Macaron Café Flavor Picker and Shipping Factory Case Study
Client
Macaron Café
Description of Online Store
Custom French pastry delivery, shipping, and wholesale recreating the selection and feel of NYC flagship cafes.
Primary Markets
North America
Live Site
Primary Challenge
Establish online presence and e-commerce capabilities for an NYC-based French café, raise awareness among the existing customer base, and establish a shipping protocol that preserves the integrity of the product for both local and national markets.
- Flavor Picker allowing custom flavor combination chosen by each individual customer.
- Shipping Factory enabling selection of delivery dates and specialized shipping methods such as store pickup, Manhattan local delivery, and nation-wide shipping.
Statistics
GROWTH
RANKING
Overview
When Macaron Café contacted Hara Partners, their status quo only accommodated in-store purchases on location in New York City. Apart from local marketing, this didn’t bode well for projected growth and left a number of markets completely untapped, including wholesale opportunities. Without a solid online presence, Macaron severely limited its reach and deprived itself of a modern, branded web experience. All they had was a homegrown site to work with.
Hara Partners’ multi-tiered solution addressed these problems with an interactive website featuring clear brand definition and a number of tools, including the Flavor Picker and the Shipping Factory, to support a clean, responsive user interface. Aiming to replicate the “Paris chic” ambience of the brick-and-mortar storefronts, Hara Partners executed a full design overhaul for the Macaron website, ultimately realizing a versatile web hub with the horsepower to support continued expansion in the physical realm. Moreover, by migrating to Magento, Macaron Café availed themselves of the platform’s numerous benefits: a powerful product engine, flexible configuration, scalability, plugin compatibility, and more.
Applied AestheticsDesign efforts served two purposes:
Towards these dual ends, Hara Partners built layouts presenting product choices clearly, offering attractive flow and minimizing clutter in the process. A dedicated photography team established a beautiful image library to support visitors in the decision-making stage; these images can be scrolled through in detail under the Macaron Flavors tab or in miniature during actual selection. All imagery reinforces brand characteristics: clean, simple, and vivid in presentation, the visuals are a value proposition in their own right. Customers know that the same care going into macaron creation inspired this photographic precision, and can thus be confident in product quality. Macaron enthusiasts can even find Hara Partners’ work immortalized in a recipe book, Macarons: Authentic French Cookie Recipes from the Macaron Café. |
Flavor Picker – Power to the Purchaser
Thanks to bespoke functionality, visitors enjoy a streamlined, intuitive experience with Hara Partners’ custom-designed Flavor Picker template. This versatile tool adjusts by package type and shipping channel, includes gift options, and synchronizes with the built-in shopping cart. Choices are clearly represented on the checkout page for review and confirmation. Quite a bit of custom logic ensures a smooth, logical flow to proceedings; it’s a testament to the strength and durability of the site that this product configurator still effectively drives conversion after four years of continuous use.
Try the Flavor Picker yourself!
Shipping Factory – Solution to complex Fulfillment ChallengesThe Shipping Factory allows to account for extremely complex shipping needs. With such a delicate and perishable product, extra care must be taken between production and delivery to the customer. Hara Partners guided Macaron Café in establishing and troubleshooting custom fulfillment for online and wholesale distribution in multiple states, a difficult proposition considering the two-day maximum window for product consistency and freshness. Once best shipping practices were determined, Hara Partners implemented a corresponding interface on the checkout page, incorporating multiple delivery alternatives and personalization as part of a larger scheme designed to quickly and securely capture customer data. Now in-store pick up, Manhattan delivery, overnight shipping, and two-day shipping are available. The Shipping Factory also distinguishes between Ground and air shipping zones and assesses shipping charges accordingly. |
The Next ChapterSerious results poured in almost immediately—in fact, these initial accomplishments prompted the ongoing relationship between Hara Partners and Macaron Café. The redesign directly grew Macaron Café business, roughly doubling traffic and corresponding profits over the course of the project. Out of ten million results, Hara Partners boosted Macaron Café’s search engine ranking for “macaron” and related keywords to the first page. As plans for a fourth physical location become a reality, the companies’ mutual future appears bright. Hara Partners looks forward to providing support, design, and development to accommodate projected rapid expansion, especially in light of Macaron Café’s upcoming arrangement with area supermarkets. |
About Macaron: Renowned for their gourmet confectioneries and savory lunch offerings, NYC-based Macaron Café recreates the classic feel of a Paris neighborhood boulangerie, complete with plenty of its namesake French pastries. Macarons are made daily by master chef Cecile Cannone in a rotating selection, ensuring a constantly replenished flavor variety. With three New York locations, gift options, and a thriving wholesale business, the bustling café network is poised to redefine Franco-American cuisine.
About Hara Partners: Hara Partners, founded in 2006, provides industry-leading, innovative, and cost-effective web solutions based on Magento, the e-commerce platform trusted by the world’s leading brands. From concept to execution to ongoing support, Hara Partners secures clients’ bottom-line revenue growth and profitability via customized website development and design. HP has served 250+ Magento-based stores in a variety of capacities— content, photography, video, development, consulting, IT services, hosting, etc.—all out of one hand.