Israel Romero / Wednesday, February 9, 2022 / Categories: Blog Made in Spain Gourmet: a gourmet online store that's not actually online. Made in Spain Gourmet The world is becoming more technological and impersonal every day, and therefore there are more possibilities of not forming long-term human relationships. We resist that tide — here’s how we do it. Digitization and the loss of human touch The Spanish gourmet product: largely unknown As I always try to do in these articles, I don't intend to bore you with data, the trends from some report, or the opinion of a guru about a specific topic. I usually base myself on realities that happen around us, which turn out to be examples of life itself and with which many people can therefore identify. Technology is a tool (I can't give it any other value than that), which has allowed me to obtain many positive things in my life, and above all, if we focus on professional life, the world has become very small thanks to the Internet and communications like WhatsApp, Zoom, Meet, etc. Being able to reach many people who are not physically close to you and yet still contact and interact with them without leaving your place of residence is simply wonderful. I have always been a person who prefers personal contact, face to face, where I thrived; I may sound immodest, but I was very good at it. There is no course today that will teach you what is fundamental to be valued positively from a first meeting or encounter. For a simple reason: if you have the will to gain someone's trust, you will only achieve it if you are genuinely interested in their needs and you do not try to put your services/products first. Digitization and the loss of human touch But in the digital world, commercial relationships, with all sincerity, are the opposite of direct, personal relationships. That was the biggest concern we had when we created Made in Spain Gourmet,—the lack of personality, coldness of treatment, and not being able to have real access to customers interested in our online gourmet store. We didn't want to lose the identity we had built over the past 15 years through countless events and actions based on relationship marketing, human treatment, empathy… human energy was our fuel. And therefore, we created an online store that would be as interactive with us as possible. The Spanish gourmet product: largely unknown If we Spaniards are surprised by the enormous number of products we discover that are produced in our country (many of which we hadn't even tried), you can imagine how people who do not live here but are interested in our cuisine feel… their doubts increase. In addition, the unfamiliarity with the brands means that if they want to learn about them, they have to interact with the people who market them. That is our differentiating point. First, we created a lot of content around each category, each product, and each producer to make the buying environment much more pleasant. We often found this lacking when we wanted to discover new producers; their information was generally scarce or unattractive. Made in Spain Gourmet aims to convey that there are people behind the store who want to help others discover the gastronomic treasures Spain can offer. Then we added a category that absolutely sets us apart from other gourmet stores: our News, which is divided into no fewer than six categories: Blog, Spanish Brands, Internationalization, Recipes, Gastronomic Experiences and Enoteca. We want to gather information from our gourmet environment here so that the consumer can be confident they are buying products of the highest quality and that someone is responsible for that — and that is what we have done. Smart and transparent communication significantly improves the perception of brands and their products, and if that content is personalized — that is, people know who writes it — credibility increases. [caption id="attachment_19214" align="aligncenter" width="800"] Made in Spain Gourmet: a gourmet online store that isn't online[/caption] Finally, we invite our customers to ask us if they have questions through the channels we make available — email and our WhatsApp. The latter is very effective because we immediately see the most common doubts, and surprisingly, people want to make sure our products can be shipped to their country (throughout Europe except the United Kingdom for now). It is very exciting to see so many messages in so many different languages, with so much interest in our Spanish gourmet products. The European B2B (Business To Business) sector has taken an interest in our business model and the way we select producers, adding to the requirements of an excellent product also its packaging, its storytelling, and knowing which people are behind the brand and what values govern their companies. Made in Spain Gourmet saves them the time of managing each producer, and our requirements seem very good to obtain the most representative products of our gourmet gastronomy. Thus, we are already developing business in Portugal and soon in Andorra, Italy and Germany, directly with restaurants and gourmet (brick-and-mortar) stores. In short, we reiterate the great potential that the European and global gourmet market holds for our Spanish products in that category. But to gain market share we must continue investing in our brands and in communicating what we do internationally. Legumes: time-honored ingredients that are back in style When Recommendations Are Everything Print 5 Rate this article: No rating Tags: gourmetMade in SpainSpainSpaininternationalization Please login or register to post comments.