"Shipping was the slowest part of the process, now it’s the quickest part"
Whether it was seasonal spikes or large retailer orders, fulfilling orders was slowing down, and holding back their growth.
Using Zenstores, the Chocolate Society is now equipped to handle changes in demand and take full advantage of their busy periods.
The Company
In 2010, Al Garnsworthy set about rescuing a failed chocolate business with a fantastic domain name and good heritage. Al and his brother took over the company and, with plenty of training, trials and tribulation, built an award-winning artisan chocolate brand in Wincanton, Somerset.
The Chocolate Society is now incredibly successful online using Shopify, and they’re also stocked by luxury retailers, Harrods, Selfridges and Harvey Nichols.
The Challenge
“The toughest thing was getting parcels out of the door”
Selling chocolates is a seasonal business, so The Chocolate Society is usually quieter in the summer and busier in the winter, being online allows them to be flexible and responsive to demand. However, they needed to be able to keep up with the influx of orders around Christmas and Easter to be able to grow the business.
The slow, manual process of creating shipping labels and getting orders dispatched restricted the number of orders they could produce. At some points, they were having to take products out of stock because they were at the maximum of what they were actually able to get dispatched - a nice problem to have, but one holding back Al from achieving his ambitions.
The Solution
Zenstores gave them the ability to print out large numbers of shipping labels in bulk, which has been essential to The Chocolate Society. All their orders were in one easily accessible place, where they could be organised and shipped from.
It was something that they’d been looking for for years; having the functionality that Zenstores offers within a custom built website would have been expensive and problematic.
The Result
“Shipping was the slowest part of the process, now it’s the quickest part”
Using Zenstores, they’re now much better equipped to handle the seasonal changes in demand and take full advantage of their busy periods at Christmas and Easter.
The Chocolate Society has been able to establish a reputation as a reliable and successful business; helping them to increase sales on their own website, as well as opening up possibilities to fulfil large orders for bigger retailers.