Photo: Boxed
Has Boxed.com solved the melting chocolate challenge?
There’s a good reason that chocolate sales have traditionally fallen off during the summer months. Chocolate melts. That’s true of the trip home from the store by car and even more so for chocolate being shipped for home delivery from some online distribution center.
Boxed, the online seller of groceries in bulk, says consumers can now eat as much chocolate as they wish regardless of how high the temperature climbs as it has come up with a solution that not only keeps product intact, but does so in an environmentally friendly way.
Boxed’s answer is using thermal packaging that enables them to deliver chocolates and other desserts within two days without the risk of a gooey mess.
“Many of our competitors have to hold orders for chocolates and other desserts during the hottest months of the year due to melting.” said Ludivine Ni, senior operations manager at Boxed, in a statement. “We know our customers really love these products, so we wanted to develop a method to ship them all year round without risking melting. We see this as another way to delight our customers, as well as a competitive advantage.”
The other advantage to the packaging used by Boxed is it doesn’t require excess materials that have been traditionally used to try and keep products cold through the shipping cycle.
Discussion Questions
DISCUSSION QUESTIONS: What grade would you give Boxed for its use of a packaging improvement to delight its customers? In what ways have you seen other retailers pay attention to smaller details to please customers and develop a point of difference with rivals?
Poll
BrainTrust
David Naumann
Marketing Strategy Lead - Retail, Travel & Distribution, Verizon
Jennifer McDermott
Consumer Advocate, finder.com
I like the concept that Boxed has created. Anything that maintains the quality of the product is good for the customer (and for Boxed). The key is to promote it properly to their customers to prove that it works. Testimonials and guarantees are a start. What Boxed has done is found a friction point and smoothed it out. Their customer should no longer fear that “gooey mess” that they have experienced in the past when they bought chocolate (or any other similar item) during the middle of the hot summer.
This looks interesting. However, the release does not state the temperature tolerance. Last week it got up to 112° where I live in Scottsdale, so I’m wondering whether the new packaging can cope with that.
If the temperature-proof packages work as promised, they deserve an “A.” Customers may still be reluctant to order chocolates in the summer, as they my not trust that it will work. I am also curious about how much the boxes add to Boxed’s costs.
Another industry that could take advantage of the temperature controlled box technology is the wine and other beverage industry, as they sometimes won’t ship during very warm or cold months.
There is a reason that Mallomars are not available in the summer months. They just came out in late August. From Google: “It’s Mallomar season right now, which may seem strange since Mallomars are commercially packaged cookies, not apples. But the round graham crackers topped with marshmallow and covered in dark chocolate are actually packaged seasonally. Mallomars are only shipped during cool months, so the chocolate won’t melt. Nov 10, 2013”
What a time to be alive! I love how Boxed identified a problem — chocolate sales dropping off in summer months — and created a solution. And an environmentally sound one at that. However, was this launched a little late in the season? Melting chocolate will become less of an issue in the coming weeks, depending on where you live, and it seems this would have made a bigger impact at the beginning of summer.
I agree with David. If it works as advertised they deserve an “A.” The press release discussed the concept but not what has happened in the real world. I expected that there would be some proof of concept either via testimonials and/or internal testing. There wasn’t. It will be interesting to hear customer comments.
The concept here is good, but the costs are still not compared, and this is an essential part of the equation. The other part is what temperature must the chocolate start at, and what temperature will the boxed.com solution keep the chocolate cool to? Here in the south, temperatures frequently hover in the upper ’90s during the summer, and 2 days of this might be more than this solution allows. Throw in the 100+ degrees which south Texas, New Mexico, Arizona and Southern California face during parts of the summer and there are many questions which are still unanswered for boxed.com’s solution.
I think this is a great attempt to solve a problem but I am very curious about the added weight of this kind of packaging. We tested a great food delivery service that did the same thing for its delivers every Monday and the weight of the box with a similar, I assume, packing method was very heavy. Not sure how much chocolate they expect people to order in bulk and what Boxed margins are in that category to show profit margins for increased weight.
But does it really work? That would seem to be the obvious question to answer — preferably by a neutral/third party — before offering any kind of grade.
If so, then certainly they deserve commendation (and presumably sales). If not, then the quest for a solution to this pressing issue must go on!
My dad was a life long candy man with the James O. Welch Candy Company. He always talked about a day when chocolates could be shipped year round. I wish he could be here to see this!
Great job, Boxed! They’ve found a pain point for customers and created a solution. Well done! If this new packaging works as well as they say, I’m sure they will have no problem finding customer testimonials and demonstrating increased customer satisfaction scores. The lesson here is that great satisfaction can be derived from relatively minor pain points that otherwise would be called “inconveniences” rather than treated as real problems worth solving. Boxed has shown what’s possible for brands that listen to their customers.