Union Coffee Roasters

End-to-end ecommerce ownership, including strategy, management, growth and retenion.

The Brand:

Union Coffee Roasters

THE ISSUE:

The brand required tip-to-tail support across their ecommerce and marketing after their ecommerce team departed, alongside an urgent need to resolve digital deployment issues that blocked onward growth.

Our Part:

Heur effectively became Union's full ecommerce team, owning leadership, strategy, site management, paid media and CRM - resetting the business's baseline and unlocking long-term, sustainable growth.

The Impact:

Through a comprehensive restructure of their ecommerce operations and approach to growth and retention, Heur unlocked new incremental revenue streams and turned Union's ecommerce DTC into the fastest growing and most profitable part of the business.

Approach

Union Coffee is the UK's industry leader in speciality coffee. Founded in 2001, Union was one of the UK's first speciality coffee roasteries - backed by responsible sourcing and direct trading relationships with farmers. Today they are stocked by all major UK supermarkets and supply coffee for high-end cafes and restaurants including Gail's and Dishoom. Union has improved lives of more than 65,000 individuals in coffee producing countries, and we’re proud to have won The Queen’s Award for Sustainable Enterprise in 2017 for its pioneering sourcing model.

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Union Coffee needed a team that could swiftly integrate with their business, reset the baseline and drive them towards future success. We took full ownership for their digital business, supporting them with strategic leadership and full operational management of their store as well as their onward growth.

Challenge

Following the departure of their ecommerce team, Union Coffee required tip-to-tail support across their ecommerce and marketing operations. Facing urgent digital deployment issues that blocked onward growth, the business needed a complete reset to optimize the brand for D2C objectives within their broader distribution mix. The key challenges included:

Team Departure & Support: The brand required tip-to-tail support across their ecommerce and marketing after their ecommerce team departed.
Brand Optimisation: In addition, there was a need for end-to-end brand optimisation to drive towards D2C channel objectives within the distribution mix.
Deployment Issues: Union had several digital deployment issues that blocked onward growth, all of which were need of urgent resolution.

The Commercial Impact

Heur delivered a rapid ecommerce turnaround, resulting in huge YoY growth across all key KPIs and financial measurements, and the most profitable growth the brand had seen in years. By using long-term strategic thinking, with a focus on audience quality and high-value retention, we built a sustainable incremental revenue engine around the brand's subscription business, dramatically increasing Union's marketing efficiency, unit economics and overall revenue.

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FAQs

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What does Heur actually do?

We're a commercial operating partner for ecommerce brands. We embed senior operators into your business to own strategy, trading, paid media and CRM, with solutions crafted around your specific needs.

What size of business do you work with?

Product-led DTC brands, generally £1m to £25m+ in ecommerce revenue, with a sweet spot around £10m. The common thread is a strong product and brand looking for the right architecture and delivery mechanisms to scale.

How are you different from other ecommerce agencies?

The difference lies in visibility. A channel agency owns one account and answers for that account's metrics. We view channels alongside margin, stock and the customer base. This allows trade-offs to be made holistically, ensuring we answer for the business's bottom line rather than a single channel's performance.

What does the engagement structure look like?

A weekly strategy or trading meeting, always-on Slack access throughout the week, and a deeper monthly review against the roadmap. Everything runs in 30-, 60- and 90-day sprints against a longer-term plan.

Can you work alongside our internal team or existing agencies?

Yes – integrating alongside existing teams and agencies is a common operational setup. We provide the senior strategic layer, aligning all internal talent and external partners to a single, unified commercial plan, ensuring seamless execution without disrupting the roles that are already performing well.

How much does an engagement cost?

It depends on scope. Engagements are priced against ecommerce revenue and complexity rather than a flat rate. Once we understand your turnover and goals, we can put a clear number in front of you.

Do you build or design websites?

We're not a design and development agency. We work with a trusted network of development partner agencies to support with clients' dev requirements, and can provide stewardship, project management and commercial strategy support to ensure projects are delivered to their full potential.