E-commerce

How Goldelucks grew sales by leveraging TikTok early – and wisely

As an early adopter of TikTok, Phillip Kuoch garnered 800,000 followers and over 20 million likes on the platform. He says that the platform generated hundreds of thousands in sales for his small bakery, Goldelucks.

But his journey to bakery success was somewhat of an unexpected one. Goldelucks was originally owned by Phillip’s parents, who were Khmer Rouge refugees from Cambodia. The two had always dreamt about starting their own business.

“Ever since I was young, I remember them discussing opening a fish and chip shop, bakery or laundromat – basically anything,” Phillip recalls.

When the opportunity came for them to take over a bakery in the Melbourne suburb of Croydon in 2015, they put together all the family’s savings and snapped it up. But when Phillip’s dad’s health failed and his mum became his full-time carer, Phillip stepped in to run the bakery, despite having no prior business or bakery experience.

The exploding gift hampers

After Phillip took over, Goldelucks rose to fame as the provider of Australia’s original exploding edible gift hampers – gift boxes with baked goods inside that release confetti when opened.

“We offer on-demand delivery in Melbourne metro and next business day Australia-wide,” Phillip says. “We offer a wide selection of baked goods, including doughnuts, cookies, brownies, cupcakes, cakes and more, all conceived from our love of baking.”

The inspiration to create experiential hampers happened during COVID, with Phillip wanting to create special gifting moments at a time when friends and family weren’t able to be together in person. At the peak of lockdown, with bricks-and-mortar bakeries having to close their doors, Goldelucks was making a delivery every 51 seconds.

Phillip focused on social media to market the business because he believes that social media allows small businesses such as his to compete on an even playing field with bigger and more established businesses.

“It allows us to have a direct line with our followers and gives us the power to be discovered by new customers,” he explains. “Our strategy was to ‘personify’ the brand and put a face to it so that our customers felt like they knew who they were buying from, especially at a time when the sentiment towards supporting local businesses was high.” 

Starting TikTok early

In the early days, Phillip jumped on the Facebook and Instagram train and was able to captivate a following there, as they were far and away the most popular channels in those days. However, when TikTok started gaining traction in Australia, he focused on this channel and saw an immediate impact on the business.

“As an early adopter of TikTok, we were able to garner 800,000 followers and over 20 million likes on the platform, which generated hundreds of thousands in sales,” Phillip says. “It was a big part of how we were able to raise brand awareness outside of Melbourne.” 

Owning a database

With a primary objective of always ‘owning’ his customers and followers, Phillip drives his followers to sign up for his email database and other channels so that he has more control of how he can reach them.

“Social media companies are constantly updating their algorithms, so we never wanted to put all our eggs in one basket,” he explains. “I think it’s really important to diversify your acquisition and nurturing channels so that you have a strong foundation for your business.”

By taking an omnichannel approach, Goldelucks has been able to grow 10 per cent, year on year, whilst also reducing its acquisition costs.

“We also recently purchased our own warehouse, which was a massive milestone for our business!” Phillip enthuses. 

Phillip’s long-term goal is to offer on-demand gifting Australia-wide, with social media as an important channel for acquisition and nurturing. Importantly, he still wants to drive that traffic back to channels in which he has greater direct one-on-one communications with his customers, such as email and SMS.

Through his savvy business skills and shrewd use of social media, Phillip has been able to skyrocket his mum and dad’s bakery to fame, with impressive results.

This story was originally published on Inside Small Business.