Zarbo Case Study
When cafe deli Zarbo's web site wasn't delivering on the sales potential the internet presented, it went looking for a way to improve its offering - and found the answer with a content management and e-Commerce solution from Cyberglue...
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Zarbo is a popular delicatessen cafe in the Auckland suburb of Newmarket. The company has developed a successful brand focused at foodies, and has good market share in the executive gift basket market - with both national and expatriate customers. Zarbo owner Diane Dolan says Zarbo had been a relatively early convert to the idea of internet commerce. The company had a static web site early on, which it had more recently evolved into a transactional site. Customer Turn OffDespite the good intentions, however, the site was not delivering on the sales targets Dolan and fellow Zarbo owner Mark McDonough had set for it - and it was proving hard to manage. Dolan says a lot of the problem related to the site's content, and the rather inflexible way it was being updated. "We couldn't actually update it ourselves," she says. "Instead, we had to rely on the web development company that had originally built it. They were very slow to react - not at all proactive - and they gave me the impression that the changes we wanted were also difficult to achieve technically". As a result Zarbo's existing web site was causing the otherwise successful business some pain. A partial or outdated product range meant lost sales and frustrated customers, and marketing opportunities were missed, particularly when it came to not being able to capitalize on seasonal products and themes. In addition the site was not search engine friendly, and the use of Flash was turning some customers off. In short, something had to be done. Content the keyDolan says Zarbo was convinced a web site could deliver for the company, but realized it would need to be more dynamic - specifically, new products and other content would need to be added regularly to excite Zarbo's online user community. Certain that its incumbent web developers would be unable to deliver on this vision, Zarbo went to the market looking for a web development partner that could deliver on the following web site wish list;
If these goals could be achieved, Dolan was confident Zarbo's site would get visitors returning to it on a regular basis. "Because our business changes every day," she says, "we wanted a site that people would come back to often because there was always something new going on there." The Cyberglue solutionAfter meeting with Cyberglue's Richard Gill, Dolan says it was clear technical challenges to regular updating would not be an issue with Cyberglue's content management features. "Richard explained that we could do most of the updates ourselves," she says. "Basically we could have a new product arrive and if we wanted to put it on the site that day we could. That was very important to us, and the reality is that's exactly what has happened." Dolan says with the Cyberglue solution in place Zarbo can get a new product in the morning, photograph it digitally - and have it loaded on the site that same afternoon. "There's very little that I can't do myself," she says.Given the go ahead, Cyberglue's Gill says it took six weeks to transform Zarbo's difficult to use existing web site into the user friendly version it is today. This included photography of Zarbo's existing product range, content porting, new information architecture and staff training.
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3 Step ImmplementationStep 1.Technology problems were resolved by deploying Cyberglue's eCommerce Suite, Standard Edition. This suite inherently addressed most of Zarbo's "pain points" says Gill, through its existing architecture. In fact, no new software code had to be written to accommodate Zarbo's wish list. Step 2.Product groupings and content architecture (over 400 line items) was organized - seamlessly migrating product data and content across to the new site so Zarbo could continue trading while the site set up was ongoing. Step 3.New look branding was implemented as a skin over the functioning Zarbo site and key Zarbo personnel were trained in how to manage the site internally. A collaborative approachDolan says the Cyberglue team very quickly "got" what Zarbo wanted to achieve. "We looked at web sites of other food resellers around the world who had an e-commerce facility that we thought was good, then we went to Cyberglue and said look at this site and that site. So there was a collaboration between us - they had ideas and we had ideas and we worked together to get what we felt was the best for us." As with any implementation, however, there were challenges to overcome. " There were issues around site design and layout," says Dolan, "putting a lot of products into a small space. There were also different freight rates for different places and sorting out GST. The Cyberglue product did 90% of what was required out-of-the-box, and then the guys solved those final problems after talking them through with us." After installation, Dolan says she was particularly impressed with the Cyberglue training, which was key in enabling Zarbo to manage its own online web store. "Their training was incredibly precise," she says. "I went up to their office and spent a few hours there on two or three occasions and also did follow up training via telephone. What was clear was they know exactly how to train people. They know their systems very well and as a result they're able to anticipate what questions people might have. The reality was I was able to confidently load changes into our site within just a few hours."
Return on investmentWith a dynamic web site up and running, Dolan says the new system has quickly delivered on the investment. "After going live we immediately noticed a big increase in the number of people coming to our site," she says. "I would say traffic is up 300% and it is continuing to build for us." One positive aspect of the new site that Zarbo had not originally considered, however, was how beneficial the business intelligence delivered by Cyberglue's eCommerce Suite would be for its marketing analysis. "We can check our site traffic all the time," says Dolan. "We can see things like how many times search engines have visited us and how many customer unique visits we've had, where people come from, and how they navigate our site once they get there." Dolan says the information definitely helps in decision making. "We're on the XtraMSN site," she explains, "and I was really keen to get rid of it because I thought that it wasn't actually driving any business - but with Cyberglue I was able to see just how important Xtra is to us, and I changed my mind completely as a result. "Cyberglue's search engine optimization also has a significant impact on Zarbo's business Dolan says. "People go to Google searching for gift baskets and Zarbo doescome up (on the first page of hits at Google New Zealand). Or if you look for Liquid Glucose on Google, Zarbo comes at the top of the list for that. We're getting inquiries from around the world and the new site worked incredibly well for our Christmas gift baskets last year - every day we're getting really excited by the increasing numbers."
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