Thriving During a Pandemic: How We Helped a Top Gourmet Food Distributor Expand into B2C and Increase Their Sales by Up to 175%!   

First Glance

For over 30 years, Pacific Gourmet has been distributing fine exotic and specialty food products to restaurants, hotels, bakeries and food service providers around the US. With a strong focus on quality, Pacific Gourmet offers local products, organic options and better alternatives to GMO-based products whenever possible without the luxury price tag.

Our partnership with Pacific Gourmet began in 2018 when we built a Shopify integration with their ERP system via flat file uploads and a custom Shopify app. Before COVID-19 forced the world to adapt to a new way of business and life, Pacific Gourmet was exclusively a B2B provider. However, in order to adapt to the new reality, their team had to quickly pivot to continue growing their business.

Since Sunrise Integration had already been working with Pacific Gourmet for a few years, we helped them expand their business so they could reach customers directly while continuing to deliver great food products to their B2B clients.

The Challenge

Pacific Gourmet’s entire website was geared toward B2B clients, which meant their website had to be updated to accommodate their new B2C pricing structure as well as maintain their wholesale pricing.

While this was one of their main concerns, pivoting a business to address the needs of customers requires more than just changing prices. The Sunrise Integration team needed to take a holistic approach toward successfully transforming Pacific Gourmet into a B2C business.

The Solution

After engaging in a thorough discovery process, our team built solutions that would address several aspects of Pacific Gourmet’s new strategy.

Back in 2018, our team had built and uploaded a special custom app onto Pacific Gourmet’s website for their B2B clients. To address their new requirements, we modified and upgraded it to show B2C pricing whenever customers would visit the site, and show wholesale prices to businesses looking to buy in bulk (they would have to create an account and log in first).

We also re-designed and re-organized their website to make it more shopping-centric and appeal to home chefs, including highlighting retail pack sizes and making desirable products more visible.

Our team also took this opportunity to do an overall assessment of the website and eliminated any confusing buttons, sign-ups, calls to action or sections to make using the website a more user-friendly experience.

The Outcome

We upgraded Pac Gourmet’s website so they could pivot quickly and open the door to a much wider audience. 

Shortly after the B2C launch in 2020, Pacific Gourmet saw their sales increase from lackluster numbers during COVID-19, their top products experiencing the biggest jump. 

Pacific Gourmet enjoyed the following improvements from the period between July 17, 2020 and August 31, 2020 to the period between September 1, 2020 and October 16, 2020: 

• + 11% Total Sales

• + 13%  Online Store Conversion Rate

• + 13% Average Order Value

• + 48 to 175% Units Sold of Top Products

In addition to the significant increase in sales, we greatly improved the user experience and significantly reduced friction for B2C and B2B customers when they make purchases. They were able to eliminate many complaints from users about the account setup process and order entry. 

Much to their team’s delight, these changes allow them to use fewer resources to fulfill B2C orders. Before Pacific Gourmet partnered up with Sunrise Integration, they would receive a lot of follow-up questions from the customers, but now, orders are completed seamlessly.

Looking to the Future

Given the success of their new website, we are currently working with Pacific Gourmet to integrate their ERP with Shopify so they can seamlessly update their inventory and pricing directly in the Shopify platform.

Beyond that, we are finding ways to expand their B2C business and attract more customers to strengthen Pacific Gourmet’s position in the market. We can’t wait to see what the future holds.