Holy Crap cereal was developed by Corin Mullins, to address her husband Brian's food allergies and sensitivities. Most healthy foods taste like cardboard and after formulating and testing 21 different recipes Corin found a winner in Holy Crap Cereal.
Brian and Corin Mullins launched their breakfast cereal business in 2009 at the Sechelt Farmer's Market calling it Hapi Food. When one of their very first customers said, “Holy Crap… this is amazing!” Brian changed the name to Holy Crap. Sales skyrocketed.
HOLY CRAP cereal is one of the most exciting health foods on the market. "The eye-catching and humorous product name draws people in," explains Corin, "Once they experience the great taste and the benefits of the cereal they keep buying it and then they tell all their friends and family about it.”
How did you earn your first sales? Which channels are now generating the most traffic and sales for you?
Corin and Brian first started selling the cereal at the Saturday morning Sechelt Farmers Market, then at Granville Island Market in Vancouver.
An appearance on the investment reality TV show, Dragons’ Den in late 2010 generated online sales of over a million dollars within a few days. To date it remains the most successful business that came out of the Den.
Holy Crap cereal is a favorite of athletes, diabetics, celiacs, dieters and even astronauts, who brought the cereal with them to the International Space Station.
Now the business is 85% B2B with over 2,500 North America stores carrying the cereal. Holy Crap Shopify store B2C sales account for the remainder. The Shopify store contact form generates a steady stream of wholesale inquiries for the sales team.
Tell us about the back-end of your business. What tools and apps do you use to run your store? How do you handle shipping and fulfillment?
Shopify is fantastic for its ease of use, its built-in features, the ability to customize front and back-end features, and for the array of apps.
Holy Crap increased sales and decreased check out abandonment rates from 50% to 20% using the Abandoned Checkout Notification. The built-in feature sends a friendly reminder to website visitors that abandon their shopping cart and includes a link to their cart so they can choose to take immediate action and complete the transaction.
Holy Crap customized the Shopify front and backend. B2C sales are conducted on two Shopify stores, one for US currency (holycrap.com) and one for Canadian currency (holycrap.ca). Our goal was to offer our direct customers the convenience of checking out in their own country’s currency. Holy Crap hired an amazing Shopify Guru (https://www.elance.com/s/felixmariaa/) to create a seamless link between the two shopping cart. After adding items to the shopping cart, customers are directed to confirm their country. If, for example, a customer with a USA billing address has items in the Holy Crap Shopify Canadian store and they click on USA, the items in their shopping cart are seamlessly transferred to the Holy Crap Shopify USA store and the customer the enters the USA check out sequence.
One of Holy Crap’s favorite Shopify apps is Contactified that automatically adds their opt-in Shopify customers directly to their Constant Contact email newsletter software. Built-in features to both Shopify and Constant Contact ensure that all activity conforms to anti-spam regulations. How great is that!
What are your top recommendations for new ecommerce entrepreneurs?
Holy Crap’s advice to new Shopify store owners is to focus on customer service, creating and curating quality content and marketing your store. Set goals and use Shopify reports and Google Analytics to analyze results and tweak your marketing activities. Don’t worry about everything being perfect before getting started – it won’t ever be perfect. Be flawsome!