St Martin’s Coffee - A Speciality Roastery from Leicester
Beginning life as a specialty coffee wholesaler for local Leicester businesses, St Martin’s Coffee Roasters have grown to now supply coffee lovers nationwide: from artisan baristas, to prestigious hotels, and even all the way to that hipster down the street who runs on roasted beans and sarcasm.
As such, Andy and Ole – the business masterminds behind St Martin’s – take great pride in their produce. “We look for coffees with character, complex flavour profiles and consistency and only buy from producers who treat the environment and people with respect and fairness. We roast in small batches to control the development of the coffee during the process which enables the true flavour profile of the coffee to be enjoyed.”
THE CHALLENGE
COVID-19: The good, the bad, and the chaotic
Up until 2020, St Martin’s prime focus was the wholesale supply of specialty coffee to bars, cafes, restaurants, offices, museums, and hotels across the UK. As you’ve probably guessed, the arrival of COVID-19 stamped out demand for their coffee overnight.
Thinking fast to keep the business going, Andy and Ole swiftly pivoted to selling roasted coffee through their online store to all those who craved barista-quality coffee while enduring lockdown.
And that’s where we fast forward to 2022, with e-commerce sales now contributing to +30% of their turnover, as artisan coffee grows in popularity in the home.
With the addition of B2C customers came a new problem. As the world started to open up again, St Martin’s discovered the difficulty of managing both B2B and B2C shipments.
“Because we were selling on multiple platforms, our data wasn’t knitted together. We would have to print off all of our orders and then at the end of the day, we would collect up all of these bits of paper and manually re-key the data into the shipping providers’ website.”
“As both the B2B and B2C sides of the business became more successful, it quickly became clear that we had to find a more efficient and effective way of shipping out orders.”
THE SIMPLE FIX
Discovering a smarter solution for simple shipping
“Just when we were reaching breaking point, Brett from Sendcloud got in touch to talk about their shipping solution. Brett explained how Sendcloud’s platform worked and how it could help us streamline our shipping processes and we were sold immediately.”
“Finding a shipping solution that enabled us to take care of both the B2C and B2B sides of the business has been invaluable. Before Sendcloud we used to waste hours each week manually typing in orders. With Sendcloud we can match up the order sheet with the labels in seconds. The days of frantically chasing around parcels that don’t match up on the list are thankfully a thing of the past.”
MAKING LIFE EASIER
The power of automation: Less mistakes, simple workflows, happier life
“The Sendcloud platform automatically highlights incorrect or invalid addresses so we can look into them individually and put them right. This and other shipping rules and automation features have helped us to mitigate common errors and reduce time-consuming admin. We can also split our workflows between our different customer bases like our subscription service and our next day service.”
Sendcloud’s shipping rules help Andy and Ole take care of different package requirements such as free shipping over a certain amount with specific carriers and free local shipping, which they offer as a way of thanking their local community for their ongoing support.
SMOOOOTH SAILIN'
Seamlessly connecting B2B and B2C
Sendcloud connects to both St Martin’s B2B ordering platform – Order Space – and their B2C e-commerce platform – Shopify. This means all orders can be processed for shipping from one platform (Sendcloud) no matter whether a customer at home or a cafe manager placed an order.
“We can clearly see which are for our chosen B2C and B2B shipping companies and we know we haven’t missed anything. No more situations where the DPD driver turns up and we haven’t printed the labels yet!”
A HAPPY ENDING
Enjoying the daily grind; excited for the future
Andy and Ole are excited about what the future holds for St Martin’s Coffee Roasters. “We’re continuing to see huge growth in both our B2B and B2C channels. We launched our new Shopify site in 2021 and one of our key objectives for the future is to grow our subscription customer base. We are hoping to do this mainly through word of mouth rather than online advertising so it’s vital we maintain a great brand reputation.
“As order levels continue to grow, we need to be confident that we can get our coffee out of the door as quickly as possible. We always had a great story behind our brand and a great ethos but, at our core, we are a production factory and we need to deliver our coffee on time and in great condition. The service from Sendcloud helps us to do that and more.”
St Martin's favourite things about Sendcloud
“It’s intuitive & easy to use”
“Brett explained how Sendcloud could help simplify our shipping. The onboarding process was fabulous and we had support with every step.”
“It’s simple to process orders”
“All orders can be processed from one platform, making it easier to keep tabs on stock levels, outgoing shipments, and tracking notifications.”
“It saves us time & errors”
“Sendcloud has helped us to get rid of common mistakes and reduce the time-consuming admin we were always struggling with.”
”Before Sendcloud we used to waste hours manually typing in orders. Now, the days of frantically chasing around parcels that don’t match up are a thing of the past.
Ole Ryan
Want simple shipping, just like St Martin’s Coffee?
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