Wensleydale Creamery

They had experienced a huge increase in direct-to-consumer sales during the COVID-19 pandemic whilst at the same time having to close their physical visitor centre, restaurant and gift shop. They were looking for some external support to identify what they needed to do to help them define their future strategy to grow eCommerce as a major sales channel. They also had a new website about to go into the user testing phase with a new agency supporting some of the digital marketing channels, and changes in their internal team – so a lot going on all at once. They were passionate about the future and keen to grow, and we were very excited to be asked to become involved in such a well known brand.

Our remit as agreed was to in the short term, help them get through their peak trading period and get the new website over the line. In the background we started to document the opportunities that we could see and to document the actions they would need to be planning for over the next year or so. These actions would provide a more solid platform from which to grow their sales, maintaining their focus on customer service whilst also boosting footfall to the visitor centre in Hawes, North Yorkshire. This relationship then extended over a 15 month period as we helped the team trade through one of the most difficult periods for online sales we’ve seen, partly driven by rising prices and a cost of living crisis across the UK. We worked with the senior leadership team to constantly adapt and evolve, learning a lot along the way whilst also relocating their fulfilment centre.

Over the course of our time with the team we were really pleased with how the team reacted to some of the changes we were able to make. We feel we handed the role back to their eCommerce Manager on her return with an online business much further forward and a potential to really grow over the years to come.