Project Objective: Troy Web Consulting was tasked with migrating the Market Pops website to Squarespace, implementing eCommerce features that would allow customers to easily purchase the items they love.
Project Background: Heidi Nathanielsz launched Market Pops in 2019 after more than a year of research, planning, and taste-testing. Featuring locally sourced ingredients, her gourmet popsicles are fresh and delicious! While eCommerce was always a part of her plan, her first goal was to be more directly in contact with customers, so she began selling her popsicles at local farmers’ markets in the area - in particular the Troy Waterfront Farmers Market. After rapidly gaining popularity in the region in 2019, the COVID-19 outbreak of 2020 forced Heidi to change gears. During the early part of the shutdown, Heidi focused on other strategic initiatives, including production process improvements and implementing an eCommerce system so orders could be taken without the close physical proximity of the farmers’ markets.
The Challenge: eCommerce systems provide an easy way to allow customers to specify choices, such as size, color, or flavor, when ordering a product. Heidi’s products, however, are packaged and offered in a much more customizable way, for example, packages of 3 or 6, where individual flavors can be chosen for each item in the package. This required a more creative solution than a standard eCommerce setup. After some experimentation and testing with Heidi, Troy Web settled on a custom form that was integrated into the ordering process to give Heidi all the details she needs to fulfill each order. After just a few weeks, the site was fully migrated, the eCommerce portion was fully tested by Troy Web’s quality assurance team, and the site was live and ready for sales.
Business Impact: The Market Pops website is now capable of handling large amounts of traffic at one time and has full payment processing, refund capabilities, inventory control, coupon codes, CRM integration, and all the other expected capabilities of a robust eCommerce system. Most importantly, Heidi is now prepared to expand her sales regionally and beyond... All in just a few weeks! Although Heidi had not planned on expanding to online sales at this stage, the pandemic situation caused her to shift priorities and now her online presence is in full force. As the farmers’ markets begin to reopen, Heidi will be able to resume her normal in-person sales at the market as well as promote the online ordering process and expand her business.
“Having to pivot my sales and delivery model while also navigating a myriad of pandemic-related challenges felt overwhelming. But Troy Web made upgrading my website and adding ecommerce an incredibly easy process. From design ideas to user interface, especially with custom packages, TroyWeb produced creative and quick solutions. I am not a “techie,” and TroyWeb’s patient team walked me through the entire process, empowered me to understand and feel comfortable doing site edits and design, and ultimately created an ecommerce site that captures my brand and promotes my product in a polished, professional online presence. Having this critical piece of my business marketing in place was not something I thought I’d have in this stage of my company, but it is now going to be a vital component of my ability to scale.” — Heidi Nathanielsz