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Green Grocer Web Design Case Study

Learn how Bloomtools created a professional and functional website for a Green Grocer, helping them succeed online

Like many small businesses, this local green grocer was finding it difficult to compete with the budgets of big businesses. While he had a number of loyal customers that always shopped in his store, he was losing many shoppers to the big supermarket chains. He needed a website that would allow him to offer something different to his competitors and help him to build a community around his brand.

Challenges

  • Branding this green grocer was well-known to locals but in order to compete with the big supermarkets, he really needed to build his brand and highlight his point of difference.
  • Sales the green grocer needed to do something innovative to prevent his customers from shopping at the chain supermarkets and also to get customers to shop with him more frequently.
  • Interactivity - the green grocer wanted to create a place where his customers could interact with his business and form a community around his store.

Solutions

The green grocer used a Bloomtools Third Generation Website and a variety of tools to do the following:

  • Profile his business

In order to indicate his point of difference and to inform customers about his business, the green grocer created a profile of his business on his website. This profile featured his business values and his promise of quality products, as well as a history and information about himself. This helped his customers to connect with his business and to understand why he is better than the supermarkets.

Products: Article Listing, Flash Header

  • Place fun quizzes on his site

The green grocer wanted to educate his customers about the products he sells, so he created a series of short, entertaining quizzes about fruit and vegetables for his site. Not only did these quizzes educate his customers, they also informed them about his product range and encouraged them to spend more time on his site.

Product: Quizzes

  • Put handy food hints around the site

The green grocer had a lot of useful information about purchasing fruit and vegetables to share with his customers, such as best seasons and colours. He set his website to display these helpful tips at random around the site as part of the site design. 

Product: Tips/Quotes Manager

  • Build an online collection of recipes

The green grocer wanted to share creative ways to use his produce with his customers, so he collected all his recipes and archived them on his website. He could easily input them in to his site, feature several on the main page and even have them searchable by ingredients. These were a huge hit with his customers and got them coming back to the site more often.

Products: Article Listing, Website Search

  • Establish an online ordering system

The biggest success of the green grocer's website was the online ordering system that he created on his site. The green grocer displayed all of his produce in a product catalogue, where customers could add items to their shopping cart and even pay for them online. The order would then be sent through to the grocer who would either deliver them to the customer or arrange for them to be picked up from the store. This convenient system worked so well for his customers that he eventually opened up a drive through at his store where customers could pick up their online orders.

Product: Shopping Cart

  • Send out regular news updates to his database

The green grocer discovered that a great way to keep in touch with his customers and to draw them to his site was email marketing. He created a monthly newsletter that included stories and recipes about in season produce, specials and product updates and sent it to his database of contacts. The response to the newsletter was very positive, with many customers even sharing it with friends and family.

Product: Database Marketing

  • Set up an affiliate system with local businesses

The green grocer wanted to get involved with other local businesses, so he set up an affiliate system where other businesses could earn money by getting their staff and customers to buy from his store.  Each affiliate was given their own code, so when they sent a customer to the green grocer's site, they entered the code of the affiliate that directed them there.  The green grocer could easily manage this system online and quickly calculate the payments for his affiliates.  Although he was paying out extra money, the increase in sales from this system really boosted his business.

Product: Affiliate Management Software

Tools used

The green grocer used the following tools:

Does your business need an Internet marketing plan like this? Contact us here if you would like one of our expert consultants to evaluate your business and recommend strategies that will suit your unique business and target market.