Since partnering with Growing Good Technology, Sandy Lane Farm has seen online sales soar by 54% in just three years — all without a marketing budget. In fact, at the time of writing (Feb '25), weekly sales are now consistently around 75% up.
By optimising their online store, utilising inventory management and other products controls available in Growing Good, George has given his customers greater choice and convenience, without risking waste or overwhelming complexity in the packing shed. Customers have spent more and stayed longer.
Below we'll take a deep-dive into some of the activity behind their success.
In the 36 months since moving to our platform Sandy Lane have delivered a significant increase in both average basket spend (£21.35 to £26.90) and weekly order numbers. This balanced growth has been consistent and manageable, and with careful planning, delivery van capacities have improved, delivery densities have increased and ‘cost per drop’ fallen - this has resulted in greater margins, both in relative % and absolute terms.
We’re going to take a more detailed look at some of the building blocks visualised here. Not everything here will be 100% relevant to every box scheme out there; see this is as a ‘pick-your-own’ menu of options, please don’t feel overwhelmed by thinking you need to invest in all these areas at once. As at Sandy Lane, it’s a story of progress not perfection, with much remaining to be done.
Creating a shopping window
Like the majority of box schemes, Sandy Lane Farm have x1 order deadline per week - in their case, a Tuesday night. Although this simplifies things vs box schemes with multiple - the principles described here remain.
Delivery days have been long established as a Thursday and Friday, with almost all box packing taking place on a Wednesday.
With this cycle in mind, they set about establishing a ‘shopping window’ - a time in the week where shopping/subscription management activity is encouraged. In their case, this is Monday & Tuesday.
The above visual shows `products added to basket` vs the `time to deadline` - simply put, when customers are shopping vs how long left they have to make changes to their order. We can see 2 clear spikes in activity;
1. 28-32hrs before the deadline. This is driven by the weekly newsletter that George & Cate send on a Monday afternoon (more detail on that below, plus some valuable insights from Emma Treanor, who curates the content for it).
2. 0-5hrs before the deadline. Driven by the automated deadline reminder email sent by the GG system at 5pm on a Tuesday.
The timing and content of these weekly emails are vital. As you will see from the detail to follow, the weekly newsletter is informative and personal - it does a great job of ‘connecting’ customers with the farm. The automated reminder email sent 4-5hrs before the deadline is basic and transactional - it says “this is what you’ll be getting and how much you’ll pay unless you decide to take action.” It’s a ‘now or never’ message, whereas the Monday newsletter is more warm and gentle with the ‘nudge to shop’. These 2 distinct type of comms appeal to customers differently depending on the way their brain works - many of us ALWAYS leave things until the last minute, some of us like to take our time, engage with information and plan ahead. By having both in place, we cover all bases, every week.
Minimising the time between deadline and delivery
As the volume of product sold has grown, George recently decided to increase his delivery capacity by introducing a new Weds afternoon delivery round. One of his regular drivers has taken on an extra day, helping pack boxes in the morning, and delivering local to the farm in the afternoon. It is not without challenges, but excitingly for us it is evidence that ‘next day delivery’ is indeed possible.
There is strong evidence from across e-commerce that ‘next day’ (and now even ‘same day’) delivery is a big driver of online sales - it’s what Amazon have built their business around. These benefits also apply to us - although our challenge to fulfil this service is far more complex than just how to move product. We fully appreciate that needing to place wholesale orders on Tuesday of week 1, for product coupled to an order deadline of Tuesday in week 2 (without other sales channels to help avoid wastage), is a tall order. We are mindful of this and are growing our knowledge further up the supply chain to help reduce the challenge for you in future.
Speed and convenience have impact
Sandy Lane Farm allow customers to look into their fridge / cupboards just 24-72hrs before their next delivery to influence how to shop. This, coupled with being able to swap items in and out veg boxes results in a very different feel to the shopping experience - it also encourages the ‘while I’m here I’ll grab one of those as well’ purchasing that really helps to drive up basket spend.
If we remove Sandy Lane Farm from our data…
…the significance of the SLF weekly newsletter becomes very clear. Below we see a chart with the same data as before, for all platform users other than SLF. There is a clear spike in shopping activity 0-5hrs out from deadline, driven by our automated deadline reminder email, but no similar spike the day before as we see with SLF. Our understanding is that some of our community send newsletters weekly but many are less frequent, with some in the ‘not at all’ category.
E-commerce best practice
First a caveat: ‘Best practice’ is the term used but we’re currently in the early stages of collecting enough data and testing to validate what we believe ‘veg-commerce best practice’ to really be. You’ll be kept informed of our progress!
Here we’ll look at two examples of how George is being proactive to improve the online shopping experience and increase average basket spend.
Making popular add-ons easy
Here we can see how George is using sub-categories to showcase add-ons. Using terms like “Popular” and “Seasonal Highlights” stimulates curiosity - even if the buying-intent isn’t there many customers are likely to ‘have a nosey’ and look at what others are buying, or what they might be ‘missing out’ on.
These sub categories also appear as filters in search results helping to increase visibility further, and allow George to include non-veg items from less frequently visited categories (his ‘popular add-ons’ currently includes washing-up liquid refills, butter and honey - highlighting the range of products available in the store).
Using the homepage effectively
George spends a small amount of time every week updating his homepage - the key landing page for both returning and new customers. The visual here is taken from below the main banner (the ‘hero’ banner). George uses the homepage to offer a window into his shop - helping guide visitors to content they are most likely interested in, which hopefully leads to them spending more time on the site and money!
It's design that:
1. Draws attention to products - “here’s what we’re great at, come and buy some.” 2. Informs and engages - new recipes give a reason to return every week, information about how to shop with SLF helps to inform and reassure new customers, increasing conversion rates. 3. Accreditations, reviews, awards - helps to build trust with new and recently-new customers.
