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The new post-covid customer, helping traditional businesses weather the crisis

  • Fabian Lopez receives the Commerce Award from the Chamber of Commerce.

The fall in traditional sales has led this online store to continue reinventing itself, both in its way of selling physically and in its online platform.

To alleviate the ecological footprint that the global increase in e-commerce costs the planet, turronesydulces.com will plant an indigenous tree for each order placed on its website.

This year has been the birth of a new client that (although the pandemic has not ended), we could call “post-covid19 client”. The family business of master artisans turronesydulces.com with the largest online catalog with Denomination of Origin Jijona and Alicante manufactured with traditional formulas and that markets its own brand, Turrones Fabián, has had to adapt, like so many others, to the new situation that has brought the pandemic. Reinvention is proposed as the only way to face a Christmas that will undoubtedly be very atypical, in a sector as traditional as this and with a product as seasonal as nougat.

For this reason, Fabián López, master craftsman and founder of turronesydulces.com, has chosen since its inception, back in 2002, to seasonally adjust this product. "Our bet has always been to sell nougat all year round, even out of season, and anywhere in the world," he explains, adding that "in the post-covid era it is happening that they no longer only buy nougat from us , but the raw materials and packaging to make them, for which we have adapted the online store with these products that were more aimed at professionals, such as the Marcona almond, the wooden boxes or even the molds to make nougat and chocolates ”.

This would be, along with the increase in online shopping, the second characteristic of the so-called post-covid19 client, which is “more autonomous, gives more value to the essential and natural, to the family, to tradition. Look for the authentic and show more and more respect for the environment ”, explains this artisan who has been selling nougat and sweets with centenary formulas since 2000.

Like them, and according to the most recent data from the Salesforce Shopping Index report, COVID-19 has transformed shopping habits in online retail, with growth in the second quarter of the year of 71%.

Despite the large drop in sales in stores, turronesydulces.com, a pioneer artisan nougat brand in online sales that exports its products to more than 30 countries, expects to close 2020 with an increase of 150% in online sales . Everything seems to indicate, in light of these figures, that more and more will be bought online, due to its speed, ease and lower risk. The advantage of turronesydulces.com is that it has not had to adapt to e-commerce due to the arrival of the coronavirus, but they have been doing it for 20 years. "It has been a great advance to carry two decades with" homework done "in this regard. With this new reality, we only had to adapt the business a little bit, not only promoting more e-commerce, but also adapting the physical purchase and adapting to the offline customer who is even struggling to buy online. For this we have adapted the sale to offline channels, improving processes by adding, for example, payment methods such as Bizum, customer service with WhatsApp Business, store pick-up by appointment and mobile purchase forms to place the order quickly without shopping carts ”, explains Fabián López, for whom having a successful Internet store does not consist only in opening the web, but in digitizing each production process and keeping close communication with the customer, sending messages or calls to introduce them to the product or tell them that their favorite nougat is about to run out, for example.

For this reason, its website has been improved in recent months and translated into French, a country in which the demand for nougat in Spain has grown significantly. "Since the pandemic began, we are focusing a lot on selling to Europe," they explain from this Alicante store that sends orders to Australia, Japan, the United Arab Emirates, Singapore, Qatar or Lapland, among many other places. In addition, they want to promote national trade. “Now shipping costs have been cut by more than half, even in the Balearic Islands. We assume that cost to promote the sale. Our strategy, in times of pandemic, instead of producing less, is to produce more ”they affirm. It is the example of a small business in a very traditional sector that has managed to reinvent itself in real time. Since March 2020, 90% of turronesydulces.com sales have been produced online. “Actually, it is this post-covid19 client who, like us, adapts to the solution. His loyalty is saving the business of many artisans ”, explains Fabián López.

Adapt to the situation by reducing the CO2 footprint

The ecological footprint that this situation can generate is a matter of great concern to this company. "We are aware that selling a lot online also implies that logistics are saturated and that it can generate more pollution if this distribution is not ecological," says the master craftsman. So, without stopping ad