We are thrilled to announce that Tree Juice Maple Syrup has a new website!
While our old website served us well for five years, we often heard feedback from our customers that they experienced frustrations making their sweet stuff purchases. Since it was a free e-commerce platform, it had many limitations and was difficult to customize for our needs.
In the beginning of 2019, the Watershed Agricultural Council (WAC) contacted us about a new micro grant. Its mission was to promote local economic growth by helping small businesses improve their marketing and advertising.
We knew we could benefit from a more robust and customizable online store to improve the user experience, increase online visibility and enhance online sales. In February, we were notified that we had been awarded $5,000 towards our project.
We contacted several website providers. In the end, we chose KDJ Communications, highly recommended by our friends at ImmuneSchein. Owner Keifer Johnson helped craft a full approach plan to move our existing site over to Shopify.
Keifer began building the new site, collaborating with our designer Chloe of Chloe Art and Design. Chloe does all of Tree Juice Maple Syrup’s graphic design work and we already loved the look of our site. Keifer was able to carry that look into our new Shopify site.
It was clear that our new website also needed more professional product photography to better represent our amazing sweet stuff. Local photographer Richard Smith had already been to the farm for a photo shoot and provided many of the beautiful images we use on our website and marketing materials, so we hired him to take photos of our bottles.
There were a number of challenges to give us exactly what we need, mostly due to the complexities of our Maple Syrup CSA program. This led to a delayed timeline, but the WAC was able to accommodate us and extend our deadline. We wanted to get it right!
We finally began testing the new site in October and soft launched on November 16th. Within hours, orders were beginning to come in from new Tree Juice Maple Syrup customers!
Since the launch, we have received a lot of positive feedback about the site and many new customers. We are excited to provide a smoother online purchasing experience (especially with the holiday season upon us).
However, the work is not over. Phase two of the upgrade plan is for Keifer to optimize our site, making it easier for customers to find our products online. We look forward to continuing the growth and improvement of our online sales.
This was a huge project, none of which would have been possible without the Watershed Agricultural Council’s micro grant. We are incredibly grateful to the fine folks at Watershed Agricultural Council (WAC) for their forward thinking, economic growth programs.
THANK YOU!
