A "Gardyn" in Every Home An Online Success Story

Revolutionary indoor garden kit Gardyn makes use of to power their mission to place a Gardyn in every home. It's featured on Forbes, Good Housekeeping, Time, Real Simple, Goop, and more, Gardyn selected it because of its scaleability and customizability. Additionally, they've employed tools such as Trustpilot, Affirm, Klaviyo, and Amazon Pay to improve their eCommerce marketing and conversion rates.

Meet Gardyn

When founder and CEO FX Rouxel began Gardyn in 2019, it was founded with a clear and attainable goal -- to help make a better world for all who could access affordable, convenient, all-natural food, grown sustainably and that had minimal environmental impact.

With this Gardyn indoor gardening system it is possible to grow the fruits, vegetables, herbs, and greens in just two square feet of space. This is similar yields that require more than a thousand square feet for the traditional garden!

The app allows users to have access to the device which allows them to set their water and lighting schedule, put it on vacation mode, or order additional Y cubes. These are seedlings of the plant.

The history of Gardyn

Gardyn was launched in the year the year 2019 and released its first prototype in February in the same month they unveiled their brand new website  .

After moving from France to U.S., Rouxel was frustrated that he could not locate fruits and veggies which tasted as fresh and organic fruits and vegetables from his home of Provence, France. The search for the tastes of his youth that drove him to develop the Gardyn method. Instead of looking for ways to solve the problem at the beginning of the process, and helping farmers in generalFX focused its efforts on the final consumer. Today, nearly anyone is able to cultivate their own food with minimal hassle and space.

The technology was built in partnership in collaboration with McGill University in Canada, it is the only one made specifically for indoor usage to allow up to 30 plants.

It was founded at the time that COVID-19 renewed interest around the world for family-run, sustainable food supplies and home-based projects, the business grew. The company is located at Bethesda, Maryland, Gardyn currently has a remote workforce that includes more than 50 individuals.

Gardyn's engines are the reason for its success.

We sat down with Ava, who's in charge of their marketing as well as their website. Ava first met Gardyn when she was working for an agency that they employed for their marketing. She became absorbed by Gardyn's mission and the enthusiasm of Gardyn's team leadership.

"I just fell in love with this company." She said "They decided to integrate marketing into the company and I couldn't bear to leave. So I asked to stay and they offered me full-time employment."

Her passion is palpable -her personality resembles a founder than a Head of Website.

Making the Right Choice

Ava played a key role in deciding on WordPress as their platform of choice. Ava isn't an expert in development, however she has some experience using WordPress.

"The reasons we went with Shopify was that it works well with WordPress and it gave us the most flexibility. We couldn't afford to create another cookie-cutter Shopify store. Shopify could be an issue to modify. I would definitely need an developer...and there wasn't one.

However, since I do have some experience using WordPress, though not as much with it , I was able to google my way through the process of creating our brand new website."

The initial version of their website was designed entirely by themselves, with Elementor as the platform, with no developers. The website had everything they needed to start their venture including a product details page (PDP), membership functionality and a simple shopping cart and checkout experience to customers.

"There were, of course there were some issues with growth," says Ava. "Just trying to think ahead to increase the possibility of scaling. The code would be written another way, then, after two months it would be necessary to go back since I hadn't thought further ahead."

The good news is that it allowed Gardyn the freedom to grow swiftly as the company rose in its popularity in the span of a month or next.

As the head of website, Ava keeps a close check on the performance of metrics. "I want to see whether, when they arrive on the homepage, do they then go to PDP? From there I'd like to check how much it costs for the PDP in the form of an "add to shopping cart" rate, and then, obviously, add to cart. It is my goal to have everything be smooth and seamless through the funnel. Particularly those important metrics"PDP to conversion, cart to conversion, checkout to conversion." PDP to conversion and cart conversion checkout to conversion."

One of the ways she's discovered to improve those metrics is through customer reviews.

Reviews from Trustpilot

One of the biggest challenges that she faces as a marketing professional is in educating consumers about what Gardyn is, and how it compares to other systems for food production at home.

"It's the idea of telling people we have the Tesla however, If they've never even driven and aren't aware of what a Tesla is? So that's been hard -to explain it in a way so they know how it will fit in their daily lives. This isn't just another job or pastime that's about disappear. It's extremely simple, and it's always there."

One of the best ways to tackle this problem they found, is using user-generated content (UGC) which comes as in customer reviews. The Gardyn team was aware of the potential of reviews but required a platform which could consolidate all reviews into one place. It also needed to be authentic.

The company started out with a different platform and then quickly switched to Trustpilot, which has substantially improved the effectiveness of the reviews.

"It gives a feeling of trust when customers can go to the Trustpilot website and verify that the reviews and reviewers are real. They also write reviews with five stars. We're not giving them any incentives, it's just the desire of our customers to share with us that they are awed by Gardyn."

When it comes to getting reviews, Gardyn communicates via emails to customers that are engagedsuch as loyal customers or members for a long time. The company also has a Facebook group, in which people collaborate and are succeeding to to get maximum benefit from the system.

Trustpilot makes it easy to make more of the feedback they get.

"The Backend experience with Trustpilot is much more easy to handle, and see, and have the ability to download certain reviews, and other such. We're able to connect with the reviewers and try to collect photographs, or even get additional articles for our blog in order for a more human experience and emotional bond.

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

The inclusion of reviews on the site and also in the marketing field has been proven to be vital.

"I recorded user experience feedback, where users went through the site and talked out loud about their experience and opinions. Eight out of ten of them said"Oh reviews! It's great.' We also use testimonials on every email. In every footer, we provide Trustpilot reviews -- every single footer."

In real-life, the outcomes speak for themselves.

If Gardyn incorporates reviews into their Facebook ads the click through rate doubles. Also, when they introduced reviews to their website, engagement went up and bounce rates went down.

Utilizing additional integrations and tools for greater success

Ava already mentioned that the choice to use for their store was in part because of the adjustable nature of the platform. What exactly is that manifested?

Extensions.

"I'm self-taught and have learned to Google. I've learned how to study. It's impossible to determine what extension works until you test it. Therefore, the 30-day refund policy can be extremely helpful.

The best part is that WordPress is an open source software which is the added benefit of being open source you have a myriad of ways you can go. There's so much to choose from, you'll be able to find exactly what you need. There's always an extension for anything I'd like to accomplish.

She states that Trustpilot as well as Affirm certainly have had the biggest impact on the success of their websites.

"It was super simple to use . It's hard to understand why we haven't used the software before. Klaviyo quickly understands exactly what the funnel is. The number of contacts we capture has actually increased by two. of customers we have gathered from abandoned carts because Klaviyo can sync abandoned carts with the help of a pop-up. I believe we've got close to 50,000 subscribers now."

Implementing express pay

The MyGardyn website launched express pay options in November 2021 and immediately saw adoption by customers. A lot of adoption. Now more than 40% of all desktop transactions and 60% of mobile purchases use express payments. As a tally of all transactions 30% of transactions are made using credit cards, while 20% use Affirm.

However, the most significant thing to note is that they witnessed a 50% increase in mobile transactions compared with desktop in the same period, making clear the need for the express payment option including Apple Pay, Google Pay and Amazon Pay.

"It's lovely," says Ava, "The express pay options have really improved our conversion rates as well as mobile sales. It's really very low as well."

"If you think about it, everyone has Amazon. It's like, 'Oh yeah, I have it. I'm already signed in to the app.' It takes 2 minutes. It seems like the rate of abandonment is 17% for that. It's really low."

The future is in sight

Gardyn is a company that aims to provide everyone with access to fresh foods. A Gardyn inside every household, of course, is the ultimate goal.

The firm is developing the G3 Initiative, called Gardyn Grows for Good and is working in partnership together with non-profit organizations and schools for the purpose of bringing food to food shortages and affected communities. This initiative ultimately assists in providing healthful and affordable meals to low income areas.

If asked for advice that she would offer to others, she won't shy away.

"Don't be afraid to take on large changes," says Ava. "A website is never done. It's constantly growing. It's constantly changing. Be aware of your instincts and be sure to follow the facts I would highly recommend and Trustpilot.

If you're selling something or doing marketing that is hardcore make sure you're doing it to do something that helps improve the world, and makes you feel good when people buy it."

Then, Ava also shared her favorite things to grow within the garden of her Gardyn: "My favorite thing is called Red Mustard. It's actually a hot lettuce that taste like horseradish. It's really good in sandwiches! It also grows strawberry and cherry tomatoes which tasted deliciously sweet. I've never experienced anything similar to that."