We sat down with third-generation husband-and-wife homeowners Mitchell Cohen and Skye Greenfield Cohen of Economic system Sweet within the Decrease East Aspect of Manhattan in late 2024 to be taught extra about their historical past. We mentioned the origins of Economic system Sweet’s enduring legacy, how they’ve been capable of evolve over time, and the way WooCommerce made this course of a lot simpler. The next video is the end result and beneath is the transcript of our dialog, which has been edited for size, readability, and to suit the format.
Mitchell
Economic system Sweet has been round since 1937. We began as a shoe and hat restore store that simply had a push cart exterior that offered sweet. However throughout the despair, folks weren’t getting issues repaired. They didn’t have that type of cash, however penny right here, penny there for some sweet, it made you content.
When my grandfather Moishe returned from World Conflict II, he and his brother-in-law joined the enterprise. Each single particular person within the household had a part-time or full-time job at Economic system Sweet. It acquired down to simply my grandparents within the sixties and seventies, and within the early eighties, my dad and mom, Jerry and Eileen, took over the enterprise and ran it by means of the true change of the Decrease East Aspect and the beginning of the web.
We turned a vacation spot for vacationers and the locals that had been prospects with us for the reason that thirties with their grandparents or dad and mom. About ten years in the past, I joined full-time after engaged on Wall Road, after which Skye joined quickly after that. We’re on our third technology right here and we simply had the fourth technology a couple of 12 months in the past.
Mitchell
What actually units us aside is that we’re not only a family-owned enterprise. We’re a family-owned and operated enterprise. So lots of occasions you go into these companies which were round for a really very long time, however you don’t see anybody from the household. They’re not essentially current.
Once you stroll in, you’re going to see Skye and me. You’re going to see our daughter with us behind the counter simply holding on as we do the register. This can be a actual household enterprise. My dad and mom nonetheless are available in once they’re on the town. Prospects like to see my dad and mom and kibitz with them and share outdated tales.
Individuals nonetheless are available in and inform me tales about how they knew my grandparents. It simply makes you’re feeling good and that retains them coming again. They know they’re supporting a household enterprise and so they know they’re going to have the ability to overlook about all the pieces that’s happening on the planet, have some enjoyable within the sweet retailer, and discuss previous reminiscences.
Skye
In February of 2023, we opened our first ever second location in Chelsea Market. It’s a lot smaller than this, however —
Mitchell
We name it a Style of Economic system Sweet.
Skye
It’s our satellite tv for pc location. It reveals that after 88 years, you may nonetheless hold issues younger and contemporary.
Skye
We have been on so many various platforms from once we first launched an internet site in 2000 by means of to 2015. With every platform that we have been on, there have been limitations that stored us from making our web site what our prospects have been on the lookout for and what our workers needed to have the ability to present.
After which in 2015, we found WooCommerce.
What’s wonderful about WooCommerce is that because it’s open supply, there’s no ceiling. There’s no restrict to what you are able to do, what you may customise, what you may create, and it’s been nice ever since.
We haven’t had any issues.
Mitchell
We’ve over 2,000 merchandise and every product is exclusive. Typically there are various things it is advisable promote about that product or adapt the way it’s displayed and the way it’s offered. To have the ability to make it so {that a} buyer looks like they’re simply in our retailer procuring and understanding what they’re getting with the range has been actually useful.
Mitchell
At Economic system Sweet, our stock has been within the head of both my grandfather, my father, or myself. Like I stated, we’ve got over 2,000 types of candies and you need to understand how a lot you will have and when it is advisable order. We’ve this 1,000 square-foot retailer of retail house and beneath us is 1,000 sq. toes of storage. It actually was simply us strolling round and figuring out when to reorder as we positioned orders day by day from over 100 totally different folks, so it was very tough.
Skye was all the time on prime of the truth that we would have liked to streamline this. “We’ve WooCommerce; we are able to hyperlink it with Sq. and take this off your shoulders.” I used to be very hesitant about how we have been going to try this and re-inventory.
With the pandemic, the stock went right down to nearly nothing. We have been then capable of reorganize and re-inventory the shop and at last make that change. It’s made all the pieces a lot smoother popping out of the pandemic.
Mitchell
We’ve been on-line since 2000, however it has all the time been part of our enterprise. It has actually taken off as we’ve advanced the web site.
With the pandemic, we have been solely on-line for nearly two years. We have been driving folks to the web site and web site gross sales jumped. After the pandemic, folks got here again, however the on-line gross sales nonetheless grew as a result of we have been capable of attain out to folks everywhere in the nation — not simply our native prospects.
So the web site is now as much as about 20 to 25% of our enterprise. On-line alone, we did about 10,000 transactions throughout the pandemic and even final 12 months, it actually didn’t go down an excessive amount of from there.
Skye
Anybody can place an order from us at economycandy.com. We ship all through the whole United States. We’re engaged on increasing that to Canada.
Woo has the potential for us to place within the logistics for delivery anyplace, which is making it simpler for us to determine — on our half — how worldwide prospects can place an order on economycandy.com.
The orders come by means of to our Woo dashboard and each morning, we get in and print them out.
They arrive out as invoices and our staff comes right down to the gross sales ground and fills the orders. It actually is sort of a little private shopper type of expertise. There’s no warehouse or something; there’s no success middle. All the pieces ships out of right here. We replenish the basket with the order and it goes upstairs.
We pack and ship to anyplace within the nation. We use ShipStation for delivery labels and that integrates with Woo amazingly. It pulls the order quantity. It pulls what the bundle ought to weigh. It pulls the delivery service. So all the pieces is already preloaded whenever you go to print the label.
There’s little or no that we’ve got to do, which is unimaginable. It’s unimaginable the best way that WooCommerce is ready to speak to all these totally different packages. Mitchell talked about Sq. earlier than which Woo talks to for stock. It’s actually an enormous burden off our shoulders to have the ability to simply sync all the pieces.
Skye
Delivery chocolate in the summertime is hard. It’s a problem, however one factor that Woo has been nice for is that there’s a myriad of various little pop-ups and messages you could simply set.
I can set one warning and say something that’s chocolate, put this little textual content on that web page in order that the particular person ordering it is aware of there’s a threat at checkout. Do they need to add ice? Do they need to add chilly packaging? All these plugins, you set it and overlook it. You make the choices for which merchandise qualify for these warnings, for these pop-ups. It has made delivery chocolate a lot much less of a heartbreak.
Up till two years in the past, the quantity of emails we’d get — we’d spend an hour, two hours a day, responding to those emails and troubleshooting what we might do for patrons and now, there’s a plugin for that.
Skye
Up till the pandemic, issues have been largely finished the identical means — with dumb money registers the place you need to put the worth in manually, not simply Mitchell memorizing all of the stock. All of our workers had memorized all the costs as a result of nothing was digital.
All the pieces was on our web site on Woo, however it didn’t hook up with our bodily retailer in any respect. So all the staff needed to memorize all the costs and if there was a worth change, it will take weeks to truly catch as much as charging that worth as a result of as soon as it’s imprinted, it’s actually laborious to overwrite it in your mind.
Mitchell
So throughout the pandemic, we used that point to not solely do a refresh to the inside retail retailer, however to additionally streamline our processes in order that the retail retailer and on-line retailer have been below the identical roof and didn’t really feel like separate entities.
Whereas earlier than, we’d have all these on-line orders and by the point they get downstairs, it’d be like, oh, sorry, the final of it went out this weekend.
Now there are lots of emails and behind-the-scenes updates that we’re getting in actual time that assist us hold the retail retailer and the web retailer synced.
Mitchell
Economic system Sweet has had the identical relationships since 1937. I’m shopping for from corporations that my grandfather purchased from, that my dad and mom purchased from.
That’s why we’ve got lots of merchandise the place folks are available in and say, “they don’t make this anymore!” It’s like, nicely they do, however they solely actually promote it within the Midwest, however we’ve been shopping for from them for 60 years, so that they nonetheless ship us a pair instances each month.
These are the relationships that my grandfather based, that my father and mom based, that actually permit us to remain in enterprise and get all these totally different objects after which, issues increase from there. We used to have a small imported space with just a few Cadbury bars, issues like that. Now nearly half the shop is imported merchandise from around the globe, from Japan, from Canada, from China, from India, I imply actually all over the place.
We’ve all these distinctive merchandise and that’s from establishing all these totally different relationships and rising them over time. Going to the sweet reveals in Chicago and New York simply to fulfill folks and discover one or two new merchandise.
We see a thousand various things, but when we are able to convey one or two new merchandise each couple months, it actually makes us distinctive. Every time folks ask for stuff, if we don’t have it and if three folks ask for it, I’m going to trace it down. That’s our rule of three: all the time name it when three folks ask for one thing or have a suggestion or suggestion. We need to ensure that we’ve got all the pieces that everyone desires.
Mitchell
Being a Decrease East Aspect staple since 1937, we make use of native and we promote native.
Clearly we’re everywhere in the states with our web site, however we actually are a Decrease East Aspect establishment. Individuals come right down to us: they go to lunch at Katz’s after which they arrive to us for dessert. They’re making us their Saturday, their Sunday, and so they’re coming with their youngsters as a result of their dad and mom introduced them right here.
We’ve been thus far again, not a day goes by that somebody doesn’t are available in to inform us an anecdote, about my father, my mom, or my grandparents, and it makes me love coming in and listening to that and studying, generally, one thing that I didn’t even know.
They named the nook of Rivington and Essex after my grandfather, Morris ‘Moishe’ Cohen, as a result of again once we have been on that nook, we used to should arrange exterior. Half the shop was exterior in barrels and tables and my grandfather would get in at six, seven within the morning, set all that up and stand exterior.
Whether or not it was raining, it was zero levels, 100 levels, he was exterior promoting from the nook. Individuals would come by and he was generally known as the unofficial mayor of Rivington Road. They might come by to speak with him.
Skye
It was once we have been petitioning for town to identify the nook after him that we heard that he was thought of the mayor down right here. We hadn’t heard that earlier than.
There was somebody who instructed us that they proposed to their spouse on his recommendation and so they’ve been married for 60 years or so.
Mitchell
Quite a lot of tales got here out of doing that work. It was a few years of laborious work by Skye, however it paid off in the long run and it was a pleasant course of alongside the best way as nicely.
Skye
Economic system Sweet’s all the time been phrase of mouth. We’re old-fashioned. I wouldn’t say that we’ve by no means paid for promoting, however it’s actually —
Mitchell
It’s not an enormous a part of our price range.
Skye
It’s not part of our price range. Within the thirties, the 40s, the fifties, it was literal phrase of mouth. Now phrase of mouth is Instagram, TikTok, and an internet site so that individuals can discover you. However I believe it’s that we’ve got such a novel number of sweet.
We’ve all the pieces. We’ve your grandparents’ favorites, we’ve got your favorites, we’ve got your youngsters’ favourite factor that they only discovered on TikTok that they should have proper now. That retains folks procuring with us and discovering us new.
Mitchell
There’s nonetheless tour teams that are available in day-after-day and individuals who have been coming in for 3 generations, however with social media, when somebody posts one thing about our retailer and it goes viral, we wind up getting actually busy for just a few weeks. It’s nice.
Skye
WooCommerce is open supply. So anybody, anyplace can construct a plugin that can allow your web site to do no matter it’s you want it to do. That type of broad performance has stored us with Woo and has stored us and our web site profitable.
Mitchell
With the ability to pivot with out recreating your web site from scratch each few years, which we needed to do earlier than — recreate and restart from scratch each time. Now we’re making tweaks on an present platform as an alternative of ranging from scratch and that simply saves some huge cash, lots of time. We’re evolving and studying, however with WooCommerce because the central foothold of our platform, we are able to simply add items round that.
Mitchell
What’s nice about having over 2,000 objects is that your private favourite can change nearly day-after-day. I imply, my go-to is the Milk Chocolate Lined Butter Crunch, which is a sq. laborious caramel, chocolate lined with crushed almonds. However once we get new issues in, you’ve acquired to strive it.
We’re getting all these distinctive KitKats from around the globe and distinctive Snickers bars. There’s a Snickers pistachio with turmeric that wasn’t my favourite, however there’s one thing totally different to strive day-after-day and you’ve got to have the ability to strive it to advocate it, proper? I imply it’s a rule of thumb.
Skye
That’s true. Even in case you don’t prefer it, you may describe it to somebody after which they will resolve if it’s price it for them. It’s analysis, it’s R&D.
Mitchell
What’s loopy is that bestsellers additionally change day-after-day. We’d get a web based order for a whole lot of kilos of simply purple sweet for a company occasion. You may need somebody that is available in and is shopping for their favourite chocolate bar that they will’t get elsewhere or their favourite imported merchandise that they will’t discover anyplace else however Economic system Sweet. So your primary bestseller actually does change day-after-day. Whether or not it’s on-line or in retailer, it’s additionally very distinctive.
Skye
What’s subsequent for economycandy.com is delivery to Canada. The largest hurdle for that’s taxes, tariffs, and duties. WooCommerce has native performance for all of this, which is nice.
The largest hurdle is determining what all these percentages are and in the event that they’re variable, relying on the place they ship to. However we don’t even want a plugin to ship to Canada with WooCommerce, which is nice. Plugins are incredible as a result of you are able to do no matter you need to do with them. But when you are able to do it and not using a plugin, it’s even higher.
Olivia leads demand technology at Woo. When not crafting marketing campaign methods, she could be discovered strolling by means of quaint New England cities and forests along with her German shorthaired pointer, Wally.
