Finding Love & Opportunity
British native John O’Reilly moved to the United States to marry his American girlfriend.
Soon he found it was difficult to find and buy his favorite British snacks in the US.
John smelled an opportunity.
He decided to see if he could make some money online while looking for a job in the US.
John ordered a small pallet of his favorite British foods. Using Google ads he sold the entire pallet and made $10,000 that first Christmas in America, back in 2008.
Since then British Food Depot has grown and now has a staff of five.
A Tough Business
The grocery niche is very competitive.
From Amazon to small, specialty British stores, John has a lot of competition.
Because his business is about importing food, it involves complex customs regulations. If not managed carefully, these products are not released to John.
On top of that, many of the products are perishable. They have to be sold quickly or they go bad.
Finally, the margins in the grocery business are very small, leaving little room for mistakes.
Trying Several Tactics
Google ads were bringing in a steady stream of new customers. However, the real profits are made when customers return to place repeat orders.
So John was looking for ways to boost repeat orders and customer loyalty.
He started offering a rewards program but it was not very successful since most of the customers simply collected points and never actually came back to shop again.
Then he moved to another rewards system, powered by RewardCamp, which promised to provide a customer-friendly experience.
It had an immediate impact. He noticed more customers were returning to place repeat orders.
The new rewards system made it easy for customers to earn and use their rewards.
The system also issued cashback rewards in the form of store credit that customers loved.
It also focuses on immediate gratification. Rewards are issued to customers within 24 hours of them spending a certain minimum amount.
The last step is when customers returned to shop again. That’s when the cashback reward is automatically added to checkout.
It created a moment of surprise and delight for customers.
Customers loved it!
Customers Forget
The problem with most rewards programs is that customers forget that they have rewards.
To get around this problem, John setup RewardCamp to remind customers on a monthly basis.
These reminders have proven exceptionally effective.
It has resulted in a monthly sales bump the day after the reminders are sent out.
400% Increase
As a result of the new rewards program, John’s repeat sales increased from $69,690.00 in 2015 to $296,585.00 in 2016, a 400% increase.
