New Ecwid webstore boosts sales by 250%!

At the start of September, we replaced our old Amazon powered webstore with one based on the Ecwid platform. We are delighted to report that this switch has resulted in an increase in total sales by over 250% in the last quarter. This result was all the more impressive given that the period September to December is out of season for most of our organic garden products.

As I see it, the Ecwid system has a number of key advantages that have helped improve our e-commerce set-up.

Quick to Set-up

With no background in web development, we found the quick and easy integration of the Ecwid store to be a breath of fresh air. You simply build your product catalogue and stipulate payment methods and shipping zones in the back end. Then you copy chunks of HTML code into your website wherever you want products, carts and categories to appear - or make use of the special Joomla and Wordpress extensions. It was that simple. Compared to other e-commerce software we've used, this was a doddle, allowing us to get up and running in just a few hours.

Facebook Integration

Being able to plug our Ecwid store into The Shropshire Seaweed Company Facebook Page also gives us another string to our bow. We are increasingly trying to engage with our customers on the social web; and having a functioning shop within Facebook itself makes the whole experience more complete.

Clear Checkout Process

Our old Amazon platform never gave us the capacity to closely integrate our website and store, meaning that customers had to be diverted to a special Amazon site in order to buy products. We felt this was the single biggest barrier to our e-commerce development, putting potential customers off carrying on with their transactions and generally looking unprofessional. Thankfully we have now been able to overcome this problem: the Ecwid system allows a close integration between our e-commerce widgets and the main body of our website right the way through the checkout process.

Multiple Channels

One other great advantage Ecwid has for us is the ability to offer our products on a range of different websites. This is important because The Shropshire Seaweed Company is a subsidiary of Sea-Chem Limited, which also has its own, quite different, product lines. Furthermore, we have just launched a third website devoted entirely to our septic tank treatment products. We wanted a solution that would allow us to sell a range of diverse products across different specialist websites, but retain just one back-end order manager and payment system. For us, this is what makes Ecwid so great: we have one store, customised for three different websites (plus Facebook), all controlled and administered from one place.

Based on our experiences, we would definitely recommend Ecwid to start-up businesses looking to get themselves selling online quickly and who also require flexibility in the way they sell. What's more, the best thing about the system is that it is completely free (although there are premium service plans available).

Coupled with The Seaweed Store on eBay and The Seaweed Store on Amazon.co.uk, we are hoping our new Ecwid platform will allow us to expand our e-commerce activities rapidly in the coming months.

If you have any questions about our experience of using Ecwid, please leave them below.

David Ross,
Business Development, The Shropshire Seaweed Company

Seaweed Fertilizers for Newbies

To kick off the blog, I thought a rough guide to seaweed fertilizers might be appropriate. Field any questions below and I'll try and answer them. - D.R.

The Popularity of Seaweed Fertilizers

Seaweed’s application as a plant feed is as old as agriculture itself. Over centuries, countless generations of seaweed farmers all over the world used storm-cast kelp on their fields to help ensure stronger, healthier crops. However, due to the high costs involved in collecting, drying and transporting fresh seaweed, this practice was restricted only to coastal regions until relatively recently. It was only in the 1950s that liquid seaweed extracts first appeared in the market place.

Traditional seaweed or 'vraic' harvesting in Jersey.

The 'Organic Boom,' coupled with the drift away from chemical fertilizers since the early 1990s, has increased the demand for environmentally sustainable growth enhancement products in recent years. Liquid seaweed has therefore become increasingly visible on the shelves of garden centres and farm shops across the globe, and the list of the converted now stretches far beyond the curious or eccentric grower. Hundreds of farmers and groundskeepers are now using these products on a huge scale; meanwhile seaweed’s share of the domestic garden market has advanced significantly since 2000.

About Ascophyllum Nodosum

There are some 12,000 known species of seaweed in the world’s oceans. However, because many contain high levels of salt – which would have an adverse effect on plants if it were applied as a fertilizer – only a small proportion of these are actually suitable for agricultural use.

Locations where Ascophyllum Nodosum grows naturally.

Ascophyllum Nodosum, a genus of seaweed that contains a relatively low level of salt, has therefore become a popular choice for growth enhancers. Given that this plant can be found in abundance in the cold waters of the North Atlantic – and as such it can be harvested sustainably on a large scale – it is not surprising that the vast majority of seaweed fertilizers currently on the market in the UK are derived from Ascophyllum Nodosum, including our very own liquid plant feed.

Five Benefits of Seaweed Fertilizer

Growth enhancers derived from Ascophyllum Nodosum offer five key benefits, the combined effect of which produce stronger, healthier crops, turfs and plants.

• Increased Yields: Seaweed extracts contain cytokinins and betaines, which act in effect like plant hormones. These compounds help to promote growth in almost any plant. What is more, besides the increased yields,  the shelf life of seaweed grown produce is greatly extended, whilst storage losses are much reduced, especially in soft fruits.
• Improved Soil Microbial Activity: Seaweed fertilizer also stimulates beneficial soil micro-organisms, which convert unavailable nutrients present in the ground into a form that can be more easily utilised by plants. This leads to increased nutrient and trace element uptake, meaning stronger root systems and an overall improvement in plant health.
• Increased Chlorophyll Levels: Chlorophyll is the pigment found in all green plants, absorbing the solar energy needed to convert water and carbon dioxide into carbohydrate. Research has shown that seaweed extracts increase chlorophyll levels. This ensures more efficient use of solar energy and leads to stronger and healthier looking plants. 
• Improved Resistance to Pests and Diseases: Seaweed feeds enhance plants' natural defense mechanisms against pest and disease attack. Research shows a decrease in the incidence of some fungal infections and a reduction in nematode infestations and attacks by aphids and red spider mites.
• Increased Water Retention: Seaweed fertilizer contains unique biological compounds called surfactants which help to improve the water retention capacity of soil and fortify plants' resistance to drought.

Find out more about the horticultural benefits of seaweed fertilizers.

Why Seaweed Fertilizer Works

It was once thought that seaweed’s range of benefits could be attributed to the abundance of nutrients and trace elements contained within it. However, whilst it is true that seaweed possesses a high level of beneficial nutrients, subsequent research has proven that it is the quality of these nutrients that is most telling. This being the case, seaweed products are highly effective at very low concentrations, which also makes them extremely cost effective, especially when used on a large scale.

Find out more about our Shropshire Seaweed Growth Enhancer. 

Welcome to The Shropshire Seaweed Company Blog!

Welcome to the first post on our new blog. I'll be using this platform to share ongoing and behind-the-scenes information about our products and activities. In particular, I'll be sharing tips on how to get the best out of our best-selling liquid seaweed fertiliser during the 2013 growing season, as well as other information relating to seaweed and kelp cultivation in the British Isles.

More generally, I will also use the blog to discuss the challenges that we face as a small independent eco company and some of the tools and techniques we use to market ourselves and engage with our customers.

Hope you enjoy the blog,

David Ross,

Business Development Manager, The Shropshire Seaweed Company