Ever since the pandemic, there has been a rise in startup companies all over the world. The isolation of the world meant that local businesses needed to step up to help ease economic pressure. One such business that has grown from the pandemic is the cookie business.
While big corporations dominate the overall market, the cookie market has seen the fastest growth in the online sphere. It was estimated by a Grand View Research report on the cookie market that online channels showed the fastest growth at 5.9%.
One such online cookie business started as a local business from Maidenhead, Berkshire in England, just an hour’s drive from London. We’ll highlight the story of this homemade cookie business. From local business to tackling the world of ecommerce at Shopify, this is the story of Get Whisked Away Cookies.
Travels Cut Short And Start Of The Homemade Cookie Business
Before starting Get Whisked Away, owner Hannah was a merchandiser for over 10 years. In 2020, she wanted to take a much-needed break from the hustle and bustle of work life and spend time traveling with friends and family. But alas, that was also when the pandemic hit, causing her plans to travel cut short.
For much of 2020, Hannah had to stay home due to the lockdown restricting movement and gathering. To keep herself busy, she decided to hone her cookie-baking skills to pass the time. By the time lockdown 2.0 came around in November of that year, Hannah decided it was time to take her homemade cookies and turn it into a business. And thus, Get Whisked Away Cookies was born.
The Success Of Get Whisked Away Cookies
With her cookie-baking skills, Hannah first sent letterboxes with cookies inside. She accepted the request through social media and soon gained rave customer reviews.
Since then, Get Whisked Away has sent thousands of cookies to people all over the United Kingdom and the British Isles. The business has sent cookies all the way north to the Scottish Highlands to as far down south on the island of Jersey.
Hannah and her baking oven, nicknamed the ‘Cookie Monster’, made all the cookies at home. From regular customers to corporate orders, Get Whisked Away has fulfilled all orders with exemplary satisfaction. All orders are also guaranteed the highest food hygiene rating from the Food Standards Agency in the UK.
These are the cookie box options available on Get Whisked Away:
- Mixed Box Of 6 Cookies
- Vegan Box Of 6 Cookies
- Pick Your Own Box Of 6
And these are 15 cookie flavor variants currently available on their online store:
- Chocolate Chip
- White Chocolate & Coconut
- White Chocolate & Raspberry
- White Chocolate & Ginger
- Vegan Double Chocolate
- Vegan Chocolate Chip
- Triple Chocolate
- Smarties
- S’mores
- Red Velvet
- Oreo
- Oat & Raisin
- Mini Egg
- Jammie Dodger
- Biscoff
Shopify Limitations Problems Get Whisked Away Initially Faced
Since its beginning, Get Whisked Away has sold its cookies through social media and online marketplaces. But what Get Whisked Away really wanted was to get their website to sell cookies to customers in the UK. So at the beginning of November 2023, the Get Whisked Away website was launched through the ecommerce platform Shopify.
However, Get Whisked Away faced some problems due to Shopify’s limitation on a default store page, particularly with their Pick Your Own Box Of 6 product.
Problem 1- Minimum/Maximum Order Quantity Per Product
Since Get Whisked Away sells its cookies in a box of 6, it must restrict its customers from buying too many cookies for the Pick Your Box Of 6. Additionally, the store also does not want to sell their box product with an amount less than 6. However, Shopify has no default option to set a product restriction like this.
That means some customers might buy more or less than 6 cookies per box. The store wants to sell exactly 6 cookies and not allow customers to choose more or less than the required amount. If the customers aren’t aware of such product restrictions, it can create problems for the store with inaccurate product orders. That is something Get Whisked Away would want to avoid.
Problem 2- Mix and Match of different Variants
Whisked Away wanted to allow customers full flexibility to choose cookie variants so they wanted to sell cookies in a minimum number with different variants but it is not possible at the Shopify default setting. Also it is a unique point for Whisked Away to offer MOQ and choose different cooking variants at the same time.
Additionally, if a product doesn’t move your product fast enough when selling things that go bad quickly, like cookies, a business could end up with dead stock. Whisked Away didn’t want to waste expensive warehouse space on cookies that weren’t sold.
Bundling things is a good way to sell items that don’t move as quickly by making the deal more appealing to customers. But Whisked Away had a big problem when they tried to bundle cookie boxes that could be customized. So they were looking for a solution.
Problem 3- Dynamic Display Of Variants And Quantities
With the 15 cookie flavors that Get Whisked Away has, the store would want their customers to be able to choose which ones they want for the Pick Your Own Box Of 6. However, a default Shopify store can’t display a dynamic product variant and quantity display.
This would mean that customers would have to add the flavor variants they want by individually selecting them and then choosing the quantity. This limits the customer experience as they must select the variant first and then adjust the quantity. Without it being shown, the customers would have to switch between to see the quantity of constantly variants.
Problem 4- One Click To Add All Variants To Cart
What Get Whisked Away wanted was to show all the variants and their quantities in a dynamic display. When the customers are satisfied with the specific quantities of variants, Get Whisked Away wants to then allow the customers to add all the variants to cart all at once.
This adding all variants to cart with one click combined with the dynamic display option is not possible on Shopify’s default setting. It would be possible but it requires extensive coding on the store page and Shopify theme settings. Such coding is both time-consuming and expensive to achieve. Additionally, if Get Whisked Away adds a new product to the list, they would have to make a new code to make the necessary changes for the new product.
Limitations like these take away time from what Get Whisked Away actually wants to do: make cookies for their customers.
Beating Shopify Limitation With A MultiVariants – Bulk Order App
Certain limitations can be overcome with the help of third-party apps on the Shopify app store. To beat the default Shopify limitations, Get Whisked Away chose the MultiVariants – Bulk Order app.
Let’s see how Get Whisked Away beat the Shopify limitation for their Pick Your Own Box Of 6 product:
As you can, the different cookie flavor variants are all displayed with their prices and quantity selection options. Here, customers can see the pictures of the variant and choose how many they want for their box. Everything can be seen in this dynamic display, making it easier for customers to pick and choose which variants they want. A display like this would have not been possible for the store on default Shopify settings.
Moreover, a key part of Whisked Away’s business is allowing customers to create customized cookie boxes by mixing and matching different flavors However, they solved their issue by setting minimum order quantities (MOQs) on products with mix-and-match bundle.
After researching apps, Whisked Away found the solution – MultiVariants by Bulk Order App. This app enables mix-and-match bundle functionality on Shopify with the ability to set advanced rules and restrictions.
Additionally, in the image you can see the total units and prices are shown near the bottom of the variant display list. As customers change the quantities of the product, they can see the price change along with them. This ensures customers can see the total price of the box before heading over to the checkout page, making purchasing decisions much easier.
In the picture, you can see there are 5 units chosen. However, you can see the message at the bottom stating ‘Total quantity must equal 6. Selected unit: 5’. This is the restriction that Get Whisked Away has implemented on the product. As a result, the add to cart and checkout buttons are not highlighted which means the customer must choose 6 cookies. Otherwise, the customer cannot add the product to their cart.
With such a restriction, Get Whisked Away ensures that customers are ordering the correct amount of 6 per box. Customers cannot exceed the amount or go below it. It gets rid of wrong order placements and the store can deliver the correct amount to their customers.
All of these features would have not been possible on Shopify with default settings. With just one app, Get Whisked Away now has all the features they wanted for their store to give the customers
Bottom Line
Get Whisked Away Cookies just started their journey on Shopify. They have ensured their cookies’ quality, they are now also ensuring customers with the best shopping experience on their online store with their tech-savvy business movement.
