Last week I said I'd write properly about this, so here it is.
When Wilfreds had shops — first a few, eventually down to Cambridge and Stratford-upon-Avon — the best part of it was never really the sweets. It was April, Cheryl, Nigel, Lisa, James, and everyone else behind the counter over the years, who knew which liquorice you'd like based on the last one you tried, who'd talk a nervous parent through the sugar-free options, who remembered your kids' names and what they always went for. It wasn't just me. It was genuinely them knowing our customers, and our customers knowing them. That's hard to replicate on a website, and I think it's worth being honest about rather than pretending an online shop is a like-for-like swap.
I've been looking at who does this well:
- Fortnum & Mason — carries the grandeur of the physical shop into a website that still feels considered rather than templated.
- Paxton & Whitfield — the cheesemongers write product pages like the person behind the counter is still talking to you: which cheese for which occasion, what it's like, why it's different from the one next to it.
- Berry Bros & Rudd — the wine merchants do the same thing with named staff and real tasting notes, so recommendations feel personal rather than algorithmic.
- Hotel Chocolat — built their whole online identity around tasting notes and flavour breakdowns doing the job an assistant used to do in person.
- Neal's Yard Dairy — which cheese pairs with what, how it's made, why it's different — the expertise is all still there, just written down.
The thread running through all of them: the expertise didn't disappear when the till moved online. It moved into the copy. The product description became the conversation.
That's the thing I actually want to get right here, not just talk about. It means writing about sweets the way April or Nigel would have talked about them across a counter — what a liquorice actually tastes like and who it's for, not just weight and price. It means using this blog for the "ask us" conversations that used to happen in person. And it means being upfront when we haven't cracked it yet, rather than pretending a product grid is the same as a good chat in a shop with someone who actually knew you.
We're not there yet. But that's the standard I'm aiming the shop at — replicating that personal service, and really knowing what you, our lovely patrons, are after — and it's a better use of this blog than another year of silence.