A "Gardyn" within Every Home -- an eCommerce Success Story

Revolutionary indoor garden kit Gardyn makes use of for their goal to put a Gardyn in every home. It's featured in Forbes, Good Housekeeping, Time, Real Simple, Goop as well as other publications, Gardyn picked it for its capacity as well as its customizability. Additionally, they've employed tools such as Trustpilot, Affirm, Klaviyo and Amazon Pay to improve their eCommerce marketing and conversion rates.

Meet Gardyn

The Gardyn's founder and chief executive FX Rouxel began Gardyn in 2019, it was with a simple yet visionary objective: to create a world where everyone had access to affordable and convenient food that was all natural which was produced sustainably and that had minimal impact on the environment.

With Gardyn's Gardyn indoor gardening system allows you to plant the fruits, vegetables, herbs, and greens in just two square feet of area, and the same amount of produce that would require more than a thousand square feet of space in an outdoor space!

A mobile app lets users have complete control over the device, so they can set the time for water and light or put it into vacation mode, or even order more cubes of Y, which are seedlings of the plant.

The story of Gardyn

Gardyn began in the year of 2019 and shipped its initial prototype in February of 2020 in the same month the company launched its new website with .

When he moved from France to U.S., Rouxel was frustrated that he could not discover fruits or vegetables that were as delicious as the fresh, organic produce from his home of Provence, France. It was this desire to recreate the flavors of his childhood that inspired Rouxel to create the Gardyn process. Instead of looking for ways to solve the problem at the beginning of the process -- assisting the wider agricultural industry -FX was focused on the consumer at the end. Today, nearly anyone is able to cultivate their own food in a small space and with little effort.

This technology was developed in partnership in collaboration with McGill University in Canada, it is the only one that is specifically developed for indoor usage to allow more than 30 plants.

It was founded at the time that COVID-19 increased interest across the globe in family-run sustainable food supplies and home-based initiatives, Gardyn grew rapidly. It is headquartered at Bethesda, Maryland, Gardyn currently has a remote workforce that includes more than 50 individuals.

The engine that has led Gardyn to success

We sat down with Ava who is the person in charge of marketing and website. Ava first met Gardyn as a part of an agency that they employed for their marketing. She was captivated by Gardyn's mission and the enthusiasm of Gardyn's leadership team.

"I am in love with the company." She said "They were looking to integrate marketing into the company and I couldn't bear to leave. That's why I requested to stay , and I was hired full-time."

Her passion is palpable -- coming across more like an entrepreneur than a head of website.

Choosing

Ava played a key role in deciding on WordPress as their platform of choice. She doesn't call herself an expert in development, however she has some knowledge of WordPress.

"The reason we chose is that it worked nicely with WordPress and it provided us with the maximum flexibility. We didn't want to have another cookie-cutter Shopify store. Shopify could be an issue to modify. You'd definitely require a developer...and there wasn't one.

However, since I do have experience with WordPress, though not very much  my experience, I was able search for the best way to create our brand new website."

The initial version of their site was built completely on their own, using Elementor, and with no developers. It had everything they needed for the launch: a product detail page (PDP), membership functionality as well as a user-friendly shopping cart as well as a checkout process to customers.

"There was, naturally certain growing pains" Ava says. Ava. "Just trying to plan for scaleability. It was a matter of coding something in one way and two months later it would be necessary to change the code because I didn't think further in the future."

Luckily, gave Gardyn the ability to change quickly as the company soared in popularity -- even in the span of a month or next.

As the head of website, Ava keeps a close check on the performance of metrics. "I am interested in seeing, if they land on the home page, do they then go to PDP? Then from there I would like to know what is the PDP to "add to basket" rate, and then, obviously, add to cart. It is my goal to have everything go smoothly through the funnel. In particular, those metrics that are crucial to me -- PDP to conversion from cart to conversion check out to conversion."

A major way she's found ways to increase those numbers is through customer reviews.

Reviews from Trustpilot

One of the greatest challenges she has as a marketer is educating customers about exactly what Gardyn is, and how it compares to other in-home food growing systems.

"It's the idea of telling people we've got the Tesla and even if they've never been on a motorbike, do they know what it is that a Tesla is? It's been a challengeto explain how to explain it so they understand how it fits in their daily lives. This isn't just another job or an activity that's likely be gone. It's extremely simple, and is always around."

One way to tackle this problem they discovered, is by using user-generated content (UGC) which comes which is in the form of reviews. The Gardyn team saw the value in reviews but needed a platform that can consolidate reviews into one location. The platform had to be authentic.

They started with another platform and then quickly switched to Trustpilot, which has substantially increased the impact of reviews.

"It gives a feeling of trust when customers can access the Trustpilot site and see reviews and reviews are authentic. They also write reviews with five stars. They don't receive any incentives, it's just the desire of our customers to share with us what they think of Gardyn."

When it comes to getting review feedback Gardyn sends out an an email to each customer who are active -as long-time customers or members for a long time. They also reach out in a Facebook group, where members are working together and getting the most use out of the platform.

Trustpilot makes it easy to do more with the reviews they receive.

"The backend experience of Trustpilot is so much easier for us to control as well as view, and be able to download specific reviews as well as other similar. It allows us to reach out to reviewers, request photos, or get more articles for our blog in order for a more human experience and connection.

We especially found it useful to create ads or review cards within Trustpilot. I'm able to download all the SVG documents very easily. It's all set up to work with best practices in mind, so that's really helpful."

Reviewing the website and in marketing has proven to be important.

"I created a video of user feedback, where users went through the website and spoke openly about their experiences as well as their thoughts. Eight out of ten of them said something like, 'Oh reviews! This is good. Additionally, we use testimonials on every email. Every footer we also include Trustpilot reviews in every footer."

The outcomes speak for themselves.

When Gardyn includes reviews in their Facebook ads, their click-through rates double. And when they introduced reviews to their website, engagement went up and bounce rates went down.

Using additional tools and integrations for greater success

Ava has already stated that the choice to use for their store was partly because of the adjustable design of the store. But how, specifically, do you manifest that?

Extensions.

"I'm self-taught, so I've learned to Google. I've learned how to study. There's no way to tell the extension's effectiveness until you've tried it. This is why the 30-day policy for return is extremely beneficial.

The best part is that WordPress is open-source which is it being open source, there are so many ways you can go. There are so many things available, and you'll be able to find exactly what you need. You can always find an extension of whatever I want to do.

She states that Trustpilot as well as Affirm are certain to have made the biggest impact on their site's success.

"It was super easy to integrate with . I don't know why we didn't use it earlier. Klaviyo quickly understands exactly how to use the funnel. The number of contacts we capture has actually increased by two. of people we can capture from abandoned carts due to the fact that Klaviyo can sync abandoned carts with a pop up. I think we have close to 50,000 subscribers now."

Implementing express pay

The MyGardyn website launched express-pay options in the month of November, 2021. It immediately saw adoption by customers. A lot of adoption. Today the majority of transactions on desktops and 60% of mobile transactions use express payments. As a tally of all transactions 30% of transactions are made using the credit card and 20% use Affirm.

But the big news is the fact that they observed a 50% increase in mobile transactions compared with desktop over the same period. This highlights the importance of payments that are express such as Apple Pay, Google Pay and Amazon Pay.

"It's nice," Ava says. Ava, "The express pay options have greatly improved our conversion rates as well as mobile sales. Our abandonment rate is actually low, as well."

"If you look at the fact that everyone uses Amazon. That's why I feel like everyone's like, 'Oh yeah I've got it. I'm already signed into the application.' It takes just two minutes. It seems like the rate of abandonment is about 17. That's really low."

In the direction of the future

Gardyn strives to give everyone access to fresh foods. A Gardyn inside every household, of course, is the ultimate goal.

The company is currently developing a G3 Initiative, called Gardyn Grows for Good, working in partnership with nonprofits and schools in order to provide food to areas that are in need and communities affected by. The goal of this project is to provide healthful and affordable meals to those living in poverty.

If asked for advice that she would provide to other people, she does not shy away.

"Don't be afraid to take on big modifications," says Ava. "A website can never be finished. It's never ending. The landscape is always evolving. Take your time, and follow the data I would highly recommend Trustpilot and I highly.

When you're selling something or engaging in hardcore marketing, do it for something that improves the quality of life and feels at ease when someone buys the product."

In the end, Ava also shared her favorite things to grow in the garden of her Gardyn: "My favorite thing is known as Red Mustard. It's really a spicy lettuce that taste similar to horseradish. It's delicious on sandwiches! It also grows strawberry and cherry tomatoes that were so delicious. I've never experienced anything as delicious."