”We are very happy we could participate in Project Aces. The team made a huge effort with the project and we received a lot of information for the development of our web store. The project was wll planned and scheculed and the students worked independetly.”
Mari Pirilä, entrepreneur, Smallstore Inc.
The client:
Smallstore small business that imports and resels special food products from Central and Southern Europe. The product range includes pasta from the manifacturer, risotto, oils and spices. Smallstore has more than a dozen retail dealers and a web store.
The project:
Smallstore needed support to develop the web store, especially the marketing needed a boost. The aim of Smallstore was to be able to utilise the analytics of the web store better, to understand who its customers are and how they find the business, to allow the efficient focusing of the marketing. In addition Smallstore wanted to ensure the web store was a pleasant experience for the customer, in order to increase the likelihood of the visitors to actually placing an order.
The team:
A team of five students was selected for the project, coinsisting of both Finnish and international students: Laura Hongisto, Hannele Keuru, Linh Nguyen, Mirva Roininen and Amir AminiNaji. The project was carried out in English. The team included students of the University of Turku and the Åbo Akademi, who studied marketing, media studies, information technology and innovation management.
The results:
The team found out about the experiences of the customers, including the willingness of the visitors to place an order and on different ways the visitors had learned about Smallstore. The team compiled instructions on how to improve both the usability and the visibility of the business, such as optimizing for search engines and marketing in social media.
