{"id":8274,"date":"2016-07-14T11:29:09","date_gmt":"2016-07-14T15:29:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.acomba.com\/en\/?p=8274"},"modified":"2021-03-02T10:01:04","modified_gmt":"2021-03-02T15:01:04","slug":"three-tricks-for-successfully-selling-food-products-on-the-web","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.acomba.com\/en\/blog\/three-tricks-for-successfully-selling-food-products-on-the-web\/","title":{"rendered":"Three tricks for
successfully selling
food products
on the Web"},"content":{"rendered":"

Selling food online is a fast-growing industry. The methods for setting up an online store are more and more accessible and many businesses are jumping into this market. In order to get a better idea of the challenges involved in this activity, we spoke with the people of the Le Cosmos<\/a> restaurants, which recently started selling desserts online, so that they could share their experience with us.<\/h2>\r\n\r\n

This article is for entrepreneurs who are juggling with the idea of launching into online sales of food products. Based on Cosmos\u2019 experience, we propose three major strategies that can contribute to the successful marketing of your products on the Web.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

Why go virtual?<\/h3>\r\n\r\n

Selling food on the Web certainly comes with specific challenges, but it can help you grow your business by allowing you to find new openings for your products. In some cases, it can also contribute to simplifying your operations.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

\u201cWe already had a cake service for the house that was working well,\u201d said Jacques Talbot, chef and co-owner of Le Cosmos restaurants. \u201cHowever, implementing our online store considerably increased our volume of takeout dessert sales. It\u2019s more than doubled!\u201d He also explained that \u201conline sales have maximized order taking. Our employees spend less time taking orders and more time serving customers in the restaurant.\u201d<\/p>\r\n\r\n

\r\n\t\"\"\r\n<\/p>\r\n

Jacques Talbot, chef and co-owner of Le Cosmos restaurants.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

\r\n 01<\/span>\r\n A picture says it all<\/span>\r\n

The best arguments for selling food are taste, smell and sight. Obviously you can\u2019t use the first two in an online store. Therefore, you have to appeal to their taste buds through their eyes. <\/p>\r\n\r\n

Choosing the right picture to represent your product is therefore of the utmost importance. The picture that you use on your website must be of the highest quality and should highlight the features that make the item attractive. If you have the means, you could even hire a professional photographer.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

\r\n\t\"\"\r\n<\/p>\r\n\r\n

A quick look on the Cosmos website is all it takes to see the importance of investing time or money to get quality pictures. All of the desserts on the site are presented in a way that allows visitors to fully appreciate their appeal. Whetting the customer\u2019s appetite greatly contributes to sales.<\/p>\r\n<\/div>\r\n\r\n

\r\n 02<\/span>\r\n Reach the target clientele<\/span>\r\n

Even if you present your products in the best possible light, if nobody hears about them, your efforts will be somewhat wasted. To determine your target market and the way to reach it, you have to ask yourself a few questions. For example, do you want to sell locally or do you plan to send your products over long distances? Do you want to sell directly to your customers or would you prefer to go through a middleman?<\/p>\r\n\r\n

\r\n\t\"Determine\r\n<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n

When the people at Cosmos launched their online store, they had to have a particularly well focused communication plan. Their restaurants are located in Quebec City and L\u00e9vis and they don\u2019t deliver; therefore, they are targeting a very local clientele. To specifically reach the people of this region, they opted for a strategy that combines social media, search engines and traditional media.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

\u201cIn addition to local radio stations, we had strong Facebook and Google AdWords campaigns,\u201d said J\u00e9r\u00e9mie Fortin, marketing director for Le Cosmos restaurants. \u201cWe also used Yule logs to promote our service. We felt that a specific event could be a good incentive and we had enough confidence in our product to believe that these customers would come back for future events.\u201d<\/p>\r\n<\/div>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

\r\n 03<\/span>\r\n Offer a unique product<\/span>\r\n

Successfully selling food products on the Internet requires a quality product that stands out. Why would people go to your website to specifically buy your products if they have the impression that they can get something similar at their local grocery store?<\/p>\r\n\r\n

At Cosmos, desserts have always been a house specialty. To have its desserts stand out on the Internet required a little something extra to tip the balance in their favour. Therefore, before launching their online store, the people at Cosmos had their dessert menu reviewed by pastry chef Isabelle Deschamps-Plante. Isabelle became famous after appearing on Les Chefs!, leaving her signature on Cosmos desserts, and giving them a unique touch at the same time.<\/p>\r\n\r\n<\/div>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

Accessible to businesses of all types<\/h3>\r\n\r\n

Examples like Le Cosmos show that it is possible and profitable to move from an exclusively bricks and mortar business model to a partially online business. The benefits are so obvious for them that they soon plan to go beyond desserts to sell boxed lunches as well.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

Businesses that want to sell food products online can easily gather the basic elements to succeed in marketing their products. You need to know how to present your products, determine a target clientele and reach it effectively, and offer a product that stands out.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Selling food online is a fast-growing industry. The methods for setting up an online store are more and more accessible and many businesses are jumping into this market. In order to get a better idea of the challenges involved in this activity, we spoke with the people of the Le Cosmos restaurants,..<\/p>","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[121,84],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8274","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blog","category-sales-and-marketing"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.acomba.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8274","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.acomba.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.acomba.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.acomba.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.acomba.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8274"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.acomba.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8274\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10387,"href":"https:\/\/www.acomba.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8274\/revisions\/10387"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.acomba.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8274"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.acomba.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8274"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.acomba.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8274"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}