New website for Chris Beech Family Meats
During the Covid pandemic, Chris Beech, owner of Chris Beech Quality Meats, realised he needed to create another avenue to handle the increase in sales from the extra customers that were coming through his door. Located in Fulwood near Sheffield, Chris set up a basic online form to enable customers to order their meat supplies either for collection or delivery.
Albeit simple, this new system worked well and as the pandemic went on, even more customers appeared through his door. Despite this, panic buying increased as the pandemic worsened, and meat supplies were becoming short. Chris had to take a hard decision to close for a month and put the staff on furlough.
He used the time wisely to re-set and to improve his online ordering system. This resulted in a fully-fledged website listing his full list of stock available including his range of meat, own brand condiments and local honey and sauces, which was ready in time for when he re-opened his shop. Chris wasn’t worried about losing customers after shutting, in fact his new customer numbers held. “I knew most of the customers who had previously used the existing ordering system would return to my new online shop. It instantly became popular as the lockdown was in full force.”.
During all the Covid lockdowns about 95% of Chris’ sales were generated from his online service. Now things are back to normal, this has slowed down to about 10% but sales still remain consistent.
“I promote the online shop through Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, TikTok, and just recently my Grandson has helped me start on YouTube. On social media you can tag products you want to promote which takes potential customers straight to my online store”.
Chris also commented “A lot of people now work from home and have changed their shopping/going out habits. With an online shop you can still keep these customers happy, and it opens up your business to a much wider audience without having to worry about physical footfall”.
If Chris’ story has inspired you to try out an online ordering service, we can help you set up a website through our Help the High Street campaign. For more information contact Emily on text/WhatsApp 07760 663683 or email emilyhumphrey@wsdepots.com