The pandemic has prompted cheese merchants to dive deep into their creative toolboxes and find ways to stay connected with customers. Some of the pivots that retailers devised have proved so successful that these new practices may well endure when normal life resumes. Conversations with a half-dozen retailers across the country—some veterans, some newcomers—reveal some selling strategies worth exploring, if you haven’t already.
“We changed more in 10 days than in the 10 years we had been in business,” recalls Kendall Antonelli of Antonelli’s Cheese Shop in Austin, Texas. Within days of learning, in early March, that the city’s mayor had canceled the popular South by Southwest music festival, Kendall and her husband, John Antonelli, closed their shop to the public. But they didn’t close their business. They immediately reoriented toward virtual cheesemongering and public and private cheese events that have kept their bottom line healthy.
Virtual Cheesemonger
For several years, the couple had contemplated a “virtual cheesemonger” offering but the pandemic kicked the idea into gear. Customers book an appointment online, then receive a videoconference link by email. At the appointed time, they “meet” their personal cheesemonger who takes them on a video tour of the cheese case by smartphone.
“Not everybody needs this,” says Antonelli, “but for people who aren’t familiar with cheese or for a picky cheese eater who wants to see what the Brie looks like right now they can hop onto a virtual meeting.” The monger can point out cheeses at their peak that day, direct a shopper to rare selections, and show exactly what a quarter-pound wedge looks like. Orders are picked up curbside or can be shipped nationwide. Customer response, initially strong, has tailed off a bit but Antonelli believes the shop will continue to offer the service even after it re-opens to in-person traffic.
Virtual classes and events became a major revenue stream for the Texas merchant as the pandemic persisted, mushrooming from zero to 15 or 20 bookings a week. “Virtual events literally kept our business alive,” says Antonelli. Class participants pick up, curbside, a plate with seven cheeses and accompaniments and then follow along at home as a store employee leads the online tasting. Although suitable solely for locals because the composed plates can’t be shipped, the classes have generated new audiences, says Antonelli. “They have created accessibility for people who couldn’t physically make it into our shop before,” says the merchant. “Parents of infants have said, ‘We can’t leave our baby. Please keep offering these. It’s the first time we’ve been able to participate.’”
A more ambitious offering, christened “Cheese Class in a Box,” includes seven cheeses, paired accompaniments and a short video instructing participants how to set up their plate. Customers who purchase a dozen boxes or more can schedule a private tasting session with Kendall or John. One customer who had just completed cancer treatment and wanted to celebrate sent boxes to friends and family and scheduled a live tasting with the Antonellis. A similar class-in-a-box featuring cheese and chocolate is in development.
Online à la Carte
Like many others, the Antonellis sold gift baskets and cheese trays online pre-pandemic but resisted putting individual merchandise on the store website to discourage price shopping. They have relented and now offer à la carte online ordering, allowing customers to select items individually, from cheeses to chocolate bars. “I don’t think this is something we can ever take back,” says Antonelli.
In San Francisco, Ray Bair of Cheese Plus has had the same epiphany: shopping from home is unlikely to end when the pandemic does. “You’d be a dinosaur if you didn’t try to get into that market,” says Bair. “I’m very traditional, but I’ve realized I can’t be the one guy out here screaming, ‘Don’t shop online.’” Bair recently signed on with a web-based grocery marketplace that provides home delivery.
The shop’s Cheese-of-the-Month Club has boomed during the pandemic, with no promotion. In the past, people purchased club membership as a one-time gift for others, says Bair. Now, they are buying it for themselves and renewing.
At the five-year-old Mullahy’s in Hudson, Massachusetts, proprietor Katie Quinn has found that collaborating with other merchants has helped her keep the doors open. For Mother’s Day, Quinn partnered with six other women-owned businesses in her neighborhood to curate a joint Mother’s Day box. The effort generated more than 200 orders, and the merchants are discussing ways to repeat that success.
Cheese and Wine
Quinn’s shop does not sell wine, so she partners with a nearby restaurant for virtual cheese classes. Quinn delivers cut-and-wrapped cheese to the restaurant for participants to pick up, along with the featured wine. The Zoom-based classes often sell out at 65 guests, who pay $80 for a pound of cheese, three bottles of wine, crackers and a condiment. The lively sessions include rounds of bingo with gift-card prizes, and Quinn donates $5 from each ticket to a local charity “to keep the community spirit.”
“It reminds customers that we’re still here,” says Quinn, “and it sometimes generates orders after the fact.”
Rachel Klebaur, owner of Orrman’s Cheese Shop in Charlotte, North Carolina, says her business took a dive when the pandemic emptied nearby office towers. But she has replaced some of the lost revenue by partnering with wine shops on virtual tastings. Orrman’s delivers a kit to the wine shop with cheeses, salumi, and a baguette for customer pickup. Klebaur is also providing cheese to an online grocery that delivers produce from local farms direct to consumers.
Randall Felts opened Beautiful Rind in Chicago in April, less than a month into the pandemic. A hybrid restaurant-retail enterprise with an in-store classroom, the shop had to immediately pivot to curbside pickup and virtual classes. After attempting home delivery himself, Felts now pays a service and passes on some, but not all, of the cost. The shop’s virtual tasting classes for corporate clients have been even more successful than they might have been in person. “We built our classroom to seat 20,” says Felts. “In a virtual space, that cap is nonexistent. We usually have 20 to 40 but we’ve had well over 50.”
Felts and others see their COVID-19 adaptions as potentially new lines of business in a post-pandemic world. “There are definitely going to be people who want to minimize being in public spaces,” says Felts. “Continuing these offerings is just another extension of hospitality.”
Janet Fletcher writes the email newsletter Planet Cheese and is the author of Cheese & Wine and Cheese & Beer.
Related: Sampling Amid the Pandemic: 3 Makers Share Their Strategies; Cheese Focus: 6 Tips for Recruiting and Retaining Cheese Staff.
Photo: Hayden Walker
from Industry Operations https://ift.tt/34Gnbrz
No comments: