Life is healthier with freshly baked cookies and you’ll’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 chunk 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 recent 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 turn into a family identify for being the cookie monster’s greatest buddy.
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 working 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 may 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 varied 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 facets – client demand, style preferences and the way straightforward or not it might be to promote on-line.
Throughout their analysis, they discovered an growing demand for home-baked cookies, and in addition got here throughout varied manufacturers within the meals business that have been efficiently working 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 they’d a restaurant working, they confidently began to discover completely different permutations and mixtures for baking the proper cookie. They wished to bake cookies that have been eggless, may keep 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 proper match of recipe for the cookies and a web-based retailer in Shopify, they took their enterprise on-line with a comfortable launch in September 2018 .
Whereas Arushi and Chaman initially considered promoting cookies in Delhi solely, with Shopify they realized that they may 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 have been in a position to share their cookies with everybody in India in October 2018.
As of right this moment, the Dohful cookies are completely out there 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
Identical 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 quite a few tweaks to their Shopify retailer. They up to date product photos, the way in which they offered 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 might 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 bins after reopening their on-line retailer in Could 2020.
Dohful skilled a 13x development in gross sales from June 2020 to July 2022 itself, and the numbers have been growing ever since.
“We’ve needed to scale up our staffing post-pandemic. We went from hundreds of orders a day to virtually ten hundreds of orders per day virtually in a single day after July 8, 2020, and our solely gross sales channel was our on-line retailer!”
Let’s dig a little bit deeper into what precisely the model did to market their cookies and promote on-line.
Baking their method 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 working 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 have a look at every of the methods that Dohful makes use of and the way they acquired it proper:
1. Content material advertising
Arushi and Chaman realized they weren’t the one ones with a ardour for baking. A variety of their target market was actively looking for recipes to bake cookies at house – particularly through the pandemic. To capitalize on their intent, they arrange a weblog part on their Shopify retailer to share seasonal recipes, ideas 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 people who they personally favored consuming content material of. This resulted in creating collaborative content material that was actually 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 in the event 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 provide their viewers an concept of what their cookies are like in a extra sensible method.
As we speak, they’ve an energetic YouTube channel with over 3K followers. Additionally they usually publish their influencer collaborations on the channel, serving to them not simply drive extra curiosity and new clients, but in addition repeat consumers.
“Longer content material codecs are in a position to seize the temper of the product higher. 60 secs feels too rushed. We’ve seen extra success by way of our movies on YouTube vs these on Instagram.”
Aside from YouTube, additionally they actively put up quick 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 entire expertise.
4. Social media advertisements
Having expertise within the business, Dohful was conscious of the growing competitors and noise on social platforms. They knew the wrestle of getting their model observed after which staying on prime of a client’s thoughts.
To actively deal with the identical, they’ve been working ads on social media to achieve their viewers. Their campaigns leverage carousels, movies and different codecs to advertise the perfect of what their cookies provide – 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 fashion and recipes. Whereas advertisements may at all times comprise hyperlinks to particular touchdown pages, their natural visitors wanted extra course.
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 customers to their retailer and nudging them in direction of making a purchase order. This tactic has helped them cut back the friction in getting social media followers to finish a purchase order.
“We have been shocked to see how creating one hyperlink may assist us flip natural visitors into precise orders. Linkpop makes it very easy for us to trace what our viewers is fascinated by 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 essential to get precise buyer experiences throughout to achieve extra customers. They began to deal with accumulating buyer evaluations, scores and testimonials to show as social proof on their Shopify retailer.
With the assistance of Choose.me, they’ve been in a position to acquire over 3500 evaluations 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 prime 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 prime of their real-time and up to date retailer exercise to achieve insights into guests, observe gross sales and analyze enterprise efficiency.
“I’d say we test the Shopify cell app about 15 occasions 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 searching for extra insights on their retailer efficiency, advertising and promoting campaigns, ROI, viewers and clients, they leverage the Shopify analytics and stories dashboard on the desktop. This has helped them make data-driven selections round merchandise and promotional campaigns, optimizing them for max influence.
“The hire 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 always preserve a tab on the updates shared with retailers and at all times attempt to profit from the brand new options.”
The way in which ahead for Dohful
Dohful is concentrated on preserving its efforts streamlined by making their cookies out there solely on their on-line retailer.
However on the similar time, they’re now exploring bodily kiosks as effectively to get their model observed 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 certain their journey goes to be filled with as completely happy experiences as they ship to clients throughout India.
Prepared to begin your personal meals enterprise like Dohful? Register for Shopify’s 14-day free trial to get began.
Individuals additionally requested
What proportion of Shopify shops are profitable?
Shopify allows tens of millions of companies in 175 nations world wide to promote on-line. These companies have collectively revamped $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 turn into profitable with Shopify?
Sure, you’ll be able to turn into 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 business you’re in, you’ll be able to arrange a worthwhile DTC enterprise on Shopify. Many large 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 you have arrange a web-based retailer on Shopify, you will want to create a advertising plan for your small business. This contains leveraging completely different gross sales channels, social media platforms, working promoting campaigns, and extra. You possibly can be taught extra about advertising your Shopify retailer efficiently right here.
