Nestled in the Ayrshire countryside, Dalduff Farm has continued to evolve since its beginnings as a dairy farm. Over the last 50 years, the farm has grown into the renowned farm shop, butchers, and picturesque wedding venue it is today. Boasting a talented team of butchers and chefs, Dalduff Farm Shop offers its large following of loyal customers the very best of Ayrshire produce.
With the farm shop doors closed throughout the 2020 pandemic, the team at Dalduff wanted to ensure their customers continued to receive high quality produce at home. Ready to adapt to new challenges, it was time to bring the shop online and make it as accessible as possible for Dalduff’s customer base and beyond.
The premise was simple:
For us, there was one stand-out ecommerce platform that seemed more than up to the job – Shopify.
Shopify is a cloud-based e-commerce platform allowing businesses to set up their online store with ease. It offers varying subscription plans, with solutions to fit businesses of all sizes. There are thousands of customisable themes to chose from, which is where we came in.
A crucial initial step was to select the right theme for the farm shop and ensure that it could be customised to fit our clients branding and offering. We opted for a theme that featured promotional banners and image zoom to ensure the produce was showcased in an engaging way. With a member of the Dalduff team being a talented photographer, having her imagery as the focal point of the site was a no-brainer!
Menu navigation is clean and minimal, with everything you need accessible from the homepage. The imagery on the site speaks for itself, so both the home and product pages contain a high volume of images and minimal content to keep these areas as visually appealing as possible.
Our JavaScript and CSS experts set to work lifting the existing theme to new heights. The colour palette is composed of earthy tones, linking to the countryside location and heritage surrounding the farm.
An important aspect of Dalduff’s key messaging is tradition. This is very much a family business that has built its reputation over the decades, so it was vital that the online store reflected this. The site echoes the authenticity of the Dalduff brand, with a section dedicated to the story of the farm, their network of suppliers and long-standing team. Customers can rest assured that they are ordering from a knowledgeable team.
The product list consists of a range of boxes and hampers, many of which can be customised. Our focus was to find the most consistent way to showcase the choice on show. We got creative with a combination of product variant set up and customised CSS to keep the checkout process as straightforward as possible.
Dalduff deliver fresh produce directly from their Ayrshire farm, so it was essential that we made it easy for customers to check whether they fell within Dalduff's delivery area. Our solution was to introduce a simple, custom postcode checker before the point of sale; prominent enough to prompt users to check their delivery availability, while subtle enough so as not to disrupt the users' experience as they browse Dalduff's delectable offering.
Shopify Payments allows merchants to accept payments online without the integration of a third-party provider. This was the route we chose for Dalduff to ensure a straightforward setup and handover process for launch. With Shopify Payments, the store was automatically set up to accept all major payment methods with none of the red tape!
Opportunity for customisation extended to more technical aspects of the site set-up as well as visual. Shopify enables you to connect your store to your chosen domain within your DNS, making your online presence truly your own.
With products in place, payments set up and the domain synced, we were ready to take this butcher to the market.
Using the December launch as a trial period for the online store, we are looking forward to working with Dalduff in the New Year to push promotions and updates to take their sales to the next level. This powerhouse combination of Radiator designers, developers and Shopify features will ensure that the website continues to evolve to meet demand. As the farm shop’s online presence grows, our digital solution will be adapted to scale, meaning the team at Dalduff can continue to do what they do best – delivering service of the very best quality throughout the South West of Scotland.
