Life is healthier with freshly baked cookies and you may’t have only one.
If the cookie monster was on our workforce, it’d be sitting proper right here nodding its head whereas taking a chew from our field of varied cookies from Dohful as we share their story.
And what if we stated that all of it did begin with a soft-baked cookie?
Introducing Dohful
Dohful is a model that sells handcrafted and diverse cookies on-line, which can be baked recent on order. They’ve been delivering melt-in-the-mouth cookies throughout the nation by means of their web site on Shopify since October 2018, and have now grow to be a family identify for being the cookie monster’s finest good friend.
A cookie is all it takes: The start of Dohful
The founders of Dohful, Arushi Sachdeva and Chaman Raj, have been within the meals enterprise for over 9 years.
They began experimenting with operating their very own enterprise whereas at IMT Ghaziabad, pursuing their MBA. Their first enterprise was that of a brick and mortar takeaway known as Sandwedges that was geared toward catering to college students and professionals with sandwiches that they might devour on the fly.
It was in 2016, when the 2 of them went to Europe, that their journey within the cookie world started on the native BnB they stayed at.
As soon as Arushi and Chaman got here again to India, they began to hunt cookies with the identical texture and style at numerous bakeries. With none matching what they skilled in Europe, Arushi, with a love for baking, determined to take issues into her personal fingers.
“India is a biscuit-eating nation, however we don’t essentially know the distinction between biscuits and cookies. That’s precisely why we by no means discovered the identical type of cookies we ate in Europe; the feel itself was lacking,” Arushi claimed.
Following their expertise with cookies in India, the 2 cut up the duty of doing market analysis on a couple of features – client demand, style preferences and the way straightforward or not it will be to promote on-line.
Throughout their analysis, they discovered an rising demand for home-baked cookies, and in addition got here throughout numerous manufacturers within the meals trade that have been efficiently operating on-line companies on Shopify.
With actual tales at hand, Arushi and Chaman determined it was time to bake and promote their very own cookies in India, and introduce the nation to a unique recipe.
Whereas Chaman took over the a part of researching methods to promote cookies simply, exploring Shopify as a gross sales channel, Arushi took on the position of perfecting the recipe for baking them.
As that they had a restaurant operating, they confidently began to discover totally different permutations and combos for baking the right cookie. They wished to bake cookies that have been eggless, might preserve texture and in addition be straightforward to ship throughout India with out spoilage. It took them 300+ trials and 70 days to get the primary recipe proper!
Having discovered the right match of recipe for the cookies and a web-based retailer in Shopify, they took their enterprise on-line with a delicate launch in September 2018 .
Whereas Arushi and Chaman initially considered promoting cookies in Delhi solely, with Shopify they realized that they might ship throughout India, reaching new markets with ease.
After engaged on their on-line storefront themselves with the assistance of group members on Shopify and platforms like Quora, they have been capable of share their cookies with everybody in India in October 2018.
As of at the moment, the Dohful cookies are completely out there solely on their web site. The founders are centered on delivering the best high quality of varied and handcrafted cookies by staying away from spreading themselves too skinny throughout different gross sales channels.
Surviving the pandemic with Shopify
Similar to different companies, Dohful too was hit by the pandemic owing to the change in authorities guidelines and rules, and client demand. Throughout this era, Dohful took a while off to be taught extra about their customers and their preferences and replace their choices.
Utilizing insights from the market and aggressive evaluation, they made a variety of tweaks to their Shopify retailer. They up to date product footage, the way in which they introduced them and plugged the communication hole to have the ability to deal with client considerations or wants in a greater method.
“We began treating our Shopify retailer like our store-front or like we’d deal with our cafe.”
Dohful additionally modified their packaging to make sure they have been assembly and exceeding the hygiene expectations of their customers.
Additionally they ran influencer collaborations, leveraged newsletters and tweaked their advert marketing campaign arrange on Fb to market their cookie packing containers after reopening their on-line retailer in Might 2020.
Dohful skilled a 13x progress in gross sales from June 2020 to July 2022 itself, and the numbers have been rising ever since.
“We now have needed to scale up our staffing post-pandemic. We went from hundreds of orders a day to nearly ten hundreds of orders per day nearly in a single day after July 8, 2020, and our solely gross sales channel was our on-line retailer!”
Let’s dig a bit of deeper into what precisely the model did to market their cookies and promote on-line.
Baking their method by means of success: Rising Dohful on Shopify
Since its launch in 2018, Dohful has constructed an engaged buyer base by means of collaborations with social influencers, creating lots of genuine content material on YouTube, sharing behind the scenes and their learnings on the weblog and operating promoting campaigns on social media to achieve their viewers.
Throughout and post-pandemic, Dohful grew to become much more strategic about their advertising efforts.
Let’s take a look at every of the methods that Dohful makes use of and the way they bought it proper:
1. Content material advertising
Arushi and Chaman realized they weren’t the one ones with a ardour for baking. Loads of their target market was actively looking for recipes to bake cookies at dwelling – particularly through the pandemic. To capitalize on their intent, they arrange a weblog part on their Shopify retailer to share seasonal recipes, suggestions and experiences.
2. Influencer collaborations
The opposite tactic that Dohful leveraged to drive extra visitors to their Shopify retailer, is influencer advertising and collaborations. From day one, they determined to work solely with influencers who got here with an expertise of collaborations with product manufacturers earlier than, and those who they personally preferred consuming content material of. This resulted in creating collaborative content material that was actually distinctive to the model and resonated with their target market.
“Control what’s trending and who’s gaining reputation. Attain out to influencers in that area of interest if you happen to like consuming their content material too.”
3. Video advertising
Dohful understood their client’s have to know what goes on behind the scenes. They noticed an rising curiosity of their buyer base desirous to see the ‘baking’ of their favourite cookies. So the model took to video advertising to present their viewers an thought of what their cookies are like in a extra real looking method.
In the present day, they’ve an energetic YouTube channel with over 3K followers. Additionally they typically publish their influencer collaborations on the channel, serving to them not simply drive extra curiosity and new clients, but in addition repeat patrons.
“Longer content material codecs are capable of seize the temper of the product higher. 60 secs feels too rushed. We now have seen extra success by means of our movies on YouTube vs these on Instagram.”
Other than YouTube, additionally they actively publish brief clips as Reels and movies on Instagram to maintain their ever-increasing followers engaged. They use these clips as teasers to steer customers to their YouTube channel for the whole expertise.
4. Social media advertisements
Having expertise within the trade, Dohful was conscious of the rising competitors and noise on social platforms. They knew the wrestle of getting their model seen after which staying on high of a client’s thoughts.
To actively sort out the identical, they’ve been operating commercials on social media to achieve their viewers. Their campaigns leverage carousels, movies and different codecs to advertise one of the best of what their cookies supply – a yummy expertise.
Right here’s a glimpse of a few of their advert campaigns:
5. Integrating social and commerce
Dohful has been very energetic on social media, sharing content material round their cookies, baking model and recipes. Whereas advertisements might all the time comprise hyperlinks to particular touchdown pages, their natural visitors wanted extra route.
They’ve been utilizing Linkpop by Shopify to combine social efforts with commerce. With the assistance of 1 hyperlink, they’re capable of promote a number of product pages, sale pages and content material, all on the identical time, main customers to their retailer and nudging them in direction of making a purchase order. This tactic has helped them scale back the friction in getting social media followers to finish a purchase order.
“We have been stunned to see how creating one hyperlink might assist us flip natural visitors into precise orders. Linkpop makes it very easy for us to trace what our viewers is desirous about and the orders we generate by means of our natural efforts.”
6. Social proof
Whereas the style of the cookies communicate for themselves, Dohful knew it was essential to get precise buyer experiences throughout to achieve extra customers. They began to deal with accumulating buyer critiques, rankings and testimonials to show as social proof on their Shopify retailer.
With the assistance of Choose.me, they’ve been capable of gather over 3500 critiques since 2020.
Managing the expansion of Dohful with Shopify
As soon as the model began to run their advertising and promoting campaigns, their on-line retailer noticed an inflow of visitors. This made it much more essential for the founders to remain on high of their numbers – particularly client demand.
Dohful makes use of the Shopify cell app to handle their on-line retailer on-the-go. They use the app to remain on high of their real-time and up to date retailer exercise to achieve insights into guests, monitor gross sales and analyze enterprise efficiency.
“I’d say we verify the Shopify cell app about 15 occasions a day a minimum of, to remain up-to-date with the gross sales made by means of our campaigns, and have the ability to simply monitor and share order updates with clients.”
When the model is on the lookout for extra insights on their retailer efficiency, advertising and promoting campaigns, ROI, viewers and clients, they leverage the Shopify analytics and studies dashboard on the desktop. This has helped them make data-driven selections round merchandise and promotional campaigns, optimizing them for max impression.
“The lease we pay (platform charges on Shopify) seems like nothing. Within the 4 years we’ve been with Shopify, we’ve by no means had any issues with our retailer being inaccessible.
We continuously preserve a tab on the updates shared with retailers and all the time attempt to profit from the brand new options.”
The way in which ahead for Dohful
Dohful is concentrated on conserving its efforts streamlined by making their cookies out there solely on their on-line retailer.
However on the identical time, they’re now exploring bodily kiosks as effectively to get their model seen by those that have taken to offline procuring because the pandemic settles.
We’re excited to see the place the Dohful cookies attain subsequent and are positive their journey goes to be stuffed with as completely satisfied experiences as they ship to clients throughout India.
Prepared to start out your personal meals enterprise like Dohful? Register for Shopify’s free trial to get began.
Folks additionally requested
What share of Shopify shops are profitable?
Shopify allows tens of millions of companies in 175 international locations world wide to promote on-line. These companies have collectively remodeled $200 billion USD in gross sales utilizing Shopify and the quantity continues to develop. You possibly can be taught extra about Shopify right here.
Are you able to grow to be profitable with Shopify?
Sure, you may grow to be profitable with Shopify. Many main companies in India together with Mcaffeine, Cosmix, Heads Up For Tails and others are constructed on the ecommerce platform. Owing to its ease of arrange, plug and play apps and simple scalability, Shopify has enabled many manufacturers to discover new markets and develop.
Is it worthwhile to promote on Shopify?
The pandemic accelerated the expansion of ecommerce as customers began to make their day-to-day purchases on-line. So it doesn’t matter what you promote or which trade you might be in, you may arrange a worthwhile DTC enterprise on Shopify. Many huge and small companies have taken to Shopify already to make it simpler for customers to achieve them.
How do I efficiently promote on Shopify?
After getting arrange a web-based retailer on Shopify, you will have to create a advertising plan for your online business. This consists of leveraging totally different gross sales channels, social media platforms, operating promoting campaigns, and extra. You possibly can be taught extra about advertising your Shopify retailer efficiently right here.