Stories: How Christina Chambers turned her passion for bread into a community driven delivery service.
We're interviewing Bottle customers to learn how they started their business and built successful communities by telling their brand story. Conversations have been lightly edited.
We invited Christina Chambers, the woman behind Bread Par Avion, to offer insights as a cottage baker and girl mom x 2, about how running her local bread subscription on Bottle has connected her to community. She shares how she uses Bottle to run her business.
What is your business about in one sentence?
We are a neighborhood sourdough bread subscription that operates in a few neighborhoods in and around Capitol Hill in Washington D.C.
What’s the background for Bread Par Avion?
I lived in Northern France back in 2005. While there, I witnessed “pain à domicile” (a home delivery bread service). Years later, I decided I everyone needs to have this kind of access to delicious bread.
Who do you sell your bread to?
I've realized that about 60% to 70% of our customers are moms on Capitol Hill. It’s funny, I know who's a mom because when I drop bread off at their house I can see who has shoes and chalk everywhere and a stroller on the porch.
Is there anything unique about your relationship to your customers?
I feel really connected to my customers because Capitol Hill is like a small town. I run into customers in the park, at the grocery store, out and about all over. I follow regular bread subscribers on Instagram. If you just graduated from Law School, got engaged, or all the kids in your house are sick, you can expected to get an extra treat delivered to your door. I’ve been wanting to spend more time thinking about how to continue to build more community with people who order from me through Bottle.
Why did you choose Bottle over Squarespace?
Selling subscriptions on Squarespace meant we left revenue on the table. It was also hard for our customers to order a subscription with all the items they wanted. We have all these little add-ons, like cookies or coffee, and almost no one ordered them when we ran our store on Squarespace.
But now with Bottle our ordering takes place on one screen, in one place. Which makes it a lot easier for people to add an item to their cart because it’s right there. Overall, Bottle simplified the ordering process for customers and made it easier for me to sell a subscription.
What couldn’t you do on Squarespace that you can do on Bottle?
One thing is easy marketing. I can easily send a text on Friday reminding people to get their bread order in. They can then just click a link to place that order.
Also, I started doing a thing called “mix-ins”, where I make bread with fun add-ins. Using variants on Bottle, I can show customers the mix-ins and it’s easy for them to choose what they want. I couldn’t really do that on Squarespace without a lot of hacking settings and creating a separate charge for “mix-ins”. All of this meant I was was paying more money in fees to Squarespace for ordering to work the way I needed.
What’s a feature that surprised you about Bottle?
People use the messaging feature a ton. It's very helpful. And if they have a question or need help, it’s really easy for them to message in and for me to reply.
Why did you abandon MailChimp and decide to do all of your email marketing on Bottle?
I’m so glad I don’t ever have to use MailChimp again! Email was a lot of work when I literally just needed to say, “hey, update your order by tomorrow”. I don't need to send a whole email for that. I just want to make bread. I don't want to spend 6 hours formatting an email, and so using the drops on Bottle has been great.
I love that I don't have to mess with emails. But I still want people to know about what we’re making - and that’s how I use text marketing.
What’s the future look like for Bread Par Avion?
Our hope is to get a legitimate (and adorable) bread delivery truck that would also have ready-to-eat bread items and coffee. Think ice cream truck…but with bread and cappuccinos. All these moms on Capitol Hill need a place to get a nutritious breakfast toast and espresso while they are dragged to the park early on a Saturday morning.