A "Gardyn" at Every Home is an eCommerce Story of Success
Revolutionary indoor garden kit Gardyn utilizes in order to place a Gardyn inside every house. Featured in Forbes, Good Housekeeping, Time, Real Simple, Goop as well as other publications, Gardyn picked it for its capacity and customization. They've also used software like Trustpilot, Affirm, Klaviyo and Amazon Pay to improve their online marketing, and convert rates.
Meet Gardyn
The Gardyn's founder and CEO FX Rouxel began Gardyn in the year 2019, it was founded with a clear and attainable purpose: to create a world where everyone had access to affordable and convenient food that was all natural which was produced sustainably and without a negative impact on the environment.
Utilizing the Gardyn indoor gardening method, you can grow the fruits, vegetables, herbs and other greens with less than two square feet space, with similar yields that need more than one thousand square feet in a traditional outdoor garden!
The app allows users to have control of the device so they can set their water and lighting schedule or put it into vacation mode or purchase more cubes of Y, which are seedlings of the plant.
The history of Gardyn
Gardyn launched in 2019 , and they shipped their first prototype in February and at the same time the company launched its new website .
When he moved to the U.S., Rouxel was discouraged that he couldn't discover fruits or vegetables that were as delicious as the fresh and organic fruits and vegetables from his homeland of Provence, France. This desire to recreate the flavors of the childhood he grew up with that led him to develop the Gardyn process. Instead of focusing on solutions at the beginning of the process -- helping farmers in generalFX focused its efforts on the end consumer. Nowadays, anyone can cultivate their own vegetables in a small space and with little effort.
The system was created in partnership together with McGill University in Canada, and is the only product of its kind specifically designed for indoor use to grow more than 30 plants.
The company was launched at a time of COVID-19 renewed interest around the world for family-run, sustainable food supplies and home-based initiatives, Gardyn grew rapidly. The company is located within Bethesda, Maryland, Gardyn now employs a remote staff of more than 50 people.
The engines behind Gardyn's success
We sat down with Ava, who's in charge of their marketing as well as their website. She first encountered Gardyn when she was working for an agency for marketing they had hired. She became absorbed by the mission and passion of Gardyn's leadership team.
"I was in love with the business." She said "They wanted to bring marketing in-house and I didn't want to leave. Therefore, I asked to remain and I was hired full-time."
Her passion for her work is apparent- coming across more like a founder than a Head of website.
Making the Right Choice
Ava played a key role in deciding on WordPress the platform they would like to use. She is not an expert in development, however she does have some experience with WordPress.
"The reasons we went with Shopify was that it works well with WordPress and gave us the most flexibility. We didn't want to have another cookie-cutter Shopify store. Shopify could be an issue to modify. I would definitely need the help of a developer...and we didn't have one.
But, because I did know a bit about WordPress but not as much with it , I was able to google my way through the process of creating the new site."
The first iteration of their website was designed entirely in-house, using Elementor as the platform, with no developers. The site had everything they required for the launch with a Product Detail Page (PDP) as well as a membership feature, and an intuitive shopping cart as well as a checkout process for customers.
"There were, of course, some growing pains," says Ava. "Just trying to prepare to increase the possibility of scaling. We'd code something another way, then, 2 months later it would be necessary to go back since I hadn't thought further ahead."
Luckily, gave Gardyn the ability to change swiftly as the company rose in popularity -- even from one month to the next.
As the Webmaster's Head, Ava keeps a close eye on metrics. "I am interested in seeing whether, when they arrive on the homepage, do they proceed to the PDP? From there, I like to see how much it costs for the PDP for the "add to basket" cost, and after that clearly, to add it to the cart to checkout. It is my goal to have everything be smooth and seamless through the funnel. Particularly those important metrics"PDP to conversion, cart to convert, checkout to conversion," PDP to conversion from cart to conversion the checkout process to conversion."
A major way she's found to improve those metrics is via customer feedback.
Reviews from Trustpilot
One of the biggest challenges her job as a marketer is to educate customers on exactly what Gardyn is, and the way it differs from other home-grown food systems.
"It's telling people that we've got the Tesla and even if they've never been on a motorbike or driven, what do they think is a Tesla is? That's why it's difficult- explaining it in a way so they understand how it fits to their lifestyles. It's not just another task or an activity that's likely to go away. It's extremely simple, and it's always there."
One of the best ways to overcome this problem, they discovered, is by utilizing user generated content (UGC), which is in the form of reviews. The Gardyn team saw the value in reviews but required a platform which can consolidate reviews into the same place. It also needed to be genuine.
They began with a different system however, they quickly switched to Trustpilot, which has substantially improved the effectiveness of reviews.
"It gives a feeling of trust when customers can go to the Trustpilot site and see that the reviews and reviewers are genuine. They also write reviews with 5 stars. We're not offering them any incentive, it's the desire of our customers to share with us that they are awed by Gardyn."
When it comes to getting reviews, Gardyn sends out an email to individual customers who are active -such as loyal members. They also reach out in an online group on Facebook, in which people collaborate and are doing their best to make maximum benefit from the system.
Trustpilot makes it easy to do more with the feedback they get.
"The backend experience of Trustpilot makes it much simpler for us to manage, and see, and be able to download particular reviews, and other such. We're able to reach out to the reviewers and try to collect photos, or get more stories for our blog to add that human feel and emotional bond.
It was particularly useful to create ads or review cards from within Trustpilot. I can download all of the SVG documents very easily. It's all set up to work to follow the highest standards of practice which is very helpful."
The inclusion of reviews on the site and in marketing has proven to be important.
"I recorded user experience feedback where people went through the website and spoke to each other about their experience and opinions. Eight out of ten said"Oh, reviews! This is good.' We also use testimonials on every email. Every footer we provide Trustpilot reviews -- every footer."
In real-life, the results speak for themselves.
When Gardyn includes reviews in its Facebook advertisements, their click through rate doubles. When they also introduced reviews to their website, engagement went up and bounce rates dropped.
Integrating additional tools and features for greater success
Ava already mentioned that the decision to choose the platform for their store was partly because of the adjustable nature of the platform. What exactly is that manifested?
Extensions.
"I'm self-taught and have learned to Google. I've learned to learn. There's no way to tell how to extend your time until you test it. This is why the 30-day policy for return can be extremely helpful.
The best part is that because WordPress is open source and it being open source, there are so many options to choose from. There's so many options available, and it's likely to be the thing you're looking for. There's always an extension for anything I'd like to accomplish.
She states that Trustpilot as well as Affirm certainly have had the greatest impact on their site's success.
"It was incredibly easy to integrate with . I don't know why we didn't use it earlier. Klaviyo instantly understands what the funnel is. It has doubled the amount of contacts we capture from abandoned carts due to the fact that Klaviyo allows us to connect abandoned carts using the help of a pop-up. I believe we've got close to 50,000 subscribers currently."
Implementing express pay
The MyGardyn website launched express pay options in November 2021 . The site instantly saw acceptance by users. A lot of adoption. In the present more than 40% of all desktop transactions and 60% of mobile orders use express payments. As a tally of all transactions 30% of transactions are made using the credit card and 20% use Affirm.
However, the most significant thing to note is the fact that they observed an increase of 50% on mobile payments compared to desktop during the same time period. This underscores the importance of the express payment option including Apple Pay, Google Pay as well as Amazon Pay.
"It's nice," says Ava, "The express pay options have greatly increased our conversion rates and mobile sales. Our abandonment rate is actually minimal, too."
"If you think about the fact that everyone uses Amazon. It's thinking, 'Oh, I have it. I'm already signed into the application.' It takes two seconds. The abandonment rate is about 17. That's really low."
In the direction of the future
Gardyn strives to give everyone access to fresh foods. The idea of having a Gardyn at every house obviously, but that is the ultimate goal.
The firm is engaged in the G3 Initiative, called Gardyn Grows for Good and is working in partnership together with non-profit organizations and schools to bring food to food areas that are in need and communities affected by. The goal of this project is to provide nutritious and affordable food for low income areas.
If asked for advice that she would offer to others, she won't begrudge it.
"Don't be afraid to take on major changes," says Ava. "A website never ends. It's always growing. It's constantly changing. Follow your gut, and follow the data, and I highly suggest and trustpilot.
When you're selling something or doing hardcore marketing, do it for something that improves the quality of life and also makes you feel satisfied when you see people purchase the product."
Then, Ava also shared her top things she has grown in her Gardyn: "My favorite thing is called Red Mustard. It's really a spicy lettuce and it is similar to horseradish. It's really good for sandwiches! It also grows cherries and strawberries which tasted deliciously sweet. I've never experienced anything similar to that."