Shopbox AI transforms the shopping experience for craft butcher Kerrigans, boosting conversions by 250%

The company

Kerrigans is a butchers with a difference. A family business through-and-through, it was founded by Brendan Kerrigan in 1973 and is now managed by his two sons, Barry and Shane. Kerrigans operates from 5 locations in North Dublin. Lately, it has established a very strong online presence with Barry spearheading the expansion of their eCommerce store. In addition, since 2015 Kerrigans has established itself as an essential service for people concerned about healthy eating, providing dietary advice and delivering high-quality products bursting with protein right across Ireland.

Challenge

As highly specialised Craft Butchers, Kerrigans pride themselves on sourcing the finest produce Ireland has to offer and back that up with a desire to deliver unparalleled customer service. On the other hand, as a small family business, it does not have the resources to implement and manage the kind of sophisticated technology systems available to large online retailers.

The challenge, therefore, was to increase its returns from new and existing customers by leveraging its online presence and raising the conversion rate and average order value. And to do so in a way that puts no demand on staff resources.

Since 2016 it has been working with an e-commerce company, which installed the Shopify platform. Barry Kerrigan was keen to take things a step further and create a website that was truly engaging. He was then introduced to Shopbox AI founder Alan Gormley in the summer of 2021 and found the answer.

Solution

A Curated Homepage in just three days

“The integration with Shopify was plainly very straightforward. I just had to give Shopbox AI access to the back end. Then we previewed and tested it, and Shopbox was up and running in just three days. And it has been delivering very impressive results ever since,” Barry says.

“That said, ours is a rather niche business, and Shopbox AI did some fine-tuning as they learned more about what is important to us,” he adds. “The Shopbox AI team was very interested in adapting the technology to our needs as an online butchers.” Kerrigans and Shopbox AI have regular monthly meetings to go over the performance figures and discuss possible next steps based on ongoing product enhancements.”

Kerrigans was also one of the first Shopbox users to implement the Curated Homepage. This provides instant engagement with new customers. When a shopper visits kerrigans.ie for the first time, they are shown trending products and recent purchases made by others. And then from their first click the customer is on their own unique shopping journey with a curated buying experience.

Replicating the friendly shop assistant

As a customer service-oriented, locally based business, Kerrigans also wants to replicate the level of service provided in its physical craft butchers shops. “We offer a very large range of products that you simply can’t find on the supermarket shelves. In our shops, our assistants take pride in giving great service, and that includes making recommendations based on the customer’s tastes and preferences. We aim to do everything that the supermarkets can’t or don’t. Shopbox helps us to provide a similar service online, too,” Barry says.

“Shopbox provides in-store levels of experience online without needing huge amounts of historical data like personalisation tools, and other systems do. That makes all the difference for a small business like ours, which doesn't have huge amounts of data to work with.”
Barry Kerrigan, Managing Director, Kerrigans

“Shopbox gives us the ability to tailor our offerings to every individual shopper on our site, which is something that we were never able to do before."

He adds: “Combined with the convenience of having the products delivered to their door, locally and across the country, we can reach more customers. That’s a big plus for us.”

With Shopbox, what each shopper who visits the Kerrigans website sees is based on their interests. For example, let’s say a shopper is planning a barbecue and clicks on BBQ burgers. They will then see recommendations for special cuts of meat for barbecues and upsells to bundled offerings, as well as complementary products such as hot sauces and side dishes.

The platform knows it’s about a barbeque meal, not just a burger. The homepage adapts each time the shopper makes a further selection. These recommendations are key to boosting the average order value.

Kerrigans is extending the product range, experimenting with new offers. “We recently introduced wine, so I’m excited to see how well that goes with Shopbox recommendations,” Barry says.

A great customer experience

As Shopbox tailors product recommendations, it effectively guides them through from the first click to the checkout. It also takes into account what is in stock and any changes such as repricing, product availability and promotions when showing similar products. “Stock changes require absolutely no intervention or maintenance on our part, which is really important as we’re a small business with limited resources,” Barry emphasises.

“Shopbox gets us much more engagement than before. Shoppers stay on our site longer and look at more products. People can really see the range we offer. And when they come back, they can pick up where they left off as Shopbox shows them their recently viewed products. This creates the sensation of feeling ‘remembered,’ important and valued, which is also crucial to providing a great customer experience.”

Results

Since going live with Shopbox, Kerrigans has seen impressive results. Some 39% of shoppers engage with Shopbox but they account for 59% of transactions. They view three times as many products and spend twice as much time on the Kerrigans website.

“The most important metrics for us though are conversion rate and average order value. Shopbox gives us a 250% increase in the conversion rate – in other words, customers are two and a half times more likely to place an order by engaging with Shopbox. And their average order value is 9% higher. It’s a one-two punch that really helps our bottom line.”