AST WEEKEND Mark Murrell, the founder of Get Maine Lobster, bought an Oculus virtual-reality (
VR) headset. It is a plaything, but he quickly thought of business. “I can’t wait until everybody has one,” he says. “If only I could have an ad in one of those.” His business is delivering lobsters, at an average $190 a box, to homes across America. In his fantasy
VR world, he would take customers via their headsets out on boats to see the catches, or give them cooking lessons all while gently nudging them to place orders. Since his business started in 2009, its primary means of reaching new customers has been through ads on Facebook. It is not lost on him that Oculus is also owned by the social-media giant. “I was like ‘wow, watch out!’,” he says.
Selling direct-to-consumer (DTC) online has emerged as a favorite go-to-market strategy for emerging brands launching during the pandemic, and while it can offer better margins, a more intimate connection with shoppers and flexibility around pricing and assortment, the CEO of the DTC seafood company Get Maine Lobster warns going it alone online comes with significant challenges.
Among the most notable hurdles selling DTC online are driving discovery and brand building, which Mark Murrell explains he overcame when he founded Get Maine Lobster in 2009 by forging partnerships, some unexpected and others counterintuitive on the surface.
But, he explains in this episode of FoodNavigator-USA’s Investing in the Future of Food, maintaining this practice over the next decade and through the pandemic helped him drive 6X year-over-year growth and see a 425% increase in boxes and product shipped to more than 36,000 new consumers acquired in 2020 alone.
Save Over 25% on Fresh Maine Lobster When You Order Before the Super Bowl
Why stuff your face with 7 Layer Dip when you can do it with 4lbs of lobster mac & cheese instead?
Curated ByThrillist Editorial
Published on 1/25/2021 at 5:17 PM
Remember when New England had lobster rolls and Tom Brady? Now, just because one of those has gone away doesn t mean you need to sacrifice the other. Enter:
Get Maine Lobster, Maine s number one lobster delivery service.
GML ships fresh seafood and even live lobster all across the U.S., ensuring you ll get your crustaceans cold and crisp. To receive super fresh seafood and live lobster, order before 8:59am EST, and to order frozen seafood for next day delivery, order by 11:59am EST.
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If you could peek inside America’s cupboards and refrigerators, you’d see tableaus that capture changes wrought by the pandemic: Towers of paper goods, loads of comfort food, caches of upmarket coffee. You might also be surprised to see an unusual amount of seafood.
Frozen seafood sales at US supermarkets and other food retailers rose 26% in the four weeks ended Dec. 27 from a year earlier, according to market research company IRI, far stronger than the 6% growth for consumer packaged goods overall. Fresh seafood sales rose 25% in the same period. That strong result wasn’t just a holiday binge: Since the onset of the pandemic, seafood sales growth has tended to outpace that of the grocery store as a whole by a comfortable margin.