Selling artisan products

Sales: a shop or online?
If I had to choose pre-Covid, I would have said shop, a physical shop… Because I hope to open a nice downtown shop someday. But with Covid in mind… online! But for Easter, we sold only online and we did great. I think we have a lot of customers coming back either online or to our shop.

Which channels are most profitable?
Currently, our retailers hands down. Because we sell large volumes through them, because we have lots, and because that’s how people can buy our products. Our shop is not in a high-traffic location. It’s not a downtown boutique, so only the people who know about us come. Some make the trip to have the whole product range but it’s not our biggest point-of-sale. Our website is starting to work really well but it’s no substitute for our retailers.

Artisanal: a good selling point?
Yes, it makes quite a difference… the artisanal side and knowing everything is made here by our team. It is a great selling point and it’s very important to us.

How to get listed by retailers
Two possibilities: either they come to us which is always nice, but with others you have to insist over and over. I send packs of chocolates, call, send more chocolates… I call back again and usually it works. You have to be nice. Call them but don’t harass them… And really, if they like your product and they have a market for it, it usually works.

How to stand out?
By renewing your products. Every year around Christmas and Saint Nicholas Day we change our gift sets, the molds we use, we always have something new. There’s also our recipes that aren’t entirely French nor entirely Belgian. We have a nice blend of the two. We also have some of our very own, entirely unique recipes.