You can mix and match but its not ver intuitive. If you go straight to the bags it wants a minimum of 2.
So I put in a box of bars then the basket page has an other products section where you can pick from there one bag of white and one bag of black and delete the box of bars if you don’t want them or add in other products.
I couldn’t get it to work in an easier way.
There is a thread here about that topic of mixing and matching where many other people were asking for the same thing:
I’m sure Huel staff read posts like this and think they’re a nightmare to implement. I was thinking they could maybe do something like this:
On the product page (both White and Black), they could have a checkbox for “Mix and Match” which would remove the restriction that requires minimum 2 bags for adding to cart. This would let someone add just 1 bag of White, so they can go to the Black product page and add 1 bag of that too.
And finally, they could move the minimum 2 bags restriction to the Cart. That would make sure there are at least 2 bags of something in the order. Maybe even a pop-up to add another bag of something if the customer only had 1 bag in the cart.
But it would be the same effort, if not easier to do a minimum order amount check at checkout.
And that covers all scenarios.
Because the two boxes of bars is almost the same cost as two packets of powder.
And if you have not reached the minimum order amount, then suggest products to add to cart.
Which ties in with the current checkout implementation.
So i have a feeling its not to do with price, because that change seems doable.
Its something else?
Which is why I am asking the question. I want to know what the reason is.
It’s a simple solution then. They move the restriction to the checkout. If the customer does not have 2 items in the cart, they put in a pop-up to suggest more products. This would let the customer mix and match Powders, Bars etc.
I think the reason is that Huel has always done it this way. It makes it harder than it needs to be for the customer. I think they are worried it may be difficult when it’s a simple solution.
Maybe they struggled to create the Huel Powder product page (they made a custom template with Liquid) and now they are worried about making any other changes. However, mixing and matching is nothing like that and should be much easier to implement.
There are loads of complete food companies out there (maybe worse, maybe better) who could be getting more orders because they are more flexible with their customers. I’d hate to see customers shop elsewhere just because Huel’s minimum requirements were clunky for no reason.
This has been mentioned on their facebook page too… they say its all to do with the different costs and subscriptions etc etc
Well its simple…
If im ordering a single order then let me mix and match and price items individually… doing a 1 time order costs more anyway
If its a subscription then limit me to what you want me to buy
Not currently, you can only do this on single purchases and not through the account area, where you will receive a pop up when you proceed to checkout.
However, it’s certainly something we’re looking to add to the account area in time.
Plenty of other online stores have been doing this keeping things simple for ages. As I wrote elsewhere, many online stores work like this: the site sells several products. In one order you can buy any combination of products in any quantity, with no minimums. Buying one thing doesn’t affect whether you can buy another. You can freely add or remove products to your cart in any order and any quantity. No subscriptions and resulting complications. The rules are the same for all orders. This is pretty much the default model for online retail stores. Huel’s site gives the impression that it’s going out of the way to complicate things. I could be wrong, but I get the feeling that subscriptions are a root cause of much of this complexity.
So we should just remove all subscription functions from our site? That doesn’t make sense from a business perspective. We’re not an online supermarket, our whole business model is built around being a subscription platform.
Personally I have no issue with ordering the powders. It means I receive double the amount I would otherwise want (usually 1xUU and 1x Black Vanilla) result in 2 of these arriving. However I can financially afford this and will use it up.
My issue is ordering the RTD which means I need to have more than I may consume before the bb/ub date. For this reason I do not order the bars. I would use about 1 per 10 days as a bit of variety or snack if I’m driving.
Is a viable solution to allow less orders but to increase the unit cost?
Huel is a consumable product and benefits most from subscriptions. If they didn’t take recurrings, they’d be financially shooting themselves in the foot.
Ultimately, Huel makes more money per order by setting the barrier high (with no mixing and matching). This means customers have to spend more to get what they want. For existing customers, it’s usually not too much of a problem. But for new customers, many get put off by the price, negatively impacting conversion (purchase) rates. The ones who do go through with their order become niche customers (considered valuable in e-com), willing to spend higher than usual. Perhaps they should have a broader approach instead.
As the market leader, Huel has a responsibility to make its products easy to get into. If they bring new customers in, it benefits the complete foods industry as a whole. For us, this means fewer people will think meal replacement shakes are “weight loss schemes” or “fad diets”. It also benefits Soylent, Jimmy Joy, Saturo, Queal and all those other companies in the industry. Increased awareness/adoption is never a bad thing. But that’s enough of my opinion.
Now for the solution: Introduce a flexible minimum order system using units. For example, an order would require 2 units minimum. This would be for the product (type), NOT the variant (flavour). They could have a medium-sized product (e.g. powders, bars) be 1 unit. Bigger items like RTDs could be 2 units. Smaller items like flavour boost pouches could be 0.25 units. Ordering below the 2 unit minimum could either charge the customer a fee (like £5) or be disallowed entirely.
The advantage of this unit system is that size is factored in. People would have to order enough to make it worthwhile for delivery, from an emissions/packaging standpoint. That’s the main reason why a simple cost limit won’t suffice.
I know this has been talked about to death but I do find it odd how I can’t bold on a item with a hoodie. This would have been more money than if I was just to purchase the two it asked for which doesn’t make sense.
Hoodie £35 - delivery okay
Hoodie and 1 tub of protein £60 - not okay
2 tubs of protein £50 - okay
I’m also missing the option to make combinations. Mostly I order the powder in bulk for a better price, but it’s not possible to make combination with different products in one subscription.
I don’t eat the bars that often, but I do like them. It’s not interesting for me to have an extra subscription for only the bars or another product (also because the self-live). So that’s keeping me from ordering it.
I see it’s possible now to add an one-time sample, for example the Huel Complete Protein Bar Selection Box for €40,-, but if you place a subscription order for 2 Selection Boxes it’s €62,-. So for this service you are paying €9,- extra for the sample box (if this box also contains 12 pcs). That’s 29% extra.
Maybe it’s just me, but I don’t think this is fair pricing if you make a big order, but have to pay a lot extra for a one-time sample. If the prices of the “sample” boxes are the same as the minimum order it would be much more interesting to order “new” products.
