How an icon is born.
Snugged between a bodega and a laundromat, behind a bright blue metal bench, and down a modest flight of stairs in New York’s Upper West Side sits one of the city’s most inconspicuous icons: Levain Bakery’s flagship storefront.
In 1995, best friends Pam Weekes and Connie McDonald opened a 700-square-foot basement-level bread shop after having parted ways with their corporate lives. They swapped long hours in the office for long hours elbow-deep in dough, outfitting the case with fresh-baked baguettes, rolls, and loaves of artisanal bread every day.
The beginning of Levain Bakery wasn’t unlike the beginnings of thousands of bakeries, restaurants, and coffee shops before it — slow. It typically takes food joints 6 months to 2 years to generate some serious traction and pull people away from their existing go-tos, and Levain was slogging along on the same path.
But one day, the duo whipped up a mountainous calorie-dense cookie to aid in their own Ironman training and stuck samples in the bakery case. The 6-ounce chocolate chip walnut cookie was an instant star. The taste, the texture, and the utter size of it seemed to send waves of curiosity across NYC, putting the kibosh on its slow start.
It was a buzz that neither Weekes nor McDonald could simply brush off, and the rest is history.
The sweet success of listening to the customer.
With 17 locations, coast-to-coast fame, countless articles, and millions of TikTok views later, it’s hard to imagine Levain Bakery without a line winding out the door and down the block.
It’s been 30 years since Pam and Connie followed their customers’ lead. After all, the cookie concocted to fuel them through another training sesh wasn’t intended to become their bakery’s staple. Luckily, they didn’t ignore where their shoppers were pulling them in 1995 — a common theme throughout the company’s history.
The founders have always had a knack for listening, innovating, and refining their plans in order to best serve their customers. For instance, in 1999, Pam and Connie were first-movers in the DTC world when they launched a mail order program in response to customers calling from all over the country asking if they could ship. And when the coronavirus pandemic temporarily shuttered stores in 2020, the pair noticed an existing channel picking up more steam: gifting.
The Problem: Time-consuming Processes Added Pressure to Corporate Gifting
People have gifted Levain’s treats since the dawn of the company. But 2020 accelerated a need to connect with others during a time when in-person gathering was limited, and there was a swell of customers who sought out Levain as the ultimate comfort gift.
Levain Bakery hit the dial-up scene in 1998 when it launched its website. On top of being one of the first bakeries with a URL, it was also one of the first to offer nationwide shipping. For years, the brand’s Harlem location could swiftly fulfill its online order business, but once gifting cookies around the US caught on, Levain’s ecommerce channel outgrew the space.
“We’re a heritage brand, we have such a strong brand presence, we have good SEO, a really strong marketing team,” says Avra Wacks, Levain’s Senior Manager of Customer Experience, “and all of those pieces are working together to reach people who want to gift Levain.”
Customers range from local New Yorkers, to ex-New Yorkers who’ve moved away, to tourists who had their first cookie in New York, to companies that want to gift something that’s high-quality and memorable. No matter who’s gifting, though, they all have one thing in common: they love Levain and they want to share that joy with someone else.
Levain’s pandemic-induced surge in online gifting opened up a lot of opportunities for the company — and a lot of issues.
Unwrapping pains in the corporate gifting process.
“We had a gifting process that was a lot like what people are used to when they work in corporate gifting or have to utilize it.” Magen went on to describe the stress of forms, back-and-forth emails, and spreadsheets.
“The whole process was very time-consuming, and in a situation when you’re under a lot of pressure, like leading up to the holidays, it can become very stressful. You try to be efficient with your time, but so many issues come up with spreadsheets that get in the way of that goal.”
“And from the customer perspective, they’re also under pressure. They need to get the budget approved, the gifts approved, and they aren’t hearing back immediately so they get frustrated and start escalating issues.” Giving gifts and eating cookies are inherently joyful activities, but the process of ordering and fulfilling them was anything but.
“It creates a lot of tension, and that’s just kind of the way it is with gifting.” At least that’s the way gifting was until an email from Alex Ingram, Zest’s CEO and co-founder, rolled into Avra’s inbox.
The Solution: Cold Outreach Leads to a Piping Hot Partnership
Before Donna Magen joined Levain, the pangs of the gifting process rippled across teams. Avra remembers, “Any corporate escalations or issues would come to me.” And even though her role wasn’t technically to head up gifting, she was in the trenches with other people pulled in to make it work. “I became deeply invested in that side of the business because I was really in there helping with corporate and events.”
Despite the tedium, the time-consuming process, and the fact that people were pulled from their normal day-to-day to lend a hand with gifting, no one at Levain was champing at Alex’s outreach. “At first, Alex’s email about Zest just kind of fell through the cracks because no one was dedicated to gifting. There was no one to send this information to.”
“But as soon as Donna came on board,” says Avra, “I remembered Zest and thought ‘You’re here, so let’s see if this is interesting.’”
After swinging by the Zest website and finally connecting with Alex, Donna was sold. “I could’ve had Zest tattooed on my forehead. I didn’t care about the budget or what happened in the past, I knew we had to get Zest and make it work. I was obsessed with the platform to the point where people called me Donna Zest.”
While Alex is a pretty savvy salesperson, his pitch was only part of the selling points. Avra and Donna pushed to implement Zest based on a few factors, including:
- Integrations
Like most ecommerce companies, Levain has a big web of tools it uses to run smoothly. Zest’s ability to work with Shopify and beyond was a must-have. - Flexibility
The Zest team was open to feedback about the tool and was willing to customize some of the user experience based on Levain’s specific needs. - Customizations
Zest’s Add-ons feature empowers customers to upload their own logo onto gift notes without requiring any additional time from the team.am.
- E-gifting
While the majority of gifts sent are delivered directly to recipients (and bypass any type of digital gift delivery), the team liked the option and wanted to give customers the choice. - Hyper-focus
Unlike many ecommerce platforms that try to be all-in-one do-everything solutions, Zest solved a very specific problem for Levain and did it very well. - Partnership
Zest understood the intricacies and nuances of gifting and was empathetic toward existing pains in the gifting process.
After many conversations, the team at Levain was confident in moving forward — a choice it had to make fast if they wanted to get all the wrinkles ironed out before the holiday surge started up again.
The Results: Empowered Gifters Bake up Levain’s Best Gifting Season Ever
After officially signing on in May 2024, the squads at Levain and Zest hit the ground running. This partnership’s inaugural holiday season was just six short months away. Not only did Donna want to ensure everything in-house was running smoothly come November, but Avra wanted to make sure the customer experience was up to snuff, too.
In addition to Levain Bakery’s main gifting storefront, Zest implemented another storefront to tackle an entirely different use case: events and party favors.
“It was a big lift for us to get party favors on Zest, too, because that wasn’t the norm for the platform,” says Avra. (Much like founders Pam and Connie, the team at Zest isn’t one to shy away from good ideas from customers.)
Zest’s self-service gifting storefront looks and feels like shopping for yourself. People choose products, write a gift note, add recipients, and check out in one seamless journey. Donna wanted to carry the same user-friendliness — and erase the same nagging bottlenecks — over to the bulk gift order experience for events and weddings.
In this experience, shoppers pick from Levain’s catalog of goods made just for events, add as many as they need to their cart, write a gift message, and have everything shipped to a single location on the date they choose, such as wherever and whenever the big party is taking place. It’s a first-of-its-kind gift ordering experience that gives full control and transparency to the shopper.
Both customer experiences empower shoppers with all the tools they need to complete their task without any forms or back-and-forth waiting games.
“It’s a flow that 90% of gifters understand and want to use, but for the 10% that still want a high-touch concierge experience, we now have more time to dedicate to those,” says Donna.
Avra adds, “But it was amazing to see demand start coming in organically through Zest and have it be so easy for the customer and our team. When I think about the volume we did with Zest over the holiday season, and I think about all those sales having to go through the back-and-forth, that would have been crazy. We wouldn’t have been able to capture all of the sales we did.”
And capture sales they did.
Levain Bakery & Zest by the numbers.
In Levain’s first holiday season (November 1 – December 31, 2024) leveraging a gifting platform:
- Corporate sales alone were up more than 100% year-over-year.
- Nearly 50% of holiday corporate orders were placed using Zest.
- The average amount spent per recipient was 18% higher in Zest vs. channels outside of Zest.
Outside of the holiday gifting surge, Donna has been able to better understand Levain’s gifting audience. Before Zest, the only way to know who was sending products as gifts was if they went through the one-size-fits-all concierge path. Beyond that, insights about this valuable and loyal customer group were nearly impossible to collect.
Because of Zest reporting, Donna has been able to see self-service customers already coming back to gift again, as well as learn that a surprising number of gifters are non-corporate. In fact, they’ve learned that roughly 80% of gifts sent through Zest are “people just sending gifts to mom and dad. It was a lot more than we expected.”
When asked why that might be, Donna believes, “...bulk gifting through Zest is easier than on our regular website. The autofill can be weird and you go through a lot of windows. With Zest, the gifter is on one window until they’re done. They can pick out the gifts, add a gift note, customize a card, and pay in one place. It makes a big difference.”
By leveraging strategic paid ads, email marketing, and influencers, Levain has been able to resonate with a large audience. Once people find their way to the site, they’ve been organically finding their way to the Zest-powered gifting storefronts. Whether through direct CTA buttons on product pages or by way of the top navigation, Levain is proof that shining a light on gifting and a modern experience simply sells more gifts.
Levain Bakery Looks Ahead to More Gifts for Its 30th Anniversary
For 30 years, Levain Bakery has been pushing limits, listening to customers, and providing meaningful experiences that keep customers coming back. As shoppers continue to evolve, and their needs and habits keep shifting, so will Levain.
“This is a big year for us all around,” says Avra. “But in terms of corporate gift plans, honestly, we’re going to just continue to fine-tune the experience and capitalize on the traction we’re getting.”
Ideas for thoughtful corporate bundles specifically for new hires or big anniversaries are on the drawing board, as well as big plans to tap Zest’s Concierge feature to help streamline the gifting experience for their hands-on customers.
“I’m just really happy,” adds Donna. The successes Levain saw in such a short amount of time “means that people were really looking for something like this. Zest really made it easier, and everyone noticed.”
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