Backyard Butchers Builds Stronger Customer Connections Across 48 States with Shopify POS

Since 2020, Backyard Butchers has revolutionized the meat industry with their innovative direct-to-consumer approach—bringing high-quality, hormone-free, antibiotic-free beef directly to communities across America. Through their unique pop-up retail model, they've served over 600,000 customers across 48 states, building personal relationships in cities both large and small.

While most direct-to-consumer brands start online and later expand to physical retail, Backyard Butchers took the opposite approach. They built their business by meeting customers face-to-face first, creating genuine connections that have fueled their rapid expansion. But as their pop-up operations expanded nationwide, their initial point-of-sale (POS) system made it difficult to access customer data and strengthen customer relationships over time. By switching to Shopify POS, Backyard Butchers significantly improved customer data collection and management, resulting in:

• 30% increase in customer satisfaction score (CSAT)
• 70% faster execution of customer order changes
• Approximately 50% decrease in customer service ticket resolution times where information is tied to Shopify

The Challenge: Scaling personal connections across channels

As Backyard Butchers expanded their operations nationwide, they wanted to expand while still focusing on their core values of truly knowing their customers and communities. Their unique business model required a robust system that could support both in-person sales and ongoing customer relationships. But with their initial POS system, Backyard Butchers wasn't able to collect and access customer information in an efficient way that met their needs.

"We needed clean, first-party customer data and the ability to enable remarketing automations so our in-person customers could become recurring online customers," says Tyler Medina, Head of Marketing at Backyard Butchers. "Our business is built on relationships, and we wanted technology that could help us extend those relationships beyond our pop-up events." With thousands of customers visiting their pop-up locations each year, the team didn't want these relationships to end after a single transaction.

The Solution: Building a foundation for growth with Shopify

Backyard Butchers had built their ecommerce website on Shopify from day one, even before launching their direct-to-consumer offerings. They switched over to Shopify POS after recognizing that they had an immense opportunity to deepen the relationships they'd built in-person through digital channels. "We needed to bridge that gap," says Tyler. "Shopify POS in the field is the only way to do that." Unifying their online and offline sales channels through Shopify turned out to be a game changer.

"How we even got started with wanting to use Shopify POS was the idea that we could remarket," explains Tyler. With over 600,000 customers served since their founding, the ability to maintain and nurture these relationships through remarketing was crucial to their growth strategy.

With Shopify POS, the team was able to create a connection between their in-person and online operations like never before. They gained cleaner customer data and better integration capabilities with their email marketing platform and customer service tool solutions, helping them build stronger relationships with customers across channels.

Getting set up with Shopify POS didn't require significant technical resources. "We were glad we could get started with our existing engineering assets," says Tyler. But when the team did need support, Shopify was there to assist. The transition was supported by Shopify's launch team, who provided hands-on guidance through video calls and email support to help salespeople in the field learn the new system. "Being able to support the team like that was integral in helping them get more comfortable with switching to a new system," says Tyler.

The addition of Shop Pay, and features like Shop Pay Installments, have been particularly transformative for Backyard Butchers' business model. With customers often purchasing in bulk—from family-sized packages to half and whole cows—flexible payment options have become crucial to their success. "What other system allows you to enable people to make installments seamlessly? When they already have a Shop account or they're seeing a Shopify terminal and we're using Shop Pay, that level of comfort for the customer that wants to partake in something like that is pretty high," Tyler explains.

The Results: Better data, better customer experience

Since implementing Shopify POS, Backyard Butchers has transformed their ability to serve customers across all channels. The team is able to respond to customer inquiries faster and more effectively than ever before. "Customer support has improved because now that everything's integrated in the same system, we can see orders so much faster. We can pull customer data so much faster, so our response times have shortened," explains Tyler.

This improved access to customer information has been particularly valuable for managing customer feedback. "We're able to manage customer feedback better because we have direct lines of communication," says Tyler. "When customers provide feedback, we can immediately make it right. We're seeing a greater increase in positive activity and turning any negative situations around quickly. Ultimately making customers happy along the way because we know who they are."

The results of these improvements speak for themselves: Backyard Butchers has maintained a remarkably low return rate of less than 1.5% since inception, while serving over 600,000 customers across 48 states. "Shopify makes knowing the customer easy, and if we leverage the data properly, the customer feels known," says Tyler. The platform's integrated tools and third-party app ecosystem have also enabled them to manage the business with just three full-time marketing employees while minimizing engineering time and complexity.

Looking ahead, Backyard Butchers remains committed to their founding mission: bringing high-quality, affordable meat directly to families across America. They are delivering beef from Texas ranches without growth hormones, antibiotics, or harmful preservatives straight to doorsteps all across America. Their foundation on the Shopify commerce platform positions them to serve even more communities, maintaining their personal touch while eliminating the middleman to deliver exceptional value to customers. Oh, and if you want a deal, message one of their amazing Customer Service reps known as "Seasoned Butchers" for a sweet discount code on your next order.