L' Atelier du Champagne

What he found was passion for a product and a good idea. But, no potential buyer who knew or saw that. The dream stood still. Task for him, in consultation with the original investor, was to create a sparkling future for Champagne in the Netherlands. And that is succeeding quite nicely.

‍
Champagne in the Netherlands?

Champagne in the Netherlands, how does that work? Was my first question. We Dutch are not such luxury animals are we? Martijn indicates that indeed there is a lot to be gained in the Netherlands. The general image of Champagne is still the image of New Year's Eve with a bottle from the Gall and Gall and an oliebol to go with it. "But, it is such a beautiful product," Martijn points out, "The Netherlands deserves to be introduced to Champagne in a different way."

‍

And that is precisely what he has been working hard on in recent years. Among other things, by visiting many vignerons, which is how the farmers of the Champagne region are called. Besides tasting their champagnes, their stories are equally interesting. The farmers are the smaller producers of the region and have started making their own brands much more instead of selling their grapes to the larger "houses. In this way, they added 34 new vignerons to their import catalog, providing more than 600 varieties of champagne. Champagnes they can therefore also tell a lot about. Another important part for more awareness around champagne are restaurants and chefs. Champagne can go with food in many ways. It is 'just' wine and there are many different kinds. By now they serve a lot of restaurants with their gems.

‍

With commitment came growth

All the energy that Martijn and his team had put into L'atelier du Champagne was really beginning to pay off. Their sales and turnover were growing. And just then you find out that your business is no longer equipped for what you want to do and still want to achieve. Their strategy had been twofold: targeting consumers (B2C) and targeting restaurants (B2B), but now that that was starting to happen, the website was no longer adequate. A good example is product pricing. Product prices are different for consumers than for businesses. For consumers, you are required to show prices including VAT, but businesses want the price excluding VAT. But also, you want to be able to place orders, view invoices, etc. in a login environment. It was no longer professional to have 1 website. Actually, a website had to be added, a B2B website. Lightspeed referred Martijn to Duxly for Multishop and the ProductSync. Applications that would help him with the professionalization. 

‍

Entrepreneurship on growth; looking forward
And then entrepreneurship comes around the corner. You have to make investments that are not directly related to your product. Especially with an outside investor, you will need to have a good plan. Can you achieve the growth and revenues that justify the investments? All signs pointed to the fact that they had gold in their hands, but you still have to live up to that. Martijn indicates: "An investment is always exciting, but I really learned that entrepreneurship is looking ahead and doing things on growth."

‍

Martijn tells me about a label printer he bought to label the many boxes they sent to customers. Then they no longer had to do it by hand. He bought a printer for that moment. A small one. Six months later it was already too small and he had to buy a second one, or a larger one. Too bad. He points out: "Being too careful can cost you money and customers." L'atelier got the budget for professionalization and so we could get to work.

‍

Multishop
Multishop was able to ensure that L'atelier du Champagne started working within the Lightspeed system with two different websites, linked to 1 retail point with the common stock. With the multishop, the problem of the different needs and wishes between their consumers and business clients disappeared like snow in the sun, as explained above. Business customers got a site with login, own prices and possible catering offers. Consumers got their own site focused on their needs. And with each order, from whatever site, it was automatically synchronized with inventory in real time. A customization like this pays huge dividends. For customer satisfaction, but also for your own time and peace of mind. Automation saves time, but also peace of mind, because everything is running nicely in the background.

There was one more thing to automate. And important for running multiple websites. Namely that you only have to create your corresponding content for the websites once. Martijn also thought this was handy and so we also installed Productsync for L'atelier du Champagne.

‍

Productsync
Productsync allows you to create or upload content only once. By content we mean for example images, product descriptions, prices, blogs, product details, etc. Now when Martijn adds champagnes to his inventory, he only needs to create them once. He creates them on his source site and product sync makes sure everything he wants synced. Pretty nice, too. 

‍

Cooperation with Duxly
We still ask Martijn how he experienced the whole process with us. He indicates: 

"The cooperation was pleasant and professional. They first took a good look at our challenges, and then came up with a solution. The synchronization of the 2 websites was not an easy job, with lots of variants of data that needed to be synchronized or not. That went very well. They take initiative and look ahead, exactly what we needed. The communication is good, we were kept informed of all progress."

The intercom (communication tool/chat) on the website is also a great success. "It has brought us a lot of customers. Many people have a short little question, if you can solve it right away, then they are still in the action and you sell more."

As for your e-commerce, you're at the forefront with Duxly. Innovation and looking ahead is what we do. We dare say that we are one of Lightspeed's most progressive partners. Entrepreneurship is looking ahead.

‍

L' Atelier du Champagne nowadays has boutique in the center of A'dam. In the basement below the boutique on the Rokin is the cozy bar, where we serve champagne by the glass or bottle.

‍