% OF UK CONSUMERS REPORT REGULARLY BUYING FROM DTC BRANDS Source: Barclays Corporate Banking VALUE OF THE UK’S DTC SALES IN 2020 Source: Barclays Corporate Banking OF UK CONSUMERS ABANDON A WEBSITE PURCHASE DUE TO HIGH DELIVERY COSTS Source: Fast and Frictionless report by Brightpearl.com “We knewthere couldn’t be a singlefix” SHOP FLOOR > WAREHOUSE FLOOR We started March last year with delis, restaurants and a Spanish food import business. We had to take on as much debt as we could to ride out the pandemic, but then you look at it and think ‘S**t, now we have to service that debt! We knew there couldn’t be a single fix; we had to look at multiple areas. Some of the restaurant elements of our business just couldn’t work during Covid but our wine sales were going through the roof. We furloughed all the staff and kept a skeleton crew in the warehouse but gradually we took on an extra. In fact, we came out of lockdown with SHUMANA PALIT DIRECTOR OF ULTRACOMIDA IN CARDIFF a bigger warehouse team than we went in with. DELI/RESTAURANT > CUSTOMER-FACING WAREHOUSE We turned the restaurant into a wine room, but we needed a more warehousing (Brexit was partly a factor) and we found a great space that lent itself to half warehouse, half retail. It’s no-frills but has the feel of a bodega or winery: a working environment where you can taste as well as buy. We assumed people would rock up 100+% ONLINE SALES INCREASE AT ULTRACOMIDA DURING 2020 DIRECT TO CONSUMER: THE STATS with a basket, get what they want and leave but it’s almost more conducive to talking about wine than the original shop space. ONLINE HUB > DEDICATED SISTER SITE Our existing website was pretty clunky but it’s plumbed into lots of essential back-end stuff so we launched a spin-off: SpanishWinesDirect. Pivoting away from the hospitality elements of our business to more online sales was a headache, but a necessary one. Our options were to close our doors and walk ways – declaring bankruptcy – or make some big changes. It’s been gruelling, and there were some elements we couldn’t do as well as we wanted but it feels good now to be at the tweaking stage. IN PARTNERSHIP WITH