Dippin’ Dots ensures frozen delivery for online orders
A specialty ice cream retailer is delivering temperature-sensitive products when the buyer wants them to be.
Dippin’ Dots is launching a new e-commerce site designed and built by Groove Commerce, a partner of e-commerce platform BigCommerce. The company’s products must be stored at extremely cold temperatures which are lower than a standard freezer can provide.
For e-commerce orders, this means Dippin’ Dots products must be shipped and packed with dry ice to keep them from melting during transport. Once the package has been delivered, it must be consumed within 24 hours, making the delivery date essential to a successful customer experience.
To address these online delivery challenges, Groove Commerce built a customized shipping calendar and date picker integrated into the BigCommerce optimized one-page checkout offering. As a result, customers can choose specific delivery dates, view blackout dates, and see corresponding shipping options and costs prior to ordering.
“These enhancements to our website will allow customers to create new memories by bringing the Dippin’ Dots experience home for parties, gifts and more,” said Dana Knudsen, senior director of marketing at Dippin’ Dots. “With the addition of the new delivery date picker, customers plan ahead, selecting the perfect day for their Dippin’ Dots-inspired event.”
“We really wanted to create a magical experience for customers that reflects the Dippin’ Dots brand,” said Ethan Griffin, CEO at Groove Commerce. “With a customized shipping calendar, bespoke CSS animation and in-depth product information, the new site is both fun to explore and highly user-friendly, whether the visitor is new to Dippin’ Dots or grew up with it.”
“We love to see our partners and merchants teaming up to leverage our open SaaS platform to build e-commerce sites that are not only beautiful to the eye, but feature robust functionality to make them easy for customers to use,” said Marc Ostryniec, chief sales officer at BigCommerce.
Unilever employs robots, drones to deliver ice cream
CPG company Unilever is also leveraging innovative technology to ensure efficient and effective fulfillment of online, direct-to-consumer orders of its ice cream products. Unilever began deploying a fleet of Robomart on-demand mobile mini-marts to take its virtual direct-to-consumer (DTC) ice cream storefront, The Ice Cream Shop, on the road in summer 2022.
Leveraging Robomart’s one-tap grocery ordering technology, consumers will be able to hail The Ice Cream Shop Robomarts to their location using Robomart’s proprietary mobile app. When it arrives, the user will swipe across the app to open the vehicle’s door.
Robomart’s proprietary, RFID-based checkout-free system allows consumers to retrieve their selected products and walk away, without having to physically check out or swipe their credit card.
Unilever is also now offering ice cream delivery via drone. The company is partnering with end-to-end drone delivery company Flytrex to make Ice Cream Shop drone deliveries across all of Flytrex’s U.S. locations.
Drone orders from The Ice Cream Shop are delivered to front and back yards of local residents with a promised flight time of less than three minutes. Customers can place orders for drone deliveries of ice cream using the Flytrex app, which provides customers with real-time updates along the delivery route until the package is lowered by wire into their yard.