Setting up an online shop

Since the first day I moved to London I dreamed to open a business selling artisan Italian food. Lack of resources and interest in a different career path had always stopped me from doing that. However during 2020 lock-down I had the time and the motivation to explore this opportunity.

I casually learned about Dropshipping (an order fulfillment method that does not require a business to keep products in stock) and realised that setting up an e-commerce using that system would have allowed me to pursue that dream. So after talking with a friend, we decided  to progress together with this idea and explore the opportunity to make it happen.

First we had to find some suitable producers (small, artisan and trustworthy) willing to collaborate with us. My network of Sicilian connections combined with our good presentation and negotiation skills made this part of the job very easy. We developed T&C and all the contracts needed to protect the business and make sure it was compliant.

Once agreed with suppliers payment terms, shipping method and ways or working, we focused on creating the products portfolio. We analysed the market, identifying competitors and bench-marking their offer; then based on this analysis and on our strengths, we defined the pricing position and the product categories that made our offer.

Then we moved to the brand creation. We chose the name, Eat Amore, designed the logo (thanks to our basic knowledge of Photoshop), and via GoDaddy we registered the domain eatamore.co.uk and the business email address.

At this point we were ready to build the website. To do so we used Shopify, a platform that allows to set up an online store at low cost and with no coding needed. This was the task that took us the longest. We had to create content for over 100 products (images, products description, list of ingredients, etc), plus recipes, articles, blogs, tasting guides and any sort of materials to engage with our target audience and build a distinctive brand image. We developed internally majority of our images using an amateur photo shooting box and a platform called Canva for editing (occasionally we relied on free stock images websites such as Unsplash and Pexels).

Once the website was ready, the next step was to create a communication plan. We decided to use the social media platforms to pursue different strategies and developed the content accordingly. We used:

• Instagram to engage with food enthusiasts via entertaining content and catching lifestyle images – Link to the page here
• Facebook to reach public pages and private groups of potential customers via direct conversations, special offers and paid ads – Link to the page here
• LinkedIn to legit our image and exploring opportunities for partnership and collaborations –  Link to the page here
• Spotify to entertain consumers with multiple playlist matching products and consumption occasion – Link to the page here

Obviously these channels alone were not enough to drive high volume of traffic to the website, so we had to develop alternative methods to promote the website without spending money in advertisement (after all ours was a low budget business). We reached some consumers and employees rewards agencies (World Privilege Plus, You At Work), featured some products placement in other vendor bundles (My Delita) and developed a credit card linked offer with American Express. Thanks to those actions and few minor activities we managed to increase the website traffic from 200 to 2000 visitors per month.

Finally we sealed a distribution partnership for the UK and moved the stock into a warehouse in Redhill. This was crucial to maintain our business after Brexit, but also thanks to this we managed to improve our profitability (less delivery costs) and our services (being able to offer free next day delivery via DHL and other private couriers).

Eatamore.co.uk has been live since October 2020 and so far it has been an intense but highly rewarding journey. I managed to acquire a great deal of experience across multiple areas. I tested my business acumen (developing strategies and operational plans), learned more about the digital world (websites creation, social media, online payment, etc.) and challenged myself with task and areas completely new for me (photo shooting, digital assets creation, logistic, etc.).

If you want to know more about Eat Amore you can visit the website eatamore.co.uk or contact me for any question on the business journey.