Crumbs! Here's How Biscuiteer Baking Company Achieved an Astonishing 197% Spike in YOY Sales

Lauren Juster, Sales and Marketing Director at Biscuiteer Baking Company, joins Caroline to share some of the secrets behind the brand’s astonishing 197% year-on-year growth.

A proud Brightpearl customer, the online handmade biscuit company has seen fantastic growth over the past few years. Founded in 2007, Biscuiteers’ handmade products are currently stocked in John Lewis, Selfridges, Harrods, Fortnum & Mason and The Conran Shop. 

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Show Notes | Series 1, Episode 3 | Biscuiteers Baking Company

About our podcast

Brightpearl’s Lightning 50 E-Commerce Growth Hacking podcast, hosted by Caroline Baldwin, is a bitesize 15-minute podcast that gets under the hood of highly successful e-commerce brands to discover the key technologies they are using to power growth. 

About our guest

Biscuiteers Baking Company is an online handmade biscuit company in the toys and gifts sector. Founded in 2007, Biscuiteers’ luxury products are currently stocked in John Lewis, Selfridges, Harrods and Fortnum & Mason. The company has also collaborated on bespoke biscuits for the likes of Mulberry, Boden and Burberry. IT recently saw a £1.25m raise on Crowdcube. For this podcast, we spoke to Lauren Juster, the brand’s Sales and Marketing Director.

Transcript highlights:

• “We’ve always thought of ourselves as an ‘online first business’, that’s how we started. Although our bricks-and-mortar stores have helped us expand the brand, Google is the high street of the world, and it gives you the ability to scale. E-commerce is at the heart of our business and it’s where we see our future growth.”
  
  
• “Our USP is that we do iced biscuits - they have to be done by hand. That was challenging operationally when things exploded during the pandemic but, once we got our heads around it, it was a blessing... We were able to be totally agile, able to respond to the trends and demands of the pandemic. We watched the trends and responded to them. We launched a gym bunny collection, ‘date night in’ and DIY kits at various points through the pandemic.”
  
  
• “One of the challenges for us has been getting all our data in one place. Having various spreadsheets along with multiple apps and tools wasn’t working for us. It was creating lots of inefficiencies - we were spending time looking for stats to inform decisions we wanted to make quickly. Linking up systems [via Brightpearl] has been fantastic - it’s so important for scaling.”
  
  
• “We knew we couldn’t handle another Christmas like the crazy one we had in 2020 without a centralized system in place. We made a conscious decision to find a partner to work with to centralize all our operations. We implemented Brightpearl in just three months. The key was doing it during our down period in the summer months.
  
  
• “We’re toying with the idea of developing an app - so many of our competitors have an app and see success with it. However, apps can be expensive and high risk - we’re exploring of a PWA (Progressive Web App), so we can dip our toe into the app world. We already have loyal customers – the app will help us push that forward.”
  
  
• “My tips would be to stay true to your business mission and values - going off piste to chase growth won’t give longevity or a brand that customers can connect to. Also, watch the trends in what people are buying. Social media has been a key listening tool for us - you don’t have to go far for customers to give their input. Talking to your customers is a great way to be sure you are creating something people actually want to buy. 
  
  
• “It’s super exciting to rank on the Brightpearl Lightning 50 - having the recognition off the back of such a challenging year feels extra special. The Lightning 50 is chock full of exciting brands so to be in their company is the cherry on top - we’re really chuffed.”

Top takeaways

• Biscuiteers ranked in 32nd place on the Brightpearl Lightning 50 
• That followed a 197% YOY revenue increase in 2019/20
• The tech that’s driven their growth includes: social media, Facebook Workplace, Ometria (a data analytics platform), Brightpearl
• The pandemic turbocharged growth (previously steady at 30%) but the business has managed to maintain similar growth in months since.  
• Implementing Brightpearl has been a key factor in the brand’s success, bringing together every part of the business into one centralized Retail Operating System (ROS)