Automation: The Savior for Iavarone Bros. Amidst COVID-19 Crisis

Iavarone Bros. is a gourmet Italian market chain that has been in business for 93 years. The company has four locations on Long Island and was known for its lucrative catering business. However, the COVID-19 crisis caused a significant drop in foot traffic and dried up their catering business overnight. The company had to quickly adapt to the changing circumstances and find a way to serve their customers while adhering to the lockdown restrictions. The company had a system for accepting home shopping orders, but it was not scalable to meet the increased demand during the pandemic.

Iavarone Bros., a gourmet Italian market chain, faced a significant challenge with the onset of the COVID-19 crisis. The pandemic caused their lucrative catering business to dry up overnight, and foot traffic at their four Long Island locations dropped dramatically. The 93-year-old business was on the brink of financial disaster. The company had to quickly find a way to serve their customers while adhering to the lockdown restrictions. The obvious solution was home shopping. However, the existing system of accepting home shopping orders, which involved a staff member talking to the customer on the phone, picking the order from the shelves, and getting it delivered, was not scalable. The four locations combined for more than 1,200 transactions every day, making it impossible to take and fulfill orders via the phone. The company needed an online ordering system, but a traditional eCommerce solution would take too long to deploy and would require extensive change management.

In the face of the crisis, Iavarone Bros. turned to automation powered by Zapier. The vision behind the online ordering process was simple. A customer would enter their shopping list and contact information into a JotForm embedded on the company's website. Orders would then be sorted into Google Drive folders, and consolidated on a customized Google Sheet. The key to this process was automation. Manually sorting form entries would be no better than taking orders on the phone. Therefore, Iavarone Bros. enlisted the help of Altitude Marketing, a Pennsylvania digital agency, to build a series of Zaps to power the process. The first Zap ensured new orders were saved in Google Drive as separate files so staff could fulfill them. Finally, new JotForm submissions were sent to Google Sheets for a consolidated view of all orders. The sheet contained a custom script to ensure it was always sorted by the date column, regardless of when the order was placed.

• The automated online ordering system powered by Zapier allowed Iavarone Bros. to weather the storm caused by the COVID-19 crisis. The company was able to serve existing customers and reach new ones, thereby growing their customer base. The new system also added significant organizational efficiencies. The company was able to upend a nearly century-old business model overnight and succeed. The automation eliminated menial work and was reliable, ensuring no orders were lost. All employees were able to continue working, and customers were well-fed throughout the pandemic. The company executive, Michael Bottari, stated that there was no way they would have been able to do that without the new online ordering system, Altitude Marketing, and Zapier.

• The company was able to handle more than 1,200 transactions every day.

• The new system allowed the company to serve existing customers and reach new ones.

• The company was able to add significant organizational efficiencies.