Heather Saffer, the founder of Dollop Gourmet jumped onto The eCom Ops Podcast to share her knowledge and experience in eCommerce business operations, check out all the other episodes here.
You can learn more about Heather and her business here:
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Heather’s journey into eCommerce
Heather used to own her own bakery where she won a number of competitions for her awesome cupcakes, however, when Heather attempted to move the store online she faced a number of challenges with distribution and product quality. Heather then pivoted to distributing starter kits that enabled people to decorate their own cupcakes, however due to the short shelf life shipping perishable goods also presented significant challenges. Heather then pivoted out of the bakery business and into an industry where she was able to have an eCommerce store and ship goods without operational issues. This final pivot landed on Dollop Gourmet – a healthy, vegan frosting alternative that was not perishable and therefore was much better suited to eCommerce.
The challenges Heather faced when selling on third party sites
Heather found it difficult when selling her items on Amazon and Vitacost because of the low order value on those platforms for her product category… trying to penetrate at the right price point was difficult, especially with the significant cuts those platforms were taking. However with her own eCommerce store Heather found more freedom and wiggle room when it came to pricing.
What could be automated in Heather’s business?
Right now, the process from order to distribution is manual where the team are copying and pasting the customer’s details from Shopify onto the label, this area could be automated to save valuable time.
How Heather ensures great customer experience
Heather makes sure that they are always in contact with their customers whether that is through social media, email newsletters, or over the phone. They aim to answer all of their customer’s questions and if needed they research the problems their customers are facing to ensure they can give consistently awesome service.
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