Streamlining Sweetness with Unified Digital Commerce
Great American Cookies’ Cobranded Experience
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Overview
In 2019, Great American Cookies and Marble Slab Creamery revolutionized their brands by bringing cookies and ice cream together in one irresistible co-branded experience. The concept took off in-store, but their online platforms told a different story, separate ordering systems left customers confused and franchisees struggling to manage operations. That’s where we came in. Through a bold digital transformation, we reimagined their online experience to match the seamless delight of their physical stores. Here’s how we did it, and why it worked.
- Defining a vision for Product and Partnership
- Overhauling web and mobile commerce
- A unifying design system
- Redefining in-store touch points
- Checkout Optimization
Results
The launch of the new site drove a 22% increase in sales and an 8% boost in average order value, with cookie cake sales and customizations leading the way. Conversion rates soared by 14%, with results visible from day one. These impressive outcomes are just the beginning, with more innovations to come in the next phase.
Tech Integrations
Defining the vision for the product
Our first step was to help Great American Cookies and Marble Slab Creamery define a co-branded channel strategy for Olo. During this time, both brands, along with two others, were acquired by FAT Brands, expanding the scope of our work to develop a solution scalable across 16 restaurant brands.
After extensive user journey mapping, we determined that the optimal strategy was to merge Marble Slab Creamery into the Great American Cookies Olo channel. This approach involved:
- Establishing Great American Cookies as the parent brand.
- Migrating Marble Slab’s locations into this unified channel.
- Maintaining Marble Slab’s identity on standalone locations by redirecting orders to the marbleslab.com domain while pulling from the unified channel.
This work-stream included
- Positioning Great American Cookies as the parent brand.
- Seamlessly migrating Marble Slab locations into the unified system.
- Preserving Marble Slab’s standalone identity by redirecting orders to marbleslab.com while utilizing the centralized channel.
Enhanced Conveyance Mode & Map Functionality
Conveyance mode is a critical component of all online ordering systems, especially for restaurants, as guests must seamlessly select pickup, curbside, or delivery options.
To address this, we started by creating an ever-present Conveyance Mode Selector, which remains sticky on both desktop and mobile. This feature makes it easy for customers to quickly switch between delivery and pickup. The system also includes auto-location functionality, allowing users to select “Use My Location” to automatically populate their address with almost no errors. Additionally, we implemented an auto-complete feature, so as guests typed their address, the field would fill in after just a few letters, significantly reducing the steps required to enter location information.
We also transitioned the Maps API platform from Google Maps to Radar Maps, achieving both significant cost savings and improved accuracy. As part of the co-branded platform, the map dynamically identifies locations as standalone stores or co-branded stores using location attributes. Guests could quickly see whether their selected location offered cookies, ice cream, or both.
These innovations created a much smoother and more intuitive user experience for finding and selecting a location.
Managing the Point-of-Sale System Migration
Another interesting challenge of this project was FAT Brands’ migration and upgrade to NCR Aloha Cloud as their new point-of-sale system. This required our team to work in lockstep with FAT Brands’ IT team to ensure a seamless transition.
As the new point-of-sale system rolled out, locations began migrating to the new setup. While the build of the new NCR Aloha Cloud system significantly streamlined the menu, it also introduced the challenge of supporting both the legacy and new point-of-sale systems simultaneously. We needed to ensure that our system could communicate with both systems without any disruptions or visible differences for users.
Our solution involved creating a brand-new mapping for the updated NCR Aloha Cloud point-of-sale system, leveraging location attributes as the key driver. By implementing and extensively testing the new mapping, we enabled real-time switching between legacy and new systems based on a simple location attribute flag. This approach allowed locations to upgrade to the new point-of-sale system store-by-store without any operational stoppages.
The result was a seamless migration process that empowered FAT Brands to roll out new locations or upgrade existing ones independently. By simply adding a location attribute, their system could switch to the updated mapping in real time, ensuring continued operations without requiring additional support from our team.
Simplifying the Menu
Co-branded locations naturally resulted in larger menus. We collaborated with Great American Cookies to simplify their product mix, reducing over 25 categories to just 8. Key improvements included:
- Categories: Created super categories/virtual categories that rolled up categories to simplify the browsing experience
- Limited Edition: Consolidating seasonal cookie cake categories into a single “Holidays” category.
- Promotions: Displaying the upcoming holiday’s cookie cakes prominently while allowing users to browse other options through a simple filter.
3D Cookie Cake Builder
Custom cookie cakes accounted for nearly 25% of sales, making them a key revenue driver. To capitalize on this, we developed an interactive 3D Cookie Cake Builder that updated in real time. Here’s how:
- Seamless System Integration:
Orders were mapped to existing operational systems to avoid disruptions and maintain the integrity of the static cake customizer. - 3D Modeling:
Flexible, accurate 3D models replaced static photos, accommodating every cake flavor and size combination. - Dynamic Dollop Customization:
Real-time CSS coding managed tens of thousands of dollop color combinations, providing instant visual feedback with seamless alternation for multiple colors. - Custom Messages and Icing:
Personalized text and icing colors were enhanced with advanced CSS for realistic textures and shadows, ensuring a polished, integrated look. - Mobile Optimization:
Built for smooth performance on mobile and desktop, catering to the majority of orders placed via mobile.
Optimizing the Checkout Flow
To ensure a frictionless user experience, we implemented a hybrid cart and checkout system with the following features:
- Always-On Checkout: Users were effectively in the checkout process as soon as they opened their cart.
- Wallet Payments: Integrated Google Pay and Apple Pay directly into the cart, significantly improving conversion rates.
Services
This project took flight through the following services.