Blimey. It’s quite the update to share with you today and fairly lengthy too.
Here’s a clickable content table to skip to what you’re most interested in 😉👇🏽
This update includes
🤿 A deep-dive in Sandy Lane Farm’s week 41 data
To celebrate the start of making more data available to you, we’re taking a look at some insights from last week’s Sandy Lane sales.
Although the value of some of this intelligence may remain unique to the veg scheme in question, one of my key goals is to help visualise what your business looks like in numbers, with the aim of helping you make good decisions, backing up your instincts with the aid of sound data.
Weekly, fortnightly, or one-off?
Beforehand we have only been able to take an educated punt at what the split is like between weekly, fortnightly and one-off orders. Now we can establish the facts. The numbers here are by product not by customer order, this means a customer may have a weekly veg box but a one-off add-on, such as bread, eggs, butter, chocolate etc.
Aside from the surprise of the split itself, the really interesting learning for us has been that on Sunday lunchtime the number of one-off products in basket was just 7%. In the interest of veg box science I am updating this at 10pm on Tuesday, 5hrs after the order deadline email was sent and 1hr before Sandy Lane’s orders process - this means A LOT of one-off products have been added to the basket since Sunday, with a relatively high amount of activity following the order deadline email (one-offs have moved from 31% at 5pm to 39% at 10pm alone)
We also saw on Sunday that fortnightly subscriptions were around 40% of the weekly numbers, given that SLF sales are quite consistent from one week to the next (i.e. there are similar fortnightly orders across adjacent weeks), we learn that by total customer numbers, fortnightly is closer to weekly than we’d have assumed.
The numbers for our user group as a whole looking at week 42 are broadly similar, 58% weekly, 22% fortnightly, 20% one-off’s. Some of our users only offer a weekly option, which influence the overall figures somewhat.
NB. Despite us looking back at week 41 in general, the data above is only currently available within live baskets (so week 42 at the time of writing). Though it is very likely to be representative of all selling weeks.
Getting into swap activity
If you’re a number-crunching veg box type this is where it gets more exciting! 🤓 However, let’s not judge a book by its cover. An immediate stand-out is the amount of Green Curly Kale that has been swapped out, while this is valuable knowledge we also need to factor-in how many boxes in the range kale appeared in and how many recent weeks it has been in a high % of boxes. We suspect that what we are seeing is as much about kale fatigue vs a permanent kale dislike.
The nice thing is that regardless of the reason, we can start to build a picture of likely customer behaviour to help us plan for coming weeks with more confidence.
We have stacked the IN and OUT above to also visualise how actively some veg can divide shoppers, beetroot and celery have seen lots of activity in both directions. Using the new data hub we can visualise this over longer time periods to understand wider trends.
Case Study: Swaps solve a Jerusalem Artichoke headache
Before Growing Good (BGG), Jerusalem artichokes posed a significant challenge for George. Despite being a reliable and useful crop, George learned through "polite feedback" that they sharply divided customer opinion. Without a swap system, George could only change box contents for allergies. This led him to include Jerusalem artichokes in only some boxes each week (allowing customers to choose a different box to avoid them) and to avoid including them in consecutive weeks.
Our swap feature has revolutionised the Jerusalem artichoke problem. George now confidently includes them in more boxes more frequently. Customers benefit from our algorithm to swap them out, or manually swap, or change to another box. Interestingly, more customers than you’d expect swap them in. This has resulted in George selling much higher volumes through the boxes in a more consistent and predictable way, while also improving customer satisfaction and reducing time spent handling negative feedback.
Before GG, Jerusalem artichoke sales were ~120kg per season
Using GG, sales are now ~450kg!
It's a brilliant example of how greater customer convenience can lead to significantly higher sales. 📈
A closer look at customer swap behaviour
Most of you will know we have a dislikes algorithm that runs when you hit the publish button on your box contents. This makes decisions in a similar way to how we’d do so in the packing shed, (similar price, product group, what is readily available, avoid other dislikes, preference ‘likes’, avoid duplication in the box) - it’s pretty clever and runs in a few seconds, instantly reflecting changes in your admin and your customer’s store-front account/basket.
Let’s take a look at how popular they are and how customers used them at Sandy Lane in week 41.
- % of boxes sold containing at least 1 swap = 53.7%
- Average number of swaps made per box = 1.67 (SLF typically allow 2 per box)
It’s interesting that 46% of customer orders have no swap at all, which likely means they have few or no ‘dislikes’ (hurray!), are not aware of the option, or rarely ‘shop’ the website. Of those that do use them they are ‘well utilised’ - i.e. many more customers use 2 swaps per box vs 1.
Do the 46% not know about the option to swap or use dislikes? Or are they 100% happy with the standard contents? Hopefully the latter, but there’s an opportunity to further improve customer satisfaction if it’s the former.
Manual choice vs the algorithm
In week 41 only 33 (9.4%) of 350 total swaps were made by the algorithm.
86 (24.5%) of the 350 swaps were made in the final 6hrs of ordering, after the order deadline email was sent.
The product mix and add-on sales
- 96% of orders contained a veg box
- 4% built their own basket by meeting minimum spend requirements
- 54% of orders contained at least x1 add-on
- By value, sales were made up of 77% veg (and/or fruit) boxes, 23% add-ons
- Average basket spend was £24.34, which is slightly below where it has been in recent weeks
The below pie shows how the 23% of add-on revenue was made up, by number of units sold.
We hope this has given you insight into Sandy Lane's sales last week, covering product mix, customer preferences (one-off vs. regular subscriptions), and shopping behaviour throughout the ordering window. Many of these insights will soon be available for you to view in your admin via our data hub. We're intentionally starting simple but are eager to shape how our insights evolve to best serve you. Don't hesitate to speak up if you have any bright ideas about what you'd like to see!
📊 Our new Data Hub
You now have access to a new menu in your admin, our Data Hub.
As mentioned above, we're starting simple but plan to expand the available reports over time. The dashboard formats we develop will be accessible to all users. While group insights will be aggregated and anonymised, you'll naturally only have access to your own detailed data.
What’s in version one?
Sales Analytics
- Your own sales data filterable by week and year
- Sales, ATV, Order numbers
- User group insights (as shown below)
Customer Insights
- Top spenders
- New customer metrics
- Lapsed and Lost customer metrics
- Abandoned cart data
- Downloadable email segments for all
Product Reports
- Product sales by type
- Add-on behaviour
- Filterable by week, year and product type
We’ll be in touch soon about an upcoming webinar, or combination of a recorded demonstration + live Q&A to help launch this. If you have any big Q’s or ideas in the meantime please let me (Steve) know.
🗞️ New feature highlights
Packing fee.
Our new product packing fee feature allows you to apply an additional charge to specific products, helping offset the extra costs associated with packing them. The packing fee you set will be added to the customer's order if enabled in the product settings.
You can find a short guide on this here: Product packing fee Upgrade to customer holiday booking. We've enhanced our customer holiday booking functionality. Instead of selecting specific dates from a list, customers can now use a more advanced date range selection. We've also added a convenient 'pause delivery' button in the customer basket. Additionally, we now store holiday booking history in your admin panel, making it easier to address any customer inquiries.
There’s a guide on the holiday booking feature here: Customer Holiday booking
Limiting products by distribution method. This exciting new development marks the beginning of complex product management for your deliveries. It was our most requested feature on the feature request board! This functionality allows you to control which products are sold through specific distribution methods in your system. As a result, you now have greater flexibility in managing your product range across multiple delivery and collection options. You can find a guide on this here: Limiting products by distribution method
New label printer settings. You can now choose you preferred printer type from within your settings. You now have the option when using an inkjet printer to choose between printing standard and non standard orders. There is some guidance on this new feature here: Printing labels
🚀 Official release notes
Latest Updates and Improvements
✨ New Features:
- Packing Fee : You can now set a packing fee that applies to customers when they purchase products requiring special packing. A minimum spend can be defined, and if a customer’s order exceeds this minimum spend for applicable products, the packing fee is automatically removed from their basket.
- Holiday Booking Enhancements: Improvements to holiday booking functionality within the platform, ensuring smoother management of holiday periods.
- Metabase Dashboards: Added new Metabase dashboards for enhanced insights and data visualization.
- New Product-Distribution Relationships: Products can now be limited by a distribution methods, providing better control over how products are delivered.
- International Support: Our software now supports international box schemes, with currency and language settings tailored to the location of each box scheme. This ensures seamless operation in different regions, with the appropriate currency and language applied automatically.
- International Postcode Format Support: Now handling various postcode formats, making it easier to manage different regions.
- Label Printer Configuration: Label printer settings can now be configured directly in the admin panel. The specified printer size will automatically be applied during label printing, ensuring a smoother process for managing labels.
🐞 Bug Fixes:
- Sign Up Fix in Chrome: Resolved an issue with the sign-up process when using translation features in Chrome.
- Product Image Display: Hotfix to resolve issues with product images not displaying correctly.
- Quantity Adjuster: Fixed the quantity adjuster when translation features are active.
🌎 Localisation:
- Hungarian Translations: Added translations for Hungarian users.
🔧 Hotfixes:
- Stripe Onboarding: Resolved a problem with the Stripe onboarding button.
- Revalidation Hotfix: Improvements to the revalidation process.
🥡 Take-aways from last week’s Organic Trade Conference
Renee and I attended the Soil Association’s Organic Trade Conference last week and were enthused to be in a venue surrounded by likeminded individuals committed to growing the route to market for local and organic. We heard from the likes of Michaël Wilde who played a major role in securing funding and commitment to invest in organic from the Dutch government (his slides are shared below), it was inspiring to hear how our European neighbours have adopted bold goals to increase the % of organically managed land and see organic farming as a vital part of the mix to address our climate crisis. We hope that our government will soon follow suit.
Mike Watkins, from Neilsen IQ, reported that the organic sector is now out-performing non-organic as the food and drink industry recovers from the impacts of the cost-of-living crisis, with health and wellness a top priority for modern day consumers. "Tesco and Sainsbury’s are the engine room for organic in the multiples – both are in double digit growth with organic, which I’ve never seen before"
The good news is that performance of organic has returned to growth and that consumer awareness continues to build around the benefits of eating real food produced with the interests of our planet in mind.
Here’s a link to the full video recording of the conference or view it via the embed below.
Slides from other presentations (not the same, just share the same opening slide!)
📰 Other recent market reports
The Organic Research Centre in collaboration with UK Organic have published the Consumer Insights Report, delivering an in-depth look at consumer motivations and behaviours as well as category-specific insights, trends and more.
Locavore in Scotland have compiled an insightful report shown below. What is consistent with the report from UK Organic and The Organic Research Centre is that relatively low levels of household income do not preclude you from shopping locally and/or organically. It feels like a boost for all of us, whether you are fully organic or not, to know that food produced in the best interests of the planet feels accessible to more than the wealthy.
🥦 Regional Food Hub support
Better Food Traders have partnered with Sustain, the Soil Association, Sustainable Food Places & Growing Communities to offer an exciting new 12 month training and support programme for Managers of Regional Food Hubs, starting in January.
Do you manage a Regional Food Hub and looking to scale up or out? Or starting up and need some extra guidance to get off the ground? Join the Regional Hubs Support Programme online session Tuesday 22nd Oct 12-1pm to learn more about this exciting 12-month programme of sector-specific training, business advice and peer support, and how you can apply. This programme is being delivered by Better Food Traders, Sustain, Soil Association and Growing Communities to support regional hubs and grow routes to market for local, agroecological produce. Please email lois@betterfoodtraders.org if you would like any more information. Register here.