One of the main problems of an eCommerce store is choosing the right tool. The right tool does not only means the right platform (Magento, Shopify, etc…) but also all those services that make the difference. Discover how Zakeke helped Instafreshener automate their business and increase sales by 80%, year over year.
About Instafreshener
Founded by Andrew and Jessica Hendrick in 2012, Instafreshener is the leader in producing high quality, long lasting, custom air fresheners for the everyday consumer. They sell personalized air fresheners and other personalized consumer goods. Now, thanks to Zakeke, sales increased by 80%.
The Challenge
- Manual work was drowning Instafreshener — and ruining Christmas
When Andrew and his wife started Instafreshener, they were selling custom air fresheners one by one. Back in 2012 they were both working full time at other companies and growing Instafreshener was not possible without automating some of the workload.
Every year at Christmas time things would get pretty busy at Instafreshener. This meant higher revenue but Andrew still felt they could do better. Instafreshener didn’t have an automated system to take on and fulfil orders, and they were leaving sales on the table.
Back in the day, we had customers email us a photo. We had to crop the photo, resize it, brighten the photo up if it needed it. And then set it up and get it ready for print, too. So there was a lot of manual work before Zakeke came into our lives.
Andrew Hendrick, Founder at Instafreshener
- Making one product at a time is not scalable
Instafreshener started making single air fresheners one at a time, using a completely different printing process than what they use today. Taking orders one by one and spending hours designing and proofing products for their customers was a huge time drain for Andrew’s business.
- Other product customization tools fell short
It wasn’t until 2018 that Andrew could leave his full time job, buy their own printing equipment and focus on Instafreshener. Andrew knew they had to automate a larger part of the business, but every tool they tried were too hard to use for Instafreshener’s customers.
I tried three or four different applications and just never being satisfied. They didn’t plug in with Shopify and I had several different steps that I had to do in order to get the artwork. So that made it very difficult and very time consuming.
Andrew Hendrick, Founder at Instafreshener
Andrew wanted to build something that played nice with Shopify and that would scale. He wanted to fulfil more orders in time and keep customer satisfaction as high as when they were doing all the work manually. Especially around Christmas.
I’ve always been a pre-planner and wanted to build something that I could scale. So scalability was huge. And just looking at the other options and what I’ve worked with in the past, none of them had scalable options.
Andrew Hendrick, Founder at Instafreshener
The Solution
- A product customizer that’s easy to use for visitors and automates printing for merchants
Instafreshener needed a tool that allowed them to start a self-serve approach for their business. They couldn’t continue to receive client requests, personalize products, and approve designs manually if they wanted to scale.
I’ve tried about four different applications before. I just chose Zakeke just because of the ease of use. I’ve tried several others on the market and Zakeke is by far the easiest to use.
Andrew Hendrick, Founder at Instafreshener
- Customers come first, then we scale
When Instafreshener made the move from manual fulfillment to Zakeke, they prioritized the customer experience. Allowing visitors to design their own products is a great time saver, but the process needs to be easy and fun for the customer or they will leave the site with their shopping carts empty.
Customers are finally happy with our website. As soon as we had it integrated, customers were using it without issues. There were a couple bugs and quirks in the beginning or customizations that we needed tailored to fit our needs. And the Zakeke team has been great to help us with those changes. We noticed as soon as the team implemented that, our abandon rate significantly dropped.
Andrew Hendrick, Founder at Instafreshener
- Save time with ready-for-print artwork
Once Instafreshener had their whole inventory of customizable products live, they were ready to double down on traffic and increase sales. Drastically reducing time spent on each order helped them meet a growing demand.
What I love about Zakeke is you can output the order data to another platform and all the artwork is automatically downloaded ready for us to access and use.
Andrew Hendrick, Founder at Instafreshener
- Customized order to printing to shipping — automated
Andrew went through many redesigns for Instafreshener’s site. His search for a front end store with smooth customer experience and a back end that allowed for their business to be automated finally paid off.
Automation from customer order to printing to shipping has been pretty much seamless. We have an automated flow with the Zapier plugin and Order Desk plugin. All these plugins that you guys offer have made everything possible.
Andrew Hendrick, Founder at Instafreshener
- Ready for a busy Christmas
Instrafreshener migrated to Zakeke in July 2019. Christmas was right around the corner and Andrew felt confident they could face their busiest season head on. So confident, they even invested in paid advertising.
I would have never invested in Facebook marketing if our system couldn’t scale. We got super busy before Christmas and I wasn’t really nervous coming into it because I knew the platform, I put in place worked.
Andrew Hendrick, Founder at Instafreshener
The Results
- Automation brought $10K in additional Christmas sales
Andrew knows it’s one thing to take an order and an entire different challenge to fulfil an order in time. Customer satisfaction is key at Instafreshener. Doubling sales during the busiest season of the year while keeping customers happy and getting 5-star reviews is something they are extremely proud of.
We listen to our customers to make changes on our website that make things better. So having a company that can make those changes for us has been really important. Without that, we wouldn’t have been able to scale the way we did and take on all the business that we did this Christmas and not fail.
Andrew Hendrick, Founder at Instafreshener
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