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Case Study

Major Wholesale Speciality Food Distributor Witnesses Significant Revenue Growth Implementing A New Digital Commerce Solution

Executive Summary

Gourmet Foods International (GFI) is dedicated to being the preeminent solution for distributing and educating specialty foods to all consumer segments. The company has a strategic national footprint with ten distribution centers across the United States. In the last decade, it has dramatically increased its scale when it comes to physical presence, supply chain, and global sourcing capabilities. GFI was now looking to replicate the same growth over the digital commerce channel with a long-term vision to establish a marketplace for the food service segment.

McFadyen Digital followed 35 years of ecommerce best practices to guide GFI through a phased approach that involved analyzing the client’s existing commerce channels, customer needs, and market needs in order to create the next generation of specialty food ordering experience.

The end result is a modern ecommerce site built upon the Adobe Commerce Cloud platform. This new site provides a fast and enjoyable buying experience for customers and a more flexible and efficient commerce channel that gives the GFI team room to grow.

About the Client

Founded in 1967 and headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia, Gourmet Foods International is a full-service wholesale specialty distributor. GFI carries domestic and imported artisan products and operates warehouses throughout the southwestern United States, including Georgia and Florida. It caters to many customers, including retailers, restaurants, hotels, and cruise lines. It has a distribution network of over 2,000 suppliers and 6000 brands.

Natalie Scott

Natalie Scott

Data Governance & Business Process Manager, Gourmet Foods International

“McFadyen’s ability to comprehend our specific requirements and deliver custom solutions has been instrumental in enhancing our Magento setup. If you seek a partner that truly understands your business needs and delivers results, McFadyen is the ideal choice for Magento development.”

Project Highlights

New Magento Based Store

Flexibility for Third-Party Apps

Increased Operational Efficiency

New Features & Funcionalities

Health Check Audit

The Challenge

  • The customer experience for business customers was an antiquated manual process that relied heavily upon interactions with GFI sales reps in order to complete the process . Once the order was entered into the system, the customer had very little forward visibility.
  • The existing technology architecture didn’t allow workflow flexibility and customization needed to expand into new categories, shipping, and fulfillment networks. It was purpose-built and inflexible.
  • Aging technology was limiting scalability and prohibiting the kind of growth GFI was anticipating, especially when it came to implementing a headless commerce front-end and extending capabilities via new integrations and features.

The Solution

The McFadyen team performed an in-depth study of GFI’s current digital commerce infrastructure, including a comprehensive Magento health check, with the goal of informing the build of their next generation of B2B ordering experience. The engagement also included a detailed SEO analysis, a Google Analytics 4 configuration, and creating an improved user shopping experience. The result is a fast and modern B2B digital commerce site, created using the Adobe Commerce Cloud platform, and offering the following features and functionalities:

  • The ability to easily create and manage groups of customers with varying purchasing conditions, including shared catalogs and requisition lists.
  • Integrated workflow forms that expedite new customer and supplier requests.
  • Redesigned dynamic informational pages such as Locations, Careers, and Events to keep customers and prospective employees better informed.
  • Automated the integration between Adobe Commerce and GFI’s Oracle-based ERP platform to improve financial efficiencies and accuracy.
  • Created a foundation for a future-ready digital commerce website that would support the implementation of third-party applications and marketplace platforms.

The McFadyen Impact

With this new B2B ecommerce site GFI has built the foundation for modern digital commerce success. With Adobe Commerce at it’s core, the GFI commerce hub provides a clean and modern buying experience right now, and sets the stage to expand and grow as-needed to keep up with GFI’s customer demands.

The website development took nearly 18 weeks, with the development work beginning in late 2022 and the site going live in January of 2023. The following are some of the key business and operational benefits GFI derived through this implementation.

  • Realized a substantial increase in month-on-month revenue post-implementation of the new B2B site.
  • Conversion rates across categories saw significant growth.
  • The new B2B commerce site has seen an increase in the amount of orders placed without sales rep interaction.
  • Implementing Adobe Commerce cloud allowed a broader assortment and increased operational efficiency (such as ERP automation) resulting in improved overall profitability.

How We Can Help You

Complimentary Marketplace Strategy Assessment

The evolution of digital commerce strategies, tactics, and technologies is happening at an increasingly fast pace. With online ordering taking on even more importance to buyers in recent times, many organizations are struggling to keep up, let alone determine what’s next. That’s where we add the most value.

Complete the form to the right and qualifying organizations will receive a 90 minute digital commerce assessment with McFadyen Digital’s experts. We’ll examine your current online shopping strategy and technology, creating actionable steps to take things to the next level. No risk. No commitment. Just answers.

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