Speciality coffee roaster Iron & Fire, which has seen its wholesale and trade business double in the past year, today unveils a new dedicated wholesale website to support its trade customers in ways that go above and beyond simply placing an order for coffee.
Founded in 2014 by lifelong coffee lover Kevin Burrows, Shropshire-based Iron & Fire now boasts over 300 trade customers that span the length and breadth of the UK from Inverness to Brighton. As well as coffee shops, pub chains and restaurants, Iron & Fire also supplies garden centres, hotels, and other venues. With rapid growth since the reopening of the hospitality sector, it became obvious that there was an opportunity to improve ordering efficiency for busy coffee shops and other establishments.
The new site was designed with this in mind, providing a one-stop shop for all coffee needs. In just a few clicks customers can have their coffee speeding its way across the country and ready to be served the next day.
Our existing site had been in place since 2018 and although it served our trade customers well, we saw an opportunity to make the ordering process even more flexible and faster for this growing part of our overall business. Daily interactions with those who run independent coffee shops mean we understand just how busy they are and how many different tasks that they’re juggling. Our new site has been designed to lessen the burden of coffee ordering for those customers, whilst also providing them with value-added services.
Joanna De Rycke, Director, Iron & Fire
Iron & Fire’s trade customers now benefit from a much cleaner and more intuitive experience that allows them to quickly view all their orders in one clear dashboard where ‘quick buy’ and ‘buy again’ functions allow for quick one-off purchases, as well as management of recurring weekly, fortnightly, or monthly orders.
Barista training has long been a core component of Iron & Fire’s overall offer to its trade customers and is complimented by a suite of online video training courses acknowledging the changes driven by the pandemic. This will help customers that are new to the industry, as well as existing customers who wish to refine the knowledge and skills of their staff.
This is a win-win because ultimately, both us and the customer want to serve the best coffee possible. Good coffee equals customer retention and increased average spend – both of which have a direct correlation with profit.
Joanna De Rycke, Director, Iron & Fire
For prospective customers, meanwhile, the new website offers clear information about how Iron & Fire can support from initial business set-up, through design and layout of a coffee shop, the appropriate equipment to use and how often to carry out service and maintenance. Coffee machine purchasing and hiring are also integral to the site.
With customers becoming more discerning, the demand for speciality coffee has increased in recent years in the UK and with that has come the need to provide a stand-out service to all our trade customers. We wanted this site to be among the best in the sector and we’re confident we’ve delivered that.
Indeed, our customers are already commenting not only on how it makes their jobs easier but also on how accurately the site conveys our unique blend of science and art which goes into the coffee we roast.
It would be remiss, however, to ignore the benefits that this new site affords to us as a rapidly growing business. The ability that our customers now have to manage their regular orders, put them on a temporary hold, or make additional orders all from their own dashboard without having to liaise directly with us, is driving a level of automation and streamlining which reduces unnecessary admin, allowing us to focus on what we do best – coffee!
Joanna De Rycke, Director, Iron & Fire
Iron & Fire’s new B2B website has been developed by the in-house team liaising closely with Betelguise web design, located in Bridgnorth. Design input from the talented boutique design agency Damselindesign, meanwhile, helped bring the design brief to life.
This article was provided to bartalks by Iron & Fire.
Photo from Iron & Fire Facebook Page
