Isaac Fouchard and Myroslava Mykytyn first met in 2010 and opened their Black Walnut Bakery in Cumberland in 2015. From scones, croissants and multigrain bread, to kitchari and vegan borscht soup, Fouchard and Mykytyn take pride in their made-from-scratch bakery business. The family bakery has become something of a tourist attraction, and it is often visited by cyclists, travellers, bloggers, and runners. It is currently ranked as one of the best bakeries in Ottawa, according to Tripadvisor, an American online travel company.
The business was booming until the COVID-19 pandemic hit Ottawa in early March of 2020. Local shops, like the Black Walnut Bakery, were hit hard. Many were forced to close, and others had to cut most of their staff. The spring was particularly difficult, recall the bakery owners, Fouchard and Mykytyn.
“We had no in-person customer contact, and takeout was not offered at the time,” says Mykytyn. The bakery was set on a crash course.
The importance of local businesses
Small businesses like the Black Walnut Bakery are crucial in Canada’s economy. In 2019, they made up approximately 70 per cent of all Canadian jobs and accounted for over a third of Canada’s gross domestic product (GDP). Their survival is imperative if Canadians want to return to an economically stable country after the COVID-19 pandemic, according to Benchmark Law Corporation, a law firm specializing in small businesses in Vancouver, British Columbia.
Adapting to challenges
To keep running, the bakery began doing business online, using the Canadian e-commerce platform Shopify.
Zameer Masjedee, a Shopify Senior Solutions Engineer, says that local buy-online and pickup in-store functionality was added to the Shopify platform with the purpose of guaranteeing customer satisfaction and a feeling of safety among sellers. Shopify’s focus throughout the pandemic continues to be with the entrepreneurs of the world, says Masjedee.
The new platform functionality was useful for Fouchard and Mykytyn when they added pre-order options to their website in June.
“We modified one of the two front windows in the bakery so that they could open. We had a pre-order lineup and then a takeout lineup,” says Mykytyn. “It was really nice.” It was an opportunity to reconnect with customers and also gave Fouchard and Mykytyn a chance to sell beverages, like lattes, which had not been available on the website.
Samantha Charbonneau, 34, is a regular customer at the bakery. A website should be user friendly, she says. One feature that has helped Charbonneau shop at the Black Walnut Bakery during the pandemic is the bakery’s online pre-order and pickup options. Fouchard and Mykytyn were able to use different apps that were installed into the Shopify platform to set up custom times for the pre-orders. “It helped customers maintain social distance, and it let us control the number of people we were letting in,” says Mykytyn.
Glitches and patience are part of the mix
Switching to online services also had its drawbacks, explains Mykytyn. “Shopify was a brand-new platform for us.” Additional Shopify apps, like Secomapp, helped manage various pickup options and product availabilities on the site, but “apps would get updates, causing glitches on the site, and sometimes they would get overloaded and crash.” In addition, some items would also sell out faster than others, and on a few occasions, customers would reach the Black Walnut Bakery checkout page only to discover that everything was sold. Luckily, most customers were patient, and updates to the app fixed the issue. The Shopify e-commerce service also has a monthly service fee of $29, says Masjedee.
Creativity and customer service
While in-person contact was very limited during the peak of the lockdown in Ottawa, Fouchard and Mykytyn found new, creative ways to build connections with regular customers.
“We would write notes on all of the order slips so that each bag had a personalized note on it. When they received their order, they kind of got a special thank you,” says Mykytyn.
Kimberley Bradford, 52, is another regular customer at the Black Walnut Bakery. She says the bakery is an example of a business that has perfectly tailored the safety needs of its customers and staff during the pandemic while thriving as a local business. She feels like service has not changed since the pandemic.
“I can still go to the bakery and get the same quality of baked goods. I’m proud to be one of their customers and I refer to them as my local bakery even though I live 20 minutes away.”
The biggest reason behind the consistent service, according to Bradford, is the steady communication between the owners, and the customers.
