Engaging shopping experience for food lovers

Endorsed by Coeliac Australia, Gluten Free Meal Co. offers home-delivery for gluten-free meals. Gluten Free Meal Co. prides themselves in providing family-oriented foods without compromising on taste or enjoyment.

EB Pearls was engaged by Gluten Free Meal Co. when they were in the middle of a rebrand for their company. Moving with the waves of the future, Gluten Free Meal Co. wanted to launch with an eCommerce store. Of the utmost importance for Gluten Free Meal Co. was to create an engaging experience throughout the site which would provide a welcoming atmosphere. EB Pearls was tasked with the job of crafting the user experience, design and building the site on the world’s best eCommerce platform – Shopify.

Establishing a relationship with the team at Gluten Free Meal Co. came quite naturally. As a family business, the team we worked with included the CEO, general manager, marketing director – who were the 3 generations of the founding family working together to launch the new and improved Gluten Free Meal Co. EB Pearls was welcomed and were clear about the expectations and requirements of Gluten Free Meal Co. from the get-go.

During our first initiation meeting, we discussed their business, target audience, functionality, design inspiration and competitors. Setting this foundation with Gluten Free Meal Co. was important for us to set the correct direction for the project. We were able to drill down on the business goals the website should meet and what unique user goals we should focus on. At the conclusion of this first meeting, we determined that we wanted to create a website which highlights the delicious food and allows health-conscious consumers to find out the necessary information about the products, with the ultimate goal of facilitating a seamless purchasing and order process.

With this information, we iterated through a few iterations of the website wireframe, in which we defined the layout of the website elements. We collaborated closely with Gluten Free Meal Co. to take into account their comments to ensure that we have created a user experience that is fitting for their audience. We crafted an intuitive journey for user, that would accessible for the diverse base of customers that Gluten Free Meal Co. serves.

After finalising the wireframe, we move onto design. We spent a bit more time here since we wanted to make sure that we nailed the look and feel of the site. With the end goal of encouraging users to purchase their products, the website’s look and feel needed to capture the wholesome image of Gluten Free Meal Co. The hero of this company is the product – the mouth-watering food, perfect for any occasion. As a result, the design of the website needed to complement the photography showcasing the food. Especially since this website would be the first impression the user would have of the company, we focused in providing an aesthetic that captured freshness, homemade and satisfaction.

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From a technical point of view, especially for eCommerce projects, operational considerations need to be kept at the forefront. Luckily, Shopify’s out-of-the-box backend architecture is intuitive to use and administer. However, Gluten Free Meal Co. required a bit more than what was provided by the default Shopify system. Namely, from a customer perspective, postcode delivery check was a required feature to avoid headache for their customers and fulfilment employees. Luckily, EB Pearls was able to use its technical chops to develop a custom module for checking for valid delivery to Australian postcodes within the checkout process.

Gluten Free Meal Co. also uses Microsoft’s Dynamics AX technology to manage its operations. Seeing that this website would be a significant part of its business, it was imperative that the transactions would integrate easily with Dynamics AX to keep the business running smoothly. EB Pearls conducted extensive research to reach a solution which allowed us to develop a system to facilitate this integration.

Of course, Gluten Free Meal Co. was always kept on the pulse of the development of the website, with ample opportunities to provide feedback and add some additional features that were not originally considered. By opening these channels of communication, EB Pearls and Gluten Free Meal Co. were able to work out solutions to issues that arose and work concurrently to efficiently provide updates and work between each other.

We continue to work with Gluten Free Meal Co. and its constituent brands to develop features and websites to allow them to continue providing home-like meals to their customer base. It is always a pleasure to work with the team at Gluten Free Meal Co. and we believe the final product we produced has successfully met their goals. We look forward to seeing where Gluten Free Meal Co. goes in the future, and hope we can continue to help them reach greater heights.