Q4 Updates - Business Progress, and Our Path to Being the #1 Chocolate Company in America

To our Friends, Chocolate-enthusiasts, and our Customers, 

As we approach Thanksgiving, we wanted to give time to reflect, share our thanks to all our supporters, and give an inside preview of some of our business objectives. 

A remarkable year: Over the past year, our business has really taken off. Although we've been around 18 years and were the first bean-to-bar chocolate company in Los Angeles, we believe our new focus is really blossoming beyond the South Bay. We are so thankful to not only serve our incredible customer base, but also have the opportunity to share the art of bean-to-bar chocolate to more clients than ever before!

We're customer-obsessed and actively listening to your feedback: With such growth, we are always listening, and asking, how can we better serve your needs? How can we be the best chocolate company in America, and how can we deliver a more memorable experience? We have learned so much and appreciate your help and guidance. We would like to share some feedback from what we've heard. 

• Our customers love our alcohol-infused chocolates: Our Ice-wine infused chocolates were a hit at Canada Day, our tequila-infused chocolates sold out in under 6 days, and the orange cognac infused chocolates is making a run at being our most popular October chocolate. We have listened, and we will be making more special infusions. If you have any ideas, please send us a note below 
• Our customers like our new website, but they want their chocolates faster: We launched our new website last year, and it has been a huge hit, especially with free shipping at $35. However, we learned that our customers want their chocolates faster. That is why we have partnered with Swyft to over next-day shipping in the greater LA area. Now, our chocolate is always made-to-order, and we are adamant on only using the freshest ingredients with no preservatives - an ode to French cooking heritage. However, we recognize the value on quicker delivery. That is why we've completed revamped our operations, with the help of UC Irvine's Merage School Of Business. 

A Revamped Operations to Deliver the Best Customer Experience: Yes, we heard the feedback, and we have been working on improving our customer service. We are excited to share that we've been secretly working with UC Irvine's Business School, who in Q2, did a full scale analysis of our business operations. With a goal of having the #1 customer experience in the Luxury Chocolate market, we would like to share a few of our findings. 

• A revamped operation system for faster fulfillment: We were unprepared for such strong demand during our 2021 Valentine's Day and Mother's Day sales. We worked with UCI to build a process for more efficient fulfillment. This required taking a look at our whole business operations, our whole inventory management, and building a plan where we can fulfill every order within 48 hours. We have been actively working to implement this plan, and we're excited that this new structure will allow our customers to get their favorite Marsatta Chocolates, but faster. 
• Prioritizing Bean-to-Bar Chocolate over our other products: We also learned that the demand for our Bean-to-bar Chocolate and Bonbons account for over 90% of our customers demand during the calendar year. Our customers love our chocolates, but we tend to sell-out. For this reason, we've decided to put all our focus on our Bean-to-Bar Chocolate and Bonbons, and we're temporarily phasing out our other products (croissants, chocolate-covered strawberries, coffee, brownies, and tea). Now we will offer these products at our VIP Bakery Services vertical, but we couldn't not justify the math without a minimum quantity of 3 dozen. We do intend to return some of those products back in 2023, but we recognized that trying to offer everything was leading to longer fulfilment times. 
• New Pricing for Chocolates for Long Term Growth: After an extensive review with UCI, we are updating our chocolate pricing November 1st. For some chocolates (like our bean-to-bar chocolate), you will notice a lower price that better reflects the market's pricing for high quality bean-to-bar chocolate (in which each bar takes 6 months to make with aging and tempering techniques). However, we also have to increase some of our other prices to justify better packaging and our long term goals for better customer services. We appreciate any feedback, and we hope that our commitment to the best quality can allow you to further enjoy our chocolates. 
• Our 2022 Goal -> Gaining Trust: We now have such an incredible relationship with our customers with our Loyalty program (If you're not signed up, sign up here and get FREE chocolates). Through such, we've learned the importance of fulfillment, customer service, and we are actively working on improving. 

We wanted to thank a lot of special groups that have really helped up, specifically UCI Merage School of Business, whose generously gave us the support of 20+ MBA students to evaluate our operations and leverage their creativity as we strive for our mission: is to make other people as passionate about bean-to-bar chocolate as we are.



Any tips, ideas, recommendations, or feedback?
We would love to hear from you, and learn about your experience at Marsatta.