Adapting Quickly to the Coronavirus Crisis - Dales of Malton Case Study
Posted on 4th May 2020
How Dales of Malton turned the threat of lockdown into a roaring success!
“Coronavirus had a huge impact on our business. Overnight, almost all our orders dried up. Rob and the team at it’seeze Web Design Scarborough pulled out all the stops to help us. They got the new online shop running in under a week – so we could adapt our business completely for the current crisis.
We took thousands of orders in the first few weeks – it has been a real lifeline for our business. I can’t thank him enough and wouldn’t hesitate to recommend it’seeze Scarborough to anyone in need of a new website.”
- Richard Dale
The Client
We’ve been working with Malton-based family business, Dales, for several years now – building and developing two websites for the company’s floristry shops and fruit & veg and catering supplies business.
As the coronavirus pandemic gathered pace at the start of 2020, their catering supplies business was facing a huge threat.
Here’s how we responded.
Dales is a Malton institution. The family has been running businesses in the town centre for more than 70 years. Today, the family has florists in Malton and Pickering, in addition to a grocery shop in Malton.
They also run Dales – The Chef’s Choice, a specialist catering supply business, providing the very best in fresh produce, kitchen ingredients and catering supplies to commercial customers across the region.
We’ve been working with Dales since 2016, producing both dalesthechefschoice.co.uk and dalesflorist.co.uk
The Challenge
When coronavirus hit, orders for Dales – The Chef’s Choice plummeted.
It could have been disastrous for the company, but the family took immediate action to meet the challenge head on. They decided to diversify, switching from supplying the trade to offering home deliveries to domestic customers across Ryedale.
With a team to keep busy and fresh produce coming in daily to the warehouse, they needed to move fast. Changing business model from working with a few large customers to thousands of smaller ones is no mean feat! One of the biggest challenges was getting a system in place to take and manage orders effectively…
The Solution
Dales knew the demand was there - but their existing website – an it’seeze Max website - had no online shop functionality.
We worked tirelessly to support Dales, implementing an effective ecommerce platform in less than a week by upgrading them to our Shop package. The result is an easy to use online shop that Dales can populate and manage themselves – providing a completely new revenue stream for the business.
The site launched at the start of April, and it has been a huge success. More than 400 customers signed up on the first day, and in the first few weeks, Dales had taken thousands of orders. Local demand has been so great that the company is now flat out, and has had to push deliveries back from 48 hours to 72 to meet customer orders.
Websites that work in a crisis from it’seeze Web Design Scarborough
Whatever the circumstances, and whatever the world throws at you - get a website that looks fantastic on every device and performs for your business with help from it’seeze Scarborough.
We’re here to help drive your business forward online, with a beautiful, custom-designed site you can edit yourself.
Set up your free, no obligation meeting with Rob Davies from it’seeze Scarborough today by calling 01723 800 060 or by leaving us a message here.
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