Daily Harvest launched in 2015 with a mission to make it easier for everyone to eat sustainably grown, organic fruits and vegetables every day. In the time since, Daily Harvest has become one of the most beloved DTC food retailers on the planet. YuJin Yong, VP of Digital at Daily Harvest, tells us that their customers are incredibly loyal. “Once they’re hooked, they are hooked,” she adds.
As the company evolved, so too did the needs of their customers. In 2023, the company built on its successful direct-to-consumer business with its national retail launch Daily Harvest can now be found in the freezer aisles of prominent stores across the country, like Kroger, Target, Wegmans, Costco, and more.
With this rapid expansion, Daily Harvest sought to replatform from their homegrown, legacy systems that handled everything from the front-end experience across all devices to back-end operations. To support their newfound presence in retailers coast-to-coast, Daily Harvest needed a more flexible tech stack that could handle the complexities of an omnichannel strategy.
“We were looking at our business requirements and reevaluating what we need our tech stack, team, and capabilities to look like in the future,” YuJin continues. “And a Liquid website on Shopify was very much a clear answer.”
Daily Harvest chose Shopify for its:
- Performant, flexible, and easy-to-use toolkits that allow the company to innovate faster
- Extensive app ecosystem and network of integration partners
- Deep commitment to serving as a partner to Daily Harvest through its migration
The challenge: Legacy systems that stunted innovation
As Daily Harvest’s product assortment and delivery cadences increased, YuJin tells us that the company’s legacy systems quickly became a burden. Rather than spending their time on projects that could deliver more value for their customers, YuJin says that her teams were more concerned about fixing issues that popped up daily.
Before Shopify, [there were a lot of] complexities by being a legacy, homegrown site. Our engineers had to either fix things they built themselves or engage with a third-party provider. By being on Shopify, we can consolidate our tech stack almost entirely.
Selecting a partner
YuJin says that as Daily Harvest evaluated their options, they quickly determined that they needed to replatform—and that they needed to do it with Shopify.
Shopify became the obvious choice for several reasons, but YuJin tells us that Daily Harvest was especially eager to tap into our rich ecosystem of integrations. “Everyone is in the Shopify ecosystem,” she continues. “So it was a very easy decision. We knew if we moved to Shopify, we could scale the entire business quickly.
We knew we had to hyperspeed to what everyone else was using—and it became clear to us that it’s Shopify.
The solution: A cleaner and more flexible tech stack powered by Shopify
While the decision to replatform to Shopify was an easy one, YuJin tells us it was more difficult to choose the way they’d make it a reality. After considering a headless build on Shopify, Daily Harvest determined that they could achieve their growth and marketing goals by migrating to a Liquid website, which they teamed up with Domaine to accomplish.
Shopify has been so fast with its Editions and is launching so many features we’re interested in using. We knew that if we went with a Liquid website, we’d be eligible to use those features immediately.
Scaling the entire business
Even before they launched on Shopify, YuJin says the team benefitted from migrating to their Liquid website. “The part about moving to Shopify that excites me the most is how the team gets excited about seeing their peers doing something and saying, ‘Hey, I can do that too—and I can do that very quickly,’” she continues.
Shopify gives us a much clearer path to scale the entire business.
Maintaining a lean tech stack
Shopify also gives Daily Harvest a leaner tech stack, which YuJin says doesn’t require as large of a team to maintain or any headcount to worry about hosting or data pipeline issues. Shopify also empowered Daily Harvest to launch their new site more quickly than they anticipated, thanks in large part to how developing a Liquid website is similar to working with building blocks.
I can replicate something that’s on a marketing brand page and bring it over to another one, or take something from the home page and reuse it elsewhere. You can just copy and paste things really easily and replicate them throughout your entire customer journey and website.
The results: A clearer path to growth
Migrating to a Liquid site on Shopify is set to give Daily Harvest a much clearer path toward executing against their ambitious goals. In the immediate term, YuJin says that components such as Shopify Search and Discovery will dramatically improve how their customers navigate their extensive library of SKUs, all of which are organized by granular product tags for dietary preferences and allergens. She’s also excited about how easily the team can build and update assets and fonts, and reuse components as needed.
Driving customer loyalty
Down the road, YuJin tells us that Shopify’s roadmap gives her confidence about what’s possible with their Liquid website. Most notably, she believes that it could be the precursor for Daily Harvest’s first loyalty program.
Having something like store credits is exciting for us not only because it’s something new and relevant for our customers, but also an innovation that will help our internal accounting teams as well.
Expanding the retail footprint
Shopify B2B will also boost Daily Harvest’s retail expansion. Just a few years ago, Daily Harvest was not available from any wholesalers, but YuJin says that Shopify’s infrastructure has unlocked new pipelines that she previously could not imagine.
Having something where we can build a B2B pipeline with Shopify is great because it means we can trial something impactful without investing in other technical systems.
Maximizing lifetime value with subscriptions
Subscriptions are at the heart of Daily Harvest's business, and they needed a subscription solution that could support the dynamic bundle offerings that their customers love, while integrating seamlessly with their new Shopify Liquid website and providing further functionality to grow maximum subscriber lifetime value.
They selected Ordergroove, a leading Shopify partner powering subscriptions for Enterprise and fast-growing brands, to support their highly customized and sophisticated subscriber experience. The move allows Daily Harvest to reallocate critical resources to focus on creating new and novel customer experiences instead of maintaining legacy technology. Daily Harvest will also have access to Ordergroove’s ongoing product innovations that will keep them ahead of the curve as a leader in the subscription landscape.
Influencing each others roadmaps
In addition to the technical benefits, Shopify served as a true partner throughout the migration process. YuJin says working with the Shopify team helped the entire organization confirm they were making the right decision to replatform.
Shopify really got to know me and the company, especially how our business requirements shifted since we started evaluating a potential migration. We worked closely together on Daily Harvest’s roadmap and Shopify’s roadmap as well. Seeing what was coming down the pipeline was a big thing that really helped us.
Watch the entire interview
Watch the full video interview with YuJin Yong, VP of digital at Daily Harvest, and Hillary Knoll, enterprise success lead at Shopify, for a deeper dive into Daily Harvest’s migration.
