Pivoting during COVID

Charles shared his ecommerce journey during COVID. His ecommerce business, 3Two1 Drinks, involved importing and selling alcohol and syrups. Their initial customers were shops related to providing alcohol. Mainly bars and liquor stores. They eventually pivoted to selling directly to customers through their website.

Charles showed what his business has achieved. His journey started in 2017. By 2020, his product arrangement increased to 137. The next aim was to get eight sales representatives and take up 2% of the market share within the smaller distributors.

However, that was when the pandemic occurred. Venues such as bars and clubs closed, and 3Two1 couldn’t distribute their products. The ratio of sales to liquor stores was still low at this time. Charles said they needed to completely re-think the business.

They were already getting contracts. Their portfolio was dashing. The only problem was how to reach out to their new audience. Previously it was bar masters and owners. Now it changed to regular people who enjoy drinking at home. The sales team split into three. However, only 5% of them belonged to the online team.

Charles was mainly in charge of the online sales. He would have all of his products stored in his cupboard. He packed each order by himself in his licensed kitchen. When it was starting to overwhelm him, Charles met Jesse from KeepSpace. After hearing Jesse’s pitch, Charles decided to work with KeepSpace.

He said it is excellent to work with KeepSpace. The products are stored safely. Every order goes out on the day. He can see where his products are in the warehouse. KeepSpace provides the tracking number so Charles can track his products.

Next, Charles introduced his online team of four. Due to the lack of people, everyone had to be a part of marketing and sales. Fortunately for him, one of the members was skilled at photography.

Charles went back to the topic of re-thinking business. The only choice they had to survive COVID was to go digital. They had to re-think their online presence. They created a Shopify store and integrated it into their sales, fulfilment and social platforms. Next, they had to re-structure their marketing campaigns and deals to look more attractive.

Everything about the business had to be “re-packaged” for the end consumer. Charles claimed that this was a great experience because 3Two1 increased its presence by seven-fold. Their thank you cards with discount offers were working. New cocktail packs/bundles were selling.

Charles showed a graph comparing the on-premise sales and ecommerce sales. On-premise showed a 95% decrease while ecommerce showed a 525% increase! Pivoting during COVID resulted in doubling 3Two1’s sales numbers. It allowed the business to grow even in the off-trade area.

Charles finished his talk with a phrase from Albert Einstein, “The measure of intelligence is the ability to change.” Charles said change is good as long as you are proceeding in the right direction.