Project: Enniskillen General Store
Role: Web Design & Brand Strategist Focus: Heritage Brand Modernization, Multi-Location E-Commerce, Franchise Expansion, Loyalty Integration
Project Overview The Enniskillen General Store, a historic landmark operating since 1840, is known as “Canada’s Sweetest General Store.” As the business expanded from a single country shop to a multi-location chain (Oshawa, Bowmanville, Peterborough), they required a digital platform that could scale with them. The goal was to preserve the nostalgic, “old-fashioned” feel of the brand while implementing modern e-commerce tools to manage high-volume ice cream cake orders and support their aggressive franchising strategy.
Key Deliverables & Features
- Custom E-Commerce (Cake Builder):
- Interactive Ordering: We developed a “Build Your Own Cake” engine that allows customers to customize their orders—selecting from dozens of Kawartha Dairy flavors, icing colors, and writing—directly online. This automated a complex manual process, reducing phone errors and streamlining pickup logistics across multiple store locations.
- Inventory Synchronization: The system filters available flavors based on stock levels, ensuring customers can only order what is physically available at their selected pickup location.
- Multi-Location Architecture:
- Location-Specific Landing Pages: Each store (e.g., “Courtice,” “Peterborough”) has a dedicated landing page with unique hours, maps, and specials. This ensures that local SEO captures traffic for “Ice Cream near me” in each distinct market.
- Franchise Development Portal: To support business growth, a dedicated “Franchising” section serves as a B2B sales tool. It presents the business model to potential investors, housing application forms and financial overviews behind a professional interface.
- Loyalty & Community Engagement:
- “Ice Cream Club” Integration: A digital portal for their loyalty program allows customers to track points and rewards, encouraging repeat visits and fostering the “regular customer” feeling of a general store in a digital format.
- “Wall of Fame”: A community-focused gallery highlights customers and their massive ice cream scoops, leveraging user-generated content to build social proof and brand love.
- Heritage-First Design:
- Visual Storytelling: The design balances modern utility with history. Vintage typography and sepia-toned archival photos of the original 1840 building are woven into the layout, grounding the modern expansion in 185+ years of tradition.
The Outcome The new Enniskillen General Store website successfully bridges the gap between a historic tourist destination and a modern retail chain. It drives significant revenue through online cake orders and serves as the central hub for their rapidly growing franchise network.
