How did Maison Colom launch its B2C business?

Development Strategy and Acceleration of B2C Activity

Maison Colom, a renowned fruit and vegetable purveyor, has been delivering to prestigious Parisian hotels and fine dining establishments since 1963, guided by three core values:

• Respect for the product, the seasons, and the producers
• High standards, in the constant pursuit of the finest products
• Transmission, as true ambassadors of taste and culture

In 2020, at the height of the lockdown, Maison Colom chose to move forward by making its products accessible to a wider audience through the launch of a B2C business.

To support this new venture, Maison Colom partnered with Onepoint, focusing on two interconnected priorities: defining a development strategy and accelerating the B2C activity.

To that end, Onepoint worked with Maison Colom’s teams along two key pillars:

• Structuring the transformation of the entire company
• Accelerating the B2C business activity

Framing and Development Strategy

We addressed several key themes to support the new momentum Maison Colom aimed to create and to lay the groundwork for its B2C expansion.

Brand & Distribution Strategy:

Onepoint’s teams began by framing the strategy and ambitions through market analysis and workshops with the Managing Director. This included a competitive analysis of the Food & Beverage sector, specifically in fruit and vegetable distribution — both physical and digital — and led to recommendations for optimizing the entire logistics chain: purchasing, storage, distribution channels, pricing, and customer management.

Operational Excellence:

Following the process audit and optimization phase, we led the selection of a new ERP system — including drafting specifications and conducting vendor interviews — to ensure Maison Colom had the right tools in place to support its growth ambitions.

Acceleration of B2C Activity: Marketing and Website

Building on the alignment of Maison Colom’s ambitions and the development strategy to achieve them, we focused on implementing this new distribution channel.

1 – Redesign of the B2C Website:
The goal was to rapidly scale the B2C activity in response to the COVID-related health measures at the time. The priority was to develop a strong brand platform, redesign the e-commerce site to better reflect the brand and conversion goals, and create content to position Maison Colom as a recognized player in online fruit and vegetable sales.

2 – Definition of a 360° Marketing Strategy:
As Maison Colom’s core business was primarily B2B distribution of fruits and vegetables, it was essential to build digital awareness across social media, Google, and generate qualified traffic to the website. To this end, Onepoint designed the marketing strategy and executed the roadmap: managing community engagement, optimizing digital marketing campaigns with an acquisition-driven approach (SEA campaigns, Facebook/Instagram ads, CRM & customer emailing), and handling partnerships and influencer marketing.