How a Local Bakery Increased Online Sales by 40% with a Squarespace Redesign

Executive Summary

Camella, the founder of the Sweet Cravings built a baking business that was thriving with hundreds of customers patronizing her monthly. However, everything changed when the pandemic hit. After the pandemic, foot traffic declined and Camella’s business still struggled to find quality customers. Due to this, Camella turned to online sales. However, her outdated website caused her more harm than good, costing her to lose more customers. After joining Squarespace, within 3 months, she increased her sales by 40% and reduced call time by 60%, creating a seamless experience for her customers. Here is how she did it.

Introduction

Camella’s baking journey started as a teenager but became a passion five years ago when she started making cupcakes and pastries. Friends and family loved it, inspiring her to start her local bakery, Sweet Cravings.

Business was booming, and customers kept increasing until the pandemic hit. It led to decreased patronage, and even after the pandemic was over, business was no longer as usual.

Since her major source of traffic is no longer working, Camella was forced to open an Instagram page for her business. Customers started flowing in again.

However, handling orders was becoming overwhelming, and most of her customers were asking for a website to order from directly.

Camella had a basic website that she thought would be up for the task but unfortunately, her website didn’t relieve the stress. Instead, it led to an increase in unsatisfied clients, phone time, and misplaced orders.

The Challenge

Camella had a basic website where she directs her Instagram customers, but it was doing the bare minimum. The website was

• 30% increase in cart abandonment due to slow loading speed

• 500+ missed customer orders during a promo because of a bad user experience

• It wasn’t optimized for mobile users

This led to frustrated customers who would rather abandon the website and place a phone call or send an email.

“Oh, where do I start? The layout was clunky, and customers had to call or email to place an order. We tried adding an order form, but it was confusing, and many customers gave up halfway. Mobile users had the worst experience—it was hard to navigate, images loaded slowly, and checkout was a mess.”

In the long run, 30% of customers who visited Camella’s website abandoned their cart because the checkout page stopped responding. Handling the phone calls and emails was overwhelming for the bakers, who spend 4+ hours per day talking to customers rather than baking. The overflowing DMs also made Camella and her team miss important orders.

The biggest loss was when she held a baking promotion, got over 500 visits to her website, and only a handful of successful orders.

“We had over 500 clicks to our website, but only a handful of orders came through. Later, I found out that many customers couldn’t complete their checkout because the page kept freezing. We easily lost dozens of sales that day.”

After months of losing customers and overwhelming work, Camella realized it was time to redesign her website and automate her inventory if she wanted to stay in business.

The Solution

Knowing that her old website was hard to navigate, Camella decided to work with a web designer to redesign her website and she chose Squarespace.

Prior to choosing Squarespace, Camella wanted a website builder she could easily navigate or make small changes to without needing the help of an expert. She wanted a modern website, easy to navigate for her customers and one where she could manage her inventory seamlessly.

“I needed something user-friendly that I could manage myself after the initial setup. I had looked at other platforms, but Squarespace offered everything I needed—beautiful templates, a built-in store, and mobile optimization. Plus, I could easily update product listings without needing a developer.”

When redesigning her website using Squarespace, Camella made major redesigns to her website which are

• An online ordering system: Customers can go on the site to add items to their carts, and choose variations such as different toppings and flavors.

• Modern Product Pages: Unlike the previous website, her Squarespace website came with clear product images and descriptions of what they are ordering

• Smooth payment systems: Rather than wait for manual confirmation of their payment, customers can make payment seamlessly with the payment method of their choice.

• Automatic order confirmations: Camella and her team no longer have to sort orders automatically.

• Mobile optimization: Camella’s customers can now effortlessly order on their phones and tablets since 80% use their mobiles to order.

• Modern Design: The website features a modern design that makes it look sleek.

All these adjustments were made in three weeks, reducing the wait time an average designer takes to build a website by 100%

“My redesigned website was up and running in three weeks! Not only that, but everything was working perfectly. I fell in love with my website over and over again. But it wasn’t only me, my customers loved my new website, thanks to Squarespace”

The Results

40% increase in sales, 60% reduction in phone time, and increased customer satisfaction

Within a few hours of launching the new website, orders started flowing in and the bounce rate reduced drastically.

“...Orders started coming in within hours of launching. Customers loved how easy it was to order online. We no longer had to manually confirm every sale—it was all automated.”

Within three months, Camella was able to

• Increase Sales by 40%: Gone were the days were customers abandoned the order halfway because of bad user experience

• 60% reduction in phone time: the team no longer has to worry about spending their whole day answering phone calls and taking orders

• 25% increase in returning customers due to a smooth user experience

• The average order value rose by 15%

• Improved business image: With a branded website and good user experience, the public image of Sweet Cravings improved drastically, bringing with it new customers

• Increased customer satisfaction: Costumers dropped tons of positive reviews on how seamless it is to order directly from the website

“Our customer satisfaction improved drastically. We received tons of positive feedback about the new experience. One customer even told me, “I used to avoid ordering from your website, but now it’s so smooth!” Also, managing inventory is much easier now, and we can track which items are selling best.”

Conclusion

Squarespace is a go-to website builder for small business owners looking to increase sales conversion and brand identity. It comes with an easy-to-use interface suitable for non-tech-savvy customers.

Before the website redesign, Camella was losing customers daily and struggling with

• Complicated user journey

• Increased bounce rate

• Bad customer reviews

• Manual inventory management

However, after the redesign, Camella's client base increased, and so did customer satisfaction.

Key takeaways

A bad website can cost more than one can imagine. It increases

• Bounce rate

• Make it difficult for customers to fulfill orders

• Decrease customers’ satisfaction and

• Increase workload on your path.

Therefore, it is important to carry out an audit on your business website to ensure the user journey is smooth.

Here is what Camella has to say after the redesign

“...I didn’t realize how much business we were losing because of a bad website. If I had invested in this earlier, we could have scaled much faster.”

If you are a business owner just like Camella, facing website challenges like a mobile-unfriendly interface, cart abandonment, or dissatisfied clients, we understand.

What you need is a simple and affordable website builder such as Squarespace where you can create a functional home for your business

It comes with

• modern and clean templates you can easily use

• Affordable plans: You don’t need to break a bank

• Easy to use interface whether you are tech savvy or not

• Scales and support e-commerce business

• Easy and automated inventory management and so much more

Build the website of your dreams with Squarespace. You can get started with the 14-day free trial!