One of the best ways to manage the growth of your Shopify business is to hire the right people as quickly as possible.
That’s according to Chris Traverse, Head of Engineering at Huel, who gave a talk at the Shopify Midlands Meetup in February.
Chris told the audience that Huel, which started in a garage in 2015, has since seen an incredible 185% growth year on year, raking in £5.3million in January 2019 alone.
Today, through their eight (soon to be ten) Shopify Plus stores across the globe, they’ve sold 35 million meals to 80 different countries.
So what’s made Huel so successful, and how have they coped with such success? Here’s some insight from Chris:
Hire experts to do things you can’t do
The most significant part of Huel’s success so far, according to Chris, has been hiring the right people.
After starting out as the only developer in the company, Chris now heads up a team of eight including two front-end developers, an in-house UI UX and a translations manager. And for things they don’t have time to do themselves, Huel have set up relationships with external companies that specialise in those particular areas.
Ometria, Recharge, and Snowflake are just some of the tools Huel use to take care of certain aspects of business so that they can focus on other, more creative endeavours.
One developer, for example, came up with a new way to do the account system, which has led to an 11% increase in subscription rates over a period of just three and a half weeks.
In this way, Huel are able to build solid relationships with their customers and give them a reason to keep coming back.
Pay attention to consumer behaviour
According to Chris, you can’t possibly grow your business if you don’t listen to what your buyers want. That’s why when the Huel team saw a lot of customers ordering from Germany and the U.S., they opened up stores in those countries. It’s also why they offer separate currencies at checkout, depending on where in the world the consumer is located.
Looking at their analytics, Huel noticed that people were dropping off at checkout when they saw a change in currency. By automatically customising currencies using geolocation, they were able to retain more consumers. There may not be a one-size-fits-all way to manage the growth of your Shopify brand, but it’s clear that Huel’s tactics have paid off. They’re now available in 195 countries across six territories in the world, and they’re opening a new shop in Japan later this year.
“Much like a game of Outbreak, we’ve yet to crack Antarctica or Madagascar,” Chris joked at the event. “Hopefully 2020 will be that year.”
This blog was created by Blend Commerce and based on a presentation given by Chris Traverse at the Shopify Midlands Meetup in February 2019.