Life is best 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 various 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 various cookies on-line, which are baked contemporary on order. They’ve been delivering melt-in-the-mouth cookies throughout the nation by way of their web site on Shopify since October 2018, and have now grow to be a family title for being the cookie monster’s finest pal.
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 palms.
“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 form 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 number of elements – client demand, style preferences and the way simple or not it might be to promote on-line.
Throughout their analysis, they discovered an growing demand for home-baked cookies, and likewise got here throughout numerous manufacturers within the meals trade that had 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 special 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 completely different permutations and mixtures for baking the right cookie. They wished to bake cookies that had been eggless, may keep texture and likewise be simple 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 an internet retailer in Shopify, they took their enterprise on-line with a mushy 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 neighborhood members on Shopify and platforms like Quora, they had been in a position to share their cookies with everybody in India in October 2018.
As of at the moment, the Dohful cookies are solely accessible solely on their web site. The founders are centered on delivering the best high quality of various 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 laws, and client demand. Throughout this era, Dohful took a while off to study extra about their shoppers and their preferences and replace their choices.
Utilizing insights from the market and aggressive evaluation, they made quite a lot 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 tackle client considerations or wants in a greater manner.
“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 had been assembly and exceeding the hygiene expectations of their shoppers.
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 Could 2020.
Dohful skilled a 13x progress in gross sales from June 2020 to July 2022 itself, and the numbers have been growing ever since.
“We’ve got needed to scale up our staffing post-pandemic. We went from 1000’s of orders a day to nearly ten 1000’s 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 just a little deeper into what precisely the model did to market their cookies and promote on-line.
Baking their manner by way of success: Rising Dohful on Shopify
Since its launch in 2018, Dohful has constructed an engaged buyer base by way of collaborations with social influencers, creating numerous 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 received it proper:
1. Content material advertising
Arushi and Chaman realized they weren’t the one ones with a ardour for baking. Numerous their target market was actively trying to find recipes to bake cookies at dwelling – particularly in the course of 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 site 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 really distinctive to the model and resonated with their target market.
“Regulate what’s trending and who’s gaining reputation. Attain out to influencers in that area of interest when you 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 growing curiosity of their buyer base eager to see the ‘baking’ of their favourite cookies. So the model took to video advertising to present their viewers an concept of what their cookies are like in a extra life like manner.
Immediately, 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 in a position to seize the temper of the product higher. 60 secs feels too rushed. We’ve got seen extra success by way of our movies on YouTube vs these on Instagram.”
Other than YouTube, in addition they actively submit quick clips as Reels and movies on Instagram to maintain their ever-increasing followers engaged. They use these clips as teasers to guide shoppers to their YouTube channel for the whole expertise.
4. Social media adverts
Having expertise within the trade, Dohful was conscious of the growing 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 the very 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 adverts may all the time include hyperlinks to particular touchdown pages, their natural site visitors wanted extra path.
They’ve been utilizing Linkpop by Shopify to combine social efforts with commerce. With the assistance of 1 hyperlink, they’re in a position to promote a number of product pages, sale pages and content material, all on the similar time, main shoppers to their retailer and nudging them in the 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 had been shocked to see how creating one hyperlink may assist us flip natural site visitors into precise orders. Linkpop makes it very easy for us to trace what our viewers is considering and the orders we generate by way of our natural efforts.”
6. Social proof
Whereas the style of the cookies communicate for themselves, Dohful knew it was necessary to get precise buyer experiences throughout to achieve extra shoppers. They began to deal with accumulating buyer opinions, rankings and testimonials to show as social proof on their Shopify retailer.
With the assistance of Decide.me, they’ve been in a position to accumulate over 3500 opinions 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 site visitors. This made it much more necessary 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 realize insights into guests, observe gross sales and analyze enterprise efficiency.
“I’d say we verify the Shopify cell app about 15 instances a day a minimum of, to remain up-to-date with the gross sales made by way of our campaigns, and be capable of simply observe and share order updates with clients.”
When the model is in search of 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 affect.
“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 benefit from the brand new options.”
The best way ahead for Dohful
Dohful is concentrated on conserving its efforts streamlined by making their cookies accessible solely on their on-line retailer.
However on the similar time, they’re now exploring bodily kiosks as properly to get their model seen by those that have taken to offline purchasing 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 begin your individual meals enterprise like Dohful? Register for Shopify’s 14-day free trial to get began.
Folks additionally requested
What proportion of Shopify shops are profitable?
Shopify permits thousands and thousands of companies in 175 nations 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 study 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 straightforward 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 shoppers 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 shoppers to achieve them.
How do I efficiently promote on Shopify?
Upon getting arrange an internet retailer on Shopify, you have to to create a advertising plan for your corporation. This consists of leveraging completely different gross sales channels, social media platforms, operating promoting campaigns, and extra. You possibly can study extra about advertising your Shopify retailer efficiently right here.