Optimize Your E-Commerce Experience

Looking for answers to these questions? Keep reading as Theresa Packard with CommerceV3, offers answers and actionable strategies to start implementing in your business immediately.

How do I best optimize my website?

Optimizing your site should be done based on site metrics and usability, as well as site speed. I'll address how to analyze your site metrics and usability with regards to conversion, but for now, let's cover the bases of site speed.

If your site is not operating at an optimum speed, it may appear to be missing a few pieces to the puzzle. Measuring the site speed on your homepage and top category pages will allow to see if there are images or other code that could be significantly slowing your site.

Many site speed tools such as Google Page Speed Insights, WebPageTest and Pingdom, are free. A site is considered slow if it takes longer than three seconds to load. After running the site speed tools, you may find the top culprits that can affect website speed are often large images that need optimized, script that can be loaded at the bottom of the page versus the top of the page, and additional redirects on the page.

Increasing Conversion Rates

This is the million-dollar question— how to convert browsers into purchasers? When consulting clients, I have found the best place to start is to ask a series of questions. The following questions can help you identify any barriers that may be affecting your conversion rate.

What do your analytics tell you?

The first thing I tell all retailers is to take a look at their analytics (we use Google analytics) to see if there are parts of your site that show the best conversion and parts that show the worst. How do you get more out of the things that show high conversion and high dollars? What’s wrong with the worst parts? Is there something on that landing page acting as a barrier?

Are your customers getting lost?

Are there places on your site where customers may be getting lost? Do they have to think about their journey through your site or is it intuitive? If you have a customer service agent, this may be a good person to ask, since they’re likely the one fielding questions about how to navigate your site. If not, try asking a loyal customer about their experience on your site.

Can customers easily find the products they want through search and navigation?

When a customer reaches the product page, how easy is it for them to see the pricing, count or size and, then, add their products to the cart? A shortage of important details like these is a common pitfall, that can quickly turn potential customers away.

Are there product reviews on your site?

Many online shoppers make purchasing decisions based on other customers’ reviews. Be sure your website has a user-friendly reviews program.

Have you tried to checkout on your own site?

When moving through the shopping cart to checkout, how easy is it for a customer to proceed through each step? We suggest making clear, well-defined steps through checkout. Make sure customers can easily enter shipping and billing information and also have certain already-known fields pre-entered (such as their email address and shipping information when logged in). To help with ease of checkout, offer alternative payment methods like PayPal, Amazon, Apple Wallet, Visa Checkout and etc.— these are especially useful for individuals shopping on mobile devices.

There's a lot you can do to optimize your website and improve your conversion rates, sometimes the best way to identify hang ups is by test driving your site on a regular basis.

Crave more? Click here to subscribe and start receiving weekly tips, like this, delivered straight to your email inbox. RCI's blog is just one of the many resources we offer to help candy makers refine their craft and build upon their business and marketing practices. Follow us on Facebook for even more sweet inspiration.

Not a member? Click here to learn how RCI can help you build your sweet business.

Festive Treats for Fourth of July

Here's some fun ideas for the Fourth of July! Transform your favorite sweets into your festive treats by adding a whole lot of red, white and ooooh!

Credit: Plum Crazy

Patriotic Pretzels

This sweet and salty treat will be hard to pass up with the addition of colored confectioners coating and sprinkles to resemble the American flag.

Credit: I Wash You Dry

Pop Rocks^® Popcorn

Offer a package of Pop Rocks^® as an add-on to your festive white chocolate coated popcorn (or really add popcorn treat) for a little unexpected fun this Fourth of July. Click here to read our past blog post with more inspiration, plus a helpful tip for working with Pop Rocks^® in confections.

Credit: Delish

Freedom Bark

Swirls of red, white and blue are a beautiful sight and make for a sweetly patriotic treat. Consider adding dried blueberries, cherries, cranberries or coconut for added flavor and texture while staying true to the color scheme.

Credit: Taste and Tell Blog

Fourth of July Tie-Dye Fudge

Transform classic white chocolate fudge into a summer holiday hero! Consider a mash-up of blueberry and strawberry flavors to give it a fresh mixed berry vibe!

This Fourth of July will certainly be one to remember! We hope this offers some inspiration for your holiday celebration.

Crave more? Click here to subscribe and start receiving weekly tips, like this, delivered straight to your email inbox. RCI's blog is just one of the many resources we offer to help candy makers refine their craft and build upon their business and marketing practices. Follow us on Facebook for even more sweet inspiration.

Not a member? Click here to learn how RCI can help you build your sweet business.

10 Foods to Try Covered in Chocolate

 

They say everything is better with chocolate, but is it?

In honor of National Candy Month, we’re sharing some oddly popular and some surprisingly tasty pairings. We’ll leave it up to you to determine if they really are better with chocolate.

Credit: People's Choice Beef Jerky

Beef Jerky

This salty, sweet and chewy combination is sure to stir some excitement among jerky fans. Plus, with so many varieties of jerky available the options are seemingly endless. We suggest adding another element of texture by topping the chocolate coating with crushed nuts, candy pieces, drizzled caramel, dried fruit or savory spices like smoked paprika or red pepper flakes.

Credit: Bon Appetit

Cheetos^®

If your customers love your chocolate-covered potato chips, this seems like a natural next step. As an added bonus, coating Cheetos in chocolate will help to avoid the dreaded orange Cheeto fingers.

Credit: The Conscious Plant Kitchen

Chickpeas

Packed with protein and fiber, chickpeas (aka garbanzo beans) are super popular right now—see for yourself with a quick internet search. When chickpeas are roasted, they take on a crunchy snack-like quality. Try coating them in chocolate and sprinkling them with a little sea salt and you are bound to catch the attention of chickpea enthusiasts with this nutritious sweet treat.

Credit: Make'n Mold

Chili Peppers

Chocolate-covered chili peppers—perhaps with a dash of sea salt fall right in line with current flavor trends; spicy-salty-sweet. From habaneros to jalapenos to sweet peppers and everything in between, there’s so many varieties of peppers you decide how daring you want to be. **Bonus points if you stuff peppers with peanut butter.

Credit: Corn Nuts

Corn Nuts

We first learned about this addictive combo while touring the R&D department at The Blommer Chocolate Company in 2017. We give this sweet and savory mix of chocolate and toasted corn kernels two thumbs up. Try it for yourself and tell us what you think.

Credit: Mueller Chocolate Co.

Onions

Chocolate-covered onions? It sounds like an April Fools’ Day joke. As the story goes, the idea started as a prank. Today, RCI member Mueller Chocolate Co.’s chocolate-covered onion has developed into a “cult favorite” for tourists and food bloggers visiting Philadelphia. For the record, it is unanimous that the chocolate-covered onion is as disgusting as it sounds.

Credit: Albanese Candy

Peanut Butter Filled Pretzels

If you have combined chocolate with peanut butter and chocolate with pretzels, but you’ve never tried the three together, you’re in for a treat.

Credit: Delish

Pickles

It’s an annual tradition for Malley’s Chocolates of Cleveland to drench dill pickles in chocolate for St. Patrick’s Day—some could say this is the ultimate salty, sweet combination. Unlike the chocolate-covered onion, people seem to really enjoy this wacky combination.

Credit: The Toasted Pine Nut

Quinoa

The ancient grain, quinoa, brings along with it a healthy halo. Combine it with dark chocolate and dried superfoods like blueberries—this treat is not only packed with nutrients but it tastes good too. Rather than working with raw quinoa (which might chip a tooth), puffed quinoa is a better medium for coating in chocolate. Puffed quinoa is easy to make yourself (a lot like stovetop popcorn—check out this recipe) or you can buy puffed quinoa (see here).

Credit: Candy Warehouse

Wasabi Peas

If you like the crunch of chocolate-covered Cheetos and the heat of chocolate chili peppers, these little spheres of goodness are the best of both worlds.

Creativity doesn’t have to stop here. You never know where your next creative culinary confection will come from. So, keep experimenting and have fun! And don’t forget to tell people about your next wacky combination on social media, in-store and even through a press release. Creative, out-of-the-box thinking may be just what you need to create buzz and get people to visit your store or website so they don’t miss out on all the fun!

Crave more? Click here to subscribe and start receiving weekly tips, like this, delivered straight to your email inbox. RCI's blog is just one of the many resources we offer to help candy makers refine their craft and build upon their business and marketing practices. Follow us on Facebook for even more sweet inspiration.

Not a member? Click here to learn how RCI can help you build your sweet business.

Appeal to a Growing Consumer Base with 3 Easy Recipes

Do you carry any products that are keto, paleo or vegan friendly? If the answer is no, you may be missing out on a growing consumer base. These popular diet trends don’t appear to be going anywhere soon, so we’re here to shed some light on three of today’s most popular dietary trends. Plus, keep reading to find three ways to grow your product line up and meet the needs of more health-conscious consumers.

Keto

The keto diet is a low-carb, high-fat diet which restricts the use of grains, sugars, legumes, rice, potatoes, candy, juice and most fruits. Unlike paleo and vegan diets, however, eggs and dairy products are permitted. To appeal to keto consumers, look for ways to incorporate protein-packed nuts and seeds.

Try this: Keto peanut butter cups made with sugar-free chocolate.

Credit: 40 Aprons

Paleo

The paleo diet restricts the consumption of grains, gluten, dairy, legumes (which include peanuts) and refined sugar—natural sweeteners like maple syrup and honey are permitted. Although options for sweets are quite limited, exceptions include rich cocoa powder or special chocolate blends which exclude refined sugar and dairy.

Try this: Combine cocoa powder, coconut oil, almond butter and honey or maple syrup to make paleo fudge.

 

Credit: Golden Barrel

Vegan

Veganism excludes meat, eggs, dairy products and all other animal-derived ingredients (including honey). Many vegans do not eat foods processed using animal by-products, such refined white sugar and gelatin. Look for chocolate made with vegan coconut sugar and try substituting an equal amount of agar-agar for recipes that require gelatin.

Try this: Truffles made with vegan dark chocolate and coconut cream.

 

 Credit: Minimalist Baker

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Not a member? Click here to learn how RCI can help you build your sweet business.