HALM + Customer Fields: Segment B2B and D2C customers for pricing and marketing

HALM is changing the game and combatting plastic waste. Hannah Cheney, owner of Halm, makes glass straws that have prevented more than 1 billion plastic straws from being used. Less landfills, less heartbreak.**

HALM operates in both D2C and B2B markets, and they needed a way to segment customers and offer wholesale prices to business customers while still running a robust online storefront for consumers.

Read our interview below:

Hannah, tell us about HALM’s mission and how you got started?

3-6 billion single-use plastic straws flood our environment worldwide every day. HALM provides a solution to both private and business customers, offering the most sustainable, hygienic and taste-neutral alternative to plastic straws.

During a holiday in Thailand in 2015, we organised a beach clean-up to help the local community, and in 2 hours were able to fill approx. 25 150L plastic waste bags. The results were alarming as every second item collected was a plastic straw. This prompted us to look deeply into the impact of single-use plastic. Once we realised how such small, everyday items have such a devastating effect on our environment and particularly our oceans, it was clear that our path moving forward was to be part of a change that would be able to provide a solution for these issues. We then set out on our mission to create a company with a zero plastic impact and HALM was born.

Tell us more about the product.

Glass straws from HALM are the only option that meets all demands: innovation, quality, 100% flavour and style. HALM glass is a fully recyclable material and operates in a circular economy. Our glass is also the most hygienic and easy to clean in the dishwasher or with warm water and the included natural bristle cleaning brush. Best of all, glass is transparent so you can easily identify the level of cleanliness.

Our glass straws are not only sustainable, but they also ensure the best drinking experience with a pure taste and smooth mouth-feel. HALM Straws are 100% fairly produced in Germany with renewable energy in a range of innovative sizes, either with or without a bend. We also offer a range of accessories, including an organic cotton bag to store your HALM straws on the go. Every HALM Straws set sold, donates toward cleanups worldwide. The HALM Less Waste Initiative in partnership with Trash Hero World supports communities around the world to collect plastic waste in addition to providing education about plastic-waste prevention. When you use HALM Straws, you can sip the world clean by making a difference with every purchase!

HALM sells direct-to-consumer as well as business-to-business, is that right? Yes, we offer HALM Straws to both direct consumers and also to the hospitality and retail industry. We have over 5000 hospitality businesses who are already using HALM successfully, such as The Ritz Bar in Paris, the Mercure Hotel in Berlin and Steigenberger Hotels throughout Germany - just to name a few. Whether a small café or juice bar, or in upscale bars, restaurants and hotels - HALM has made a name for itself as an ecological & stylish drinking straw across the hospitality industry.

How long have you been on the Shopify platform?

Since September 2019. We re-launched our new website to Shopify after migrating away from Shopware. How many apps do you use to run your Shopify store? We have quite a few apps installed on our site. About 25, I guess. In terms of functionality, support, and overall updates, you guys are at the top of our list. I’m really grateful your app exists! Why did you install the Customer Fields app? What problem were you trying to solve?

We required an app that would allow us to tag customers in real-time based on their customer registration form options to ensure that business customers would see reduced prices immediately. Using the custom forms with Conditional Rules means that during registration, the customer is shown the appropriate price, and we collect the customer type which we can use for CRM and marketing.

Originally we looked into a few other apps and even had something else installed for us combining smart tags, which did not work. Switching to Customer Fields from Helium meant that we could use a seamless registration process.

How does the Customer Fields app help you run your business?

The Customer Fields app helps us ensure our B2C and B2B customer groups are segmented, without having to use separate websites for these two major customer groups.

In the future, we plan to use the new Form features for lead gen in sales and other online form funnels.

How do you use the data collected via Customer Fields?

We use the data collected to ensure that our business customers are shown relevant pricing based on our pricing groups. Additionally, we use the data to sort and categorise our customers based on customer group tag to ensure those customers get the best customer experience from HALM.

Is there anything else you’d like to add?

Since launching our new HALM Straws website, we have dealt with the entire spectrum of different apps on the market. It is not always an easy task to get in touch with app developers who really understand your needs, but the guys at Helium have been outstanding with their support and technical knowledge. Installation, onboarding and functionality have been great overall. I would definitely recommend them to any medium-sized business looking to integrate forms with advanced functionalities on their site! I am really happy at the new release from December 2019, which offers a great new range of features which I don’t see any other app in this scope on the market offering in addition to real-time customer tagging.

Is your product available in the United States? If not, is it coming soon?

Yes, we offer delivery worldwide! Additionally, you can also purchase your HALM Straws from Amazon.com and delivered within the US within 1-3 days. We see many US states are in need of a great reusable alternative to plastic straws with plastic-bans coming into act every month.

We are catching a fundamental moment in human history, the moment of choice! There is a growing desire for and necessity toward environmentally friendly products and products that operate in a circular economy. Consumers are choosing to ask the question “Do I need to use this environmentally unfriendly solution?” That question wasn’t being asked 20-30 years ago, it is now! We definitely aim to offer HALM Straws on a larger scale in 2021 to the US and Canadian markets.

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