Like many food businesses, the pandemic was a defining moment for her brand’s trajectory. Prior to lockdowns, Sweet E’s didn’t have an online presence, opting for pen and paper instead. Customers would phone in orders, and staff would write down the details into a notebook.
“We used to take ticket orders, just like what you see in restaurants. Looking back at how inefficient that process was, it hurt us. It made ordering harder for customers, and it made fulfilling orders harder for our staff,” Erica explains.
While it was possible to get by without an online presence before, the environment Erica found herself in during the pandemic called for change. “When lockdowns happened, it forced us to rethink our business,” says Erica. “I wanted to modernize Sweet E’s and bring the brand online, so I built our first website on Shopify.”
But the website was missing key functionalities like curbside pickup, and didn’t drive the sales as Erica had hoped. “I was new to ecommerce and didn't know where to start. I needed the help of a partner who helped businesses like mine before.”
She enlisted the help of Pacific IQ to redesign its website on Shopify Plus, update its systems to streamline its front-of-house and back-of-house operations, and unify its reporting. Since partnering with Pacific IQ, Sweet E’s Bake Shop’s metrics have never been stronger:
Prior to partnering with Pacific IQ, Sweet E’s website wasn’t reliably converting traffic into sales. Additionally, its ecommerce order fulfillment was not tightly integrated with its bakery’s back of house, which took orders manually. While the team could get by with disconnected workflows, it kept the team inundated with work.
“I never had time to think about ecommerce or marketing my business,” explains Erica. “We were always too busy keeping up with orders to focus on any of that. When the pandemic happened and online ordering became a bigger chunk of our sales, I saw how quickly our old way of doing things just wouldn’t work. I knew I needed to pivot.”
But investing in wholesale software changes can feel daunting. Erica wanted help from experts. “I knew the business needed to change fast, but didn’t know where to start. The stakes were high, so I wanted to hire experts to get everything set up properly.”
That led Erica to find Pacific IQ through the Shopify Expert program. “I saw the work Pacific IQ had done for other food businesses designing their websites, optimizing systems and processes. They were a full-suite solution. I liked the idea of working with one team for everything, since they’d have so much context on my business.”
“From our first discovery call, I knew Pacific IQ were the right partners to go with. The team understood the problems our business had, the outcomes I wanted to achieve, and presented a clear roadmap of how to get us there.”
- Erica Tucker, Founder, Sweet E’s Bake Shop
During her initial conversations with Pacific IQ, Erica appreciated the clarity with which Sean, Pacific IQ’s Founder, presented a solution. “He really took the time to understand how my business operated and what my vision was for the future,” Explains Erica. “I saw one big, intimidating project, but Sean was able to break everything down into smaller projects, each of which would help us turn my vision for the business into a reality.”
The first solution: upgrading Sweet E’s ecommerce site to Shopify Plus. “During COVID, fulfillment methods like curbside pickup and local delivery became a lifeline for food businesses,” says Sean. “Our first order of business was building Erica a website that was optimized for conversions and enabled those fulfillment options at checkout.”
To ensure its back-of-house could fulfill curbside pickup and delivery orders placed online, Pacific IQ also migrated Sweet E’s bakery from pen and paper to Shopify POS. For Erica, the efficiency gains have been noticeable. “Staff can see all of our orders in one place, whether they come from a phone call, an email, an online order, or a walk-in customer. We see what we need to make, when the order needs to be fulfilled, delivery addresses or pickup times, and any notes the customer left. Now, our team can fulfill more orders with less administrative work.”
Next up was centralizing and analyzing Sweet E’s product data and ensuring the brand’s website guided shoppers towards the most popular and profitable items. “It all starts with understanding our data,” says Erica. “Pacific IQ crunched our numbers and found what our best-selling products were, along with our highest margin products. They also helped us re-price our entire offering to increase profit margins. From there, we knew which items were our biggest revenue drivers, and which to feature prominently on our website.”
Equipped with newfound sales data, the team at Pacific IQ redesigned Sweet E’s website to both align with the brand’s identity and maximize conversions. “I appreciated that Pacific IQ’s UI and UX designers consulted me throughout the entire process. Now, it’s easy for customers to navigate and find what they want.”
“What I appreciate about working with Pacific IQ is they have so much experience working with other brands like mine. They’re great at breaking my aspirations down into smaller, manageable steps. They’re calculated, resourceful, and have a very collaborative approach.”
- Erica Tucker, Founder, Sweet E’s Bake Shop
Since enlisting Pacific IQ to optimize its website and operations, Sweet E’s has seen its website conversion rates improve by over 500%. “When someone visits our site, it’s easy for them to find products fit for any occasion and choose the most convenient fulfillment method for them,” says Erica. “Sean and his team did an amazing job of grouping our products logically and helping shoppers find what they need quickly, which I think is a big reason our conversion rates have grown so much.”
With the website set up to maximize conversions, Sweet E’s digital marketing campaigns have also seen greater returns. “Merchants often overspend on digital marketing because their website isn’t converting traffic efficiently,” Sean explains. Your targeting and ad creative can be perfect, but if you’re driving sessions to a lousy website, you won’t see meaningful returns on ad spend.”
“Since optimizing our website for conversions, our Google Ads campaigns have a 4:1 return on ad spend, which was not the case before,” Erica says. “Knowing that every dollar we put into Google Ads gives us $4 makes us more confident using paid ads to drive sales.”
With its paid marketing firing on all cylinders, Sweet E’s has also seen a meaningful increase in revenue attributed to email marketing. “Before, we had no idea who our customers were,” Erica explains. “Since Pacific IQ helped us clean up our data, we have this unified view of our customers. We see whether they’re new or returning, what they buy, what channels they prefer to buy from, and their contact information. Everything is in one place.”
The first-party data stored in Shopify is instantly available in Klaviyo, a Shopify app Pacific IQ uses to run Sweet E’s email marketing. “We’ve seen great results remarketing existing customers with Klaviyo,” Sean explains. “We’ve segmented Sweet E’s customers and built email drip campaigns for each, which has led to a 4x increase in revenue attributed to email and 41% increase in the brand’s repeat customer rate.”
Along with the revenue Pacific IQ has generated through its marketing, the brand has also deployed a customer service chatbot to lower its labor costs. “One problem we used to have is that customers would call us to ask questions,” Erica explains. “It got to the point where I had to staff someone just to answer phone calls.”
“Pacific IQ set up an automated customer service chatbot on our website with the app Gorgias,” Erica explains. “Since that launch, the number of calls we get is dramatically lower. I don’t have to schedule someone to handle customer service, which has lowered my customer service labor costs by 50%.”
“Since partnering with Pacific IQ, our conversion rates have never been higher, and digital marketing is a predictable revenue driver. We can bring new customers in without breaking our marketing budgets, and are turning more customers into repeat buyers.”
- Erica Tucker, Founder, Sweet E’s Bake Shop
With a website that’s proven to turn traffic into revenue, Sweet E’s has a solid foundation to build on and innovate. The brand plans to expand its delivery services across the United States, and explore opening more physical retail locations.
“We already deliver throughout the greater Los Angeles area, but our next step is bringing Sweet E’s into other states by expanding our delivery service and opening more retail locations,” says Erica. “Our plan is to use profits to fund our expansion and expand our line of shippable products.”
To expand Sweet E’s digital and physical presence, Erica will continue partnering with Pacific IQ. “Expanding a business comes with growing pains. There are a lot of logistical hurdles to overcome for ordering, inventory, staffing, workflows—you name it. Having Pacific IQ in my corner gives me confidence that our growth will be sustainable. With them working behind the scenes, I know our systems will be able to handle anything that comes their way.”
“Before, I was so focused on operations that I didn’t have the time or mental space to think about what’s next. Now, we’re in a place where we can actually support more sales and pursue more opportunities to grow the business.”
- Erica Tucker, Founder, Sweet E’s Bake Shop