EBLEX Urges Butchers: Go Online

A third of UK-based butchers have a website, and a quarter of these have online ordering facilities.

Matthew Southam, EBLEX multiple retailer account manager said, “This survey provides revealing insight into the butcher’s shop sector and, in particular, the online marketing opportunity.

“When compared to other food businesses the proportion of turnover accounted for by online sales is quite low for butchers. While that’s to be expected in a sector which prides itself on personal service and where customers want to see and learn about the product they are buying, there is untapped potential for progressive butchers.

“However, the potential is huge: online retailing is an area which continues to grow as consumers change the way they purchase goods and butchers who offer an online shopping facility stand to benefit.

“We expect annual online sales to increase by 175 per cent to more than £11 million in five years as consumer demand increases and greater numbers of butchers embrace the e-commerce space and offer their customers an alternative, more convenient means of buying their meat.”

“There is perhaps a perception that setting up and maintaining a website needs to be a time-consuming and expensive undertaking. That doesn’t always have to be the case. At EBLEX, we are increasingly developing online tools and resources which are designed to help butchers to build their business and make the most of marketing opportunities.

“We recently launched an online image library, providing retailers with access to a wide variety of beef and lamb-related images, which they can use when developing and updating their websites. Given the anticipated increase in online sales over the next few years we are now exploring the possibility of offering website templates to butchers who are members of the EBLEX Quality Standard Mark Scheme.”