Self-taught baking enthusiast and entrepreneur
Nicoline has built up her own baking universe and is behind the Danish webshop Det Glade Køkken. We tell her story here.
Nicoline is proud to list her current titles: cake enthusiast, mum, blogger, Instagrammer and, not least, entrepreneur.
Nicoline is behind the Danish blog, Instagram profile and webshop Det Glade Køkken. With these tools she is ready to convince anybody that they can bake. At the same time, she is a mother of two.
Det Glade Køkken is a baking universe. The webshop was launched in 2019 but Nicoline has been building a solid number of followers on her blog and Instagram profile.
Last month, she moved her stock from their home in Odense to a bigger warehouse of 116 sq. m. The 40 item numbers that the webshop started off with have now increased to more than 450, which is why Det Glade Køkken had to move out.
The picture shows you what that looked like:
The webshop is the public face
The webshop, built on the WooCommerce, has also recently had a thorough renovation, so that the identity is shining and the mouth waters. It is important for Nicoline that the webshop should be welcoming.
It is hard to sell something that people are supposed to make delicious cakes from if the place where you buy it isn’t delicious as well. It is our public face, since we don’t have a physical store, Nicoline says.
But it is not just the visual appearance of the webshop which counts. There is also great emphasis on a satisfying shopping experience, with all that that entails in terms of personal customer service, sound baking advice and a great delivery experience.
As an example, Det Glade Køkken has given its customers the opportunity to choose the pick-up point themselves:
Revolution of the workflow
A couple of months ago, Nicoline was able to celebrate the webshop’s first birthday. The expectations for turnover were achieved ten times over and the orders came rolling in. So it has also been necessary to carry out ongoing optimization of order management.
At first we managed our orders in WooCommerce and printed on A4 paper and cut each paper into two, so we had for two times. It took forever. The order management in Shipmondo and the scanner was revolutionary for me. It is a thousand times easier and the time we spent per order is cut in half. At the same time, we minimize the number of errors this way, says Nicoline.
Nicoline’s favourite feature when it comes to order management is Shipmondo’s scanner solution. Here, with just one scan of the packing list, she can book freight, print a label, fulfil the order and capture payment.
At the same time, Nicoline can look forward every morning to driving to her warehouse and seeing the pile of packing lists waiting to be managed. They are printed automatically when an order lands on her webshop - to her great joy when she arrives at the warehouse.
The entrepreneur adventure has been a learning process for Nicoline. She started with the webshop project without any previous experience, and she has gained knowledge about her customers and products along the way.
With Shipmondo at her back, she has been able to optimize her workflows and get even more time to explore new recipes and create beautiful cheesecakes.
Shipmondo has been along with me from the beginning. It was easy to get started and integrate the webshop in Shipmondo. Without Shipmondo, it would have been completely confusing and we would have been forced to create each label manually, putting the name and address on every single shipment. We have really enjoyed this automation, Nicoline continues.
One in five orders is a pick-up
The close and personal bond which Nicoline has with her customers and followers is an important part of her baking universe. Maybe that is also why so many of her customers come to pick up their order directly from Nicoline - previously at her home address and now at the new warehouse. In fact, one in every five orders is a pick-up order, where the customer picks up the items personally.
Nicoline picks and packs the items according to the packing list, and afterwards a pick-up label is printed with the customer’s information. This way, it is easy for Nicoline to see which package the customer is coming to pick up. Afterwards, she can scan the barcode on the pick-up label and the order is automatically noted as picked up on her Shipmondo account.
Advice for other entrepreneurs
It is gradually getting easier to start a webshop. But it can be difficult to find a hole in the market and at the same time differentiate yourself from your competitors. It is not easy - but it has happened for Det Glad Køkken. Here Nicoline gives some good advice:
You have to know your products and your customers. It’s all about trying and taking it step by step. I’m happy that we didn’t start by ordering 500 products. We have generally kept it simple and built it up from there - and it has worked for us.
It permeates Det Glade Køkken that the products are thoroughly tested at home. They make delicious cakes which the followers love and Nicoline is happy to share her baking advice.
Do you want to read more stories about entrepreneurs?
Read all of our cases in our blog. Among the stories, you can read about how Dekoria got their success in Norway, and how MrBeef sells meat online.
If you have any questions about our solutions or you are starting a webshop yourself, you are always welcome to send us an email at support@shipmondo.com. You can also test our platform yourself; all you need to do is to create a free account and you are ready to go.
