In 1971 Héctor Minca founded a candy factory, backed by many years of experience in the industry and an entrepreneurial spirit that led him to seek new challenges. Time passed and the company, which was joined by the new generations of the family, faced a new opportunity: to venture into electronic commerce.
It was then, a few years ago, that Antonella, Héctor’s granddaughter, decided to take charge of a new stage for : the development of the online market. At first, the brand sold its products mainly through Facebook and by email, something that, according to Antonella, was very cumbersome because making a purchase took five or six emails exchanged with customers. The process was simplified when they created their online store almost two years ago.
The challenges of this new stage were many: moving from wholesale to retail sales, understanding which segment they should target and imposing a successful confectionery delivery scheme, among other things. In this interview, Antonella tells us how they made Truppi become a successful online store.
How did the idea for the Truppi business come about?
Truppi, which used to have another name, started with my grandfather as a candy factory, more than 45 years ago. From there my father and uncle followed, and later we began to join other cousins and relatives. More or less five or six years ago, I was working in the factory one summer and I was bored with that routine work, so I started thinking about what we could do to get closer to the final consumer, because until then we sold to wholesale customers, then It occurred to me that it might be fun to bring the treats to people’s houses.. This is how the candy delivery appeared.
At that time we still did not know Tiendanube and we began to sell through social networks, specifically Facebook. That was the initial kick to see if people were interested, to see what the feedback of these new consumers. We were changing the target of sweets up to that moment, which are almost always focused on children, and what we were doing was focusing them on young adults, understanding what made them continue eating sweets.
What was the main challenge you faced in this new stage?
It was a challenge because it was everything completely new, it was throwing ourselves into the pool to see what would happen. The first thing was to recognize the client, understand what he consumed, how he consumed it, what he did, discover a new profile. On the one hand it was incredible, because it was great to start having direct contact with customers, and on the other hand it was the cruel reality of being told to your face what they liked, what they didn’t like; That at first was scary and uncertain.
How is the process of making candy?
In the store we have all the variety of products that the factory produces, we handle a large stock, very rarely we run out of a product. This process involves choosing the moulds, ordering them to be made, then you begin to think about the genesis of the product: what color is it going to have, what flavor is it going to have, what do we want to achieve. We have a technician in the plant, a food engineer, and with her the first thing that is done is to decide these things.
From there, it goes to the factory part, where the dough is prepared. Ours is a semi-industrial factory, there are parts that are still developed by skilled people who know about the preparation and are 100% involved in this process, in the manufacture of the base dough.
Then it goes to a machine, which is the one that dispenses on the boards and where the mold is printed, to give the shape. Each one of those boards is taken to a giant room, an oven room, where the gummies are dried, where they are cooked. The last point is the dosing machine, where they are packaged.
What is the marketing strategy they use based on?
At first, I started looking for references from other brands, both from Argentina and abroad, to see what they showed and I realized that most of them were aimed at children, very childish.
I saw that approaching the audience of children was much more difficult in an online store. And there was a big world, a big niche in the middle, that we were the young adults, those in our twenties or thirties, that we consumed a lot of candy buying it at the kiosk, but the world of candy was not focused on us.
Testing and chatting with the team it occurred to us that it was much more interesting to go on the side of fun, of irony; we manufacture a product that is 100% sweet, if we sweetened it more through communication or if we went to a nostalgic place, it was even sweeter. So it occurred to us that a good way to compensate was to go more on the funny, funny and ironic side, awaken that sweet-acid side of each one and understand that we were offering something that was very good and that the idea was that you eat it without guilt: if I want breakfast Truppis, breakfast; if I want them for lunch, I do; if I want to eat them while watching a movie, I eat them. That each one invented their way of consuming and sharing them and that was what mattered.
What tools do you use for your marketing strategy?
What works best to promote our business is Facebook. We are dabbling with Instagram, we have a product that works very well visually and in that network it allows us to exploit creativity of what happens to us.
Also, we started several months ago with mailingsegmenting our customers and offering them promotions and personalized offers.
How is the Truppi team made up?
Today we are all women. I’ve been through different work teams that helped me grow and get where we are now. For about eight months we have been working with an agency that is in charge of outsourcing the part of the pieces, of design. And then there is Dafne, who takes care of the networks and online marketing strategy, and Mijal, who gives us a big hand in financial strategy and administration. Internally, in the administration part, we work with Ailén, who organizes all the orders. On the other hand, since we are a delivery, we deliver at home and we have a person who makes the deliveries to us, a key part.
How do you handle shipments?
Already from the beginning I realized that it was very complex to find someone to make the deliveries. We went through many couriers, emails and different options and, finally, we found a service that is great, which is a person who works for us. It was what worked the most for us because the purchase in our case ends when the delivery person gives you the bag at home and you open it and see the jars of goodies. Then, it was very important for us that the person who delivered had our same spirit and that he delivered with a smile and that he worried that the package arrived safely, that the bag was not wrinkled, that everything arrived neat.
For the interior we use the mail or some express service, depending on where the client is.
How has the online store grown since it was created?
First, from the business, it’s great because it adds us from the organization: being able to keep clear accounts, which was more cumbersome using only Facebook and emails.
In second place, it is much faster to make a purchase, before it took us five or six emails: a first consultation email, a presentation email, showing the products with a catalog, explaining the catalog, answering a customer’s question. Quite a few steps to finalize a purchase and coordinate delivery. In between, sales were lost because the customer’s enthusiasm dissipated.
With the store it is much easier to make a purchase, people see the product on Facebook, go to the link and buy it, it’s much faster and more effective. That is represented in sales, which are growing.
On the other hand, the store helped a lot to be able to sell inside. It’s good for people inside who never saw the product, it gives them a more serious framework because they can follow the path of the package and that’s good, it’s an extra service that works.
What online tools do you use daily at Truppi?
Tiendanube: to manage all our online sales.
Google Drive and Dropbox: to share all our files.
Spotify: it’s a passion, we spend it there.
: for email marketing.
Skype: to do many of our meetings.
Do you have any advice for other entrepreneurs who want to start their business online?
U.S What worked the most for us was losing our fear, become super friends of trial and error, there is no better way than that to learn. Every time we hesitated to do something, it was losing fear, throwing ourselves into the pool and trying. Also by making mistakes, we learned a lot: from how to advertise on Facebook, in which fairs to participate, what day to ship.
Also it is important to listen a lot to customers. I realized that it is very enriching for me to answer queries on social networks, one thinks that it is an embole but it is great to meet the client and answer questions at the time. It added a lot to me to finish getting to know my client, you get a lot of triggers to do new things, to improve on mistakes or understand why a product is not sold.
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