Big Country Raw CDAP

Big Country Raw needed its website to scale with its fast-paced growth.

Client

Big Country Raw is a raw pet food manufacturing company in Smithville, Ontario, using e-commerce to sell its products nationwide to wholesalers, retailers, and direct-to-consumers. 

Brief

Big Country Raw applied to the Boost Your Business Technology Grant from the Canada Digital Adoption Program (CDAP) for an opportunity to receive the following: 

1. A grant of up to $15,000 covering 90% of the costs for a digital adoption plan developed by a registered digital advisor (me);

2. Up to $100,000 in interest-free loans from the Business Development Bank of Canada (BDC) to help implement their digital adoption plan;

3. $7,300 in wage subsidies for each youth (18 - 30) hired to help execute its digital adoption plan.

Challenge

Big Country Raw is expanding into the Northeast US in 2024 and aims to double its revenue in the next five years. These are ambitious goals, but Big Country Raw is confident because The Globe and Mail listed them as one of Canada's fastest-growing companies three times in the last four years. In addition, analysts project the global raw pet food market to grow at a CAGR (compounded annual growth rate) of 5.2%, with almost 50% of revenue coming from North America.

However, Big Country Raw needed to scale its website to market to its diverse target base. Its website was complex to manage because of numerous plugins and complex custom shipping algorithms, which limited future growth and expansion. In addition, it had a fragile custom integration between its website and ERP, which would break when updates happened to either platform. It also wanted to improve its CRM, ERP, and website integration to avoid manually moving data between them.

Strategy

Big Country Raw wanted to use the CDAP to enhance its e-commerce experience, helping accomplish its revenue goals by doing the following.

1. Improve its online ordering experience.

2. Better integrate its e-commerce platform with its ERP and CRM.

3. Separate its website into two sites, one targeting its direct-to-consumer channel and the other targeting wholesalers and retailers.

4. Offer more attractive shipping options to online shoppers.

Results

Big Country Raw's digital adoption plan ensures its website and systems integrations can scale along with its ambitious growth. The digital adoption plan identifies how BigCommerce addresses Big Country Raw's pain points and recommends additional tools to complement BigCommerce and integrate it with Big Country Raw's existing ERP and CRM.