DigiBoffinsShaping Digital Ideas

Website · App · Brand

A coffee roaster that now sells out every roast

We rebuilt Saltmarsh's online shop, launched a subscription app and refreshed the brand around them, so regulars reorder in two taps and new customers find the beans that suit them.

Start a project like thisSee more of our work
Client
Saltmarsh Roasters Ltd
Sector
Food & drink, D2C
Scope
Website, iOS & Android app, brand
Timeline
5 months

Outcomes

More online orders a month
2.6×
Of orders now on subscription
41%
Of roasts sold out in week one
93%
The brief

What Saltmarsh asked us for

Saltmarsh Roasters is a small-batch roaster on the Norfolk coast, selling at markets and online. It came to us with four goals.

4goals, and how we answered each

  1. Help new customers find their roast

    A three-question roast finder that matches how you brew and what you like to a roast, then adds it to your bag.

    The three questionsHow you brew → How you take it → Flavours you like

  2. Turn one-off buyers into regulars

    Subscriptions in the shop and the app: pick a roast and a schedule, then skip, swap or pause any delivery in two taps.

    Delivery optionsWeekly · Every 2 weeks · Monthly · Skip or pause

  3. Make checkout work on a phone

    A one-page checkout with guest ordering and wallet payments, built for phones first.

    Ways to payApple Pay · Google Pay · Card · PayPal

  4. One brand, from the stall to the screen

    A refreshed logo, colours and photo style, used the same way on the bags, the stall, the website, the app and social.

    Where it shows upCoffee bags · Market stall · Website & app · Instagram

The challenge

Why great coffee wasn't selling online

Saltmarsh's roasts won awards and sold out at the market stall, yet the online shop brought in fewer than 40 orders a month. Customer interviews and the shop's own data pointed to four reasons.

See how we solved it

  1. Twelve roasts were listed with tasting notes only a barista would understand. New visitors didn't know where to start, so most left without choosing.

    • Tasting notes written for experts
    • No guidance by brewing method or taste
    • Every roast looked the same in the grid
    Customers couldn't pick a roast01 / 04

    Key finding

    68%

    of visitors left from the shop page

    Shop page exits, by month
    JanJun

    “I just wanted something nice with milk. I had no idea which one that was.”

    Customer, 32, research interview

  2. There was no subscription and no saved order. Regulars had to find their roast, fill in their address and pay again every two weeks, and many simply stopped.

    • No subscription or saved basket
    • Address and payment entered every time
    • No reminder when a bag would be running low
    Reordering meant starting over02 / 04

    Key finding

    1 in 5

    customers ever placed a second order

    Repeat orders per month
    JanJun

    “I love the coffee, but I always forgot to order until I'd run out.”

    Regular, 41, research interview

  3. Seven in ten visits came from phones, but checkout was built for desktop: five steps, tiny fields and a forced account sign-up.

    • Five-step checkout with a forced sign-up
    • No Apple Pay or Google Pay
    • Fields too small to use on a phone
    Checkout lost people on mobile03 / 04

    Key finding

    74%

    of mobile checkouts abandoned

    Mobile checkout completion %
    JanJun

    “It asked me to make an account halfway through paying. I gave up.”

    Customer, 27, research interview

  4. The stall, the bags, the website and Instagram each used a different logo and colours, so online shoppers didn't recognise the roaster they'd met in person.

    • Three logo versions and no colour system
    • Product photos shot in different styles
    • No link between the stall and the shop
    The brand looked different everywhere04 / 04

    Key finding

    4 logos

    in use across bags, site and social

    “I bought a bag at the market but couldn't find them online. I thought it was a different company.”

    Market customer, 38, research interview
The solution

We made good coffee easy to buy again and again

Each reason customers left got its own fix, across a new online shop, a subscription app for iOS and Android, and a refreshed brand that ties them to the market stall.

  1. A roast finder that asks three questions

  2. Subscriptions you can skip, swap or pause

  3. One-page checkout with Apple Pay and Google Pay

  4. One brand from the bag to the app

Swipe to see each screen

  1. Before: Twelve roasts and no way to choose

    After: A roast finder that asks three questions

    New customers answer how they brew, how they take it and which flavours they like, and get one roast to try, with a small sample bag for first orders so choosing never feels like a gamble.

    How we built it

    • Answers matched to each roast's flavour profile, set by the roasters
    • The finder sits on the home page, every roast page and in the app

    Result+38% conversion

  2. Before: Reordering meant starting over

    After: Subscriptions you can skip, swap or pause

    Pick a roast and how often it arrives, then change anything in two taps. A reminder lands three days before each roast ships, with a one-tap swap if you fancy something new.

    How we built it

    • Recurring payments through Stripe, with no account fees
    • Skip, swap and pause from the app, the website or the reminder email

    Result41% on subscription

  3. Before: Five-step checkout built for desktop

    After: One-page checkout with Apple Pay and Google Pay

    Checkout fits on one phone screen: guest ordering, the address filled in from the postcode and wallet payments, so most orders take under a minute.

    How we built it

    • Address lookup by postcode, with saved addresses for regulars
    • Apple Pay, Google Pay, card and PayPal on one page

    Result−52% abandoned

  4. Before: Four logos and no system

    After: One brand from the bag to the app

    A refreshed wordmark, a colour for every roast and one photo style, used the same way on the bags, the stall, the shop, the app and Instagram. Market customers now recognise Saltmarsh online.

    How we built it

    • A colour per roast, so the bag, the shop and the app match
    • A QR code on every bag that opens that roast's reorder page

    Result3× market-to-online

Also in the app

  • Roast-day alerts

    A note when a limited roast drops, sent only to people who liked similar ones.

  • Brewing guides

    A short guide for each roast and method, in the box and in the app.

  • Loyalty beans

    Points on every order, with a free bag at 500.

  • Roaster dashboard

    Orders, subscriptions and stock in one place, so the team roasts to demand.

  • Secure payments

    Card details never touch the shop's servers, and accounts sign in with a code.

How we worked

One team, five months, a release every two weeks

A small dedicated team worked with Saltmarsh's two founders. They saw the shop and the app working every Friday, and tried each release at the market stall that weekend.

Timeline

21 weeks in all

  1. 1Discover

    3 weeks

    Stall interviews, shop data and checkout drop-off

  2. 2Design

    4 weeks

    Brand refresh, shop and app flows, tested with regulars

  3. 3Build

    11 weeks

    Shop, subscriptions, roast finder and the app

  4. 4Launch

    3 weeks

    Staged rollout, app store release and monitoring

The team · 7 people

  • Project lead1
  • Product designer1
  • Frontend engineers2
  • Mobile engineer1
  • Backend engineer1
  • QA engineer1

Working together

Demo
Every Friday
Releases
Every two weeks
Market-day tests
Every Saturday
Shared tools
Slack, Linear, Figma

The stack

Next.js · React Native · Node.js · PostgreSQL · Stripe · AWS

The results

More orders, and customers who come back

Five months after launch, the shop took 2.6 times as many orders, and two in five of them now arrive on a subscription.

Headline result

Month 5

4.8×

more customers still ordering at month 5

Of every 10 first-time buyers, still ordering
Old shop1/10
Saltmarsh4/10
Share of first-time buyers still ordering
MonthOld shopSaltmarshGap
Month 122%61%+39 pts
Month 215%52%+37 pts
Month 312%48%+36 pts
Month 59%43%+34 pts
online revenue a monthOld shop £3.1k → Saltmarsh £8.2k
2.6×
of orders now on subscriptionOld shop 0% → Saltmarsh 41%
41%
fewer mobile checkouts abandonedOld shop 74% → Saltmarsh 36%
−52%

Measured across every online order, June – October 2026. Compared with the same months in the year before launch, from the shop's own order records.

Built with

The services behind these results. Each one you can start with on its own.

All services
In their words

What the client said

We knew our coffee was good. Digiboffins worked out why people weren't buying it online, and made reordering as easy as our market stall.
HPHannah PriceCo-founder, Saltmarsh Roasters Ltd
S

Saltmarsh Roasters Ltd

Food & drink · Norfolk coast

Worked together
5 months
Releases since launch
9
Still working together
Yes, on wholesale

Selling something people buy again and again?

Tell us what you're building. We'll show you how we'd approach it, and what it would take.

Start a project like thisSee more work
  • Free 30-minute call with the team
  • Reply within one working day
More case studies

Related food & drink case studies

All case studies

Tell us what you’re building.

Share a few details and we will come back to you to plan the next step.

What happens next

  1. 1

    You share your idea

    A few lines on your goals, users and timeline are enough to start.

  2. 2

    We talk it through

    We discuss your goals on a call and suggest an approach.

  3. 3

    You get a proposal

    We follow up with a proposal and clear next steps.

Project details

Fields marked * are required. We never share your details.

Chat with DigiBoffins

Hi! Click on the WhatsApp icon below to reach our team instantly.

Our team typically replies within a few minutes.

DigiBoffins

Support Team