A Di Maria & Son - From Serving the Local Community To Leading Online Italian Food and Drinks Supplier - Case Study

A Di Maria & Son is a cherished family business founded in 1975 by Alberto and Marietta Di Maria. Today, run by Antonio Di Maria and his sons Adriano and Marco, the team continues the legacy of excellence. 

Since Alberto opened his first, small delicatessen in Coventry in 1975, the business has become one of the UK’s leading suppliers of Italian food and drink.  

In this case study, we’ll explore how ShopWired has supported A Di Maria & Son, helping them evolve from a small, local business in Coventry to a thriving Italian food and drink supplier that serves the whole UK. 

Brand: A Di Maria & Son 

Industry: Food and Drink (Italian)

Formed: 1975

Location: Coventry, UK 

Joined ShopWired: 2018

Website: www.adimaria.co.uk/ 

A Di Maria & Son- The Team 

Background

A Di Maria & Son was founded in Coventry in 1975 by Alberto and Marietta Di Maria. We recently spoke with Adriano, the grandson of Alberto and Marietta, who told us about the business’s early days: 

“In 1975, my Grandad, Alberto Di Maria, opened a small delicatessen in Coventry, selling Italian bread, cured meats and cheeses to the local community. At the time, there was a sizeable community of Italian immigrants, which allowed the business to thrive. 

In the late 1980s, my Dad, Antonio Di Maria, joined the business, and seeing the growing demand, he converted a van into a delivery vehicle, much like an ice cream van but selling premium Italian products. He slowly built routes across different cities, regularly visiting Italian families to sell his goods. The business grew steadily, and word quickly spread.”

Adriano Di Maria 

The foundations laid by Alberto and Marietta along with Antonio’s hard work meant that the business was soon serving local Italian restaurants. With demand rising for their premium goods, the business took out a bank loan to build its first warehouse in Coventry. To this day, the warehouse has remained A Di Maria’s HQ. 

The years that followed saw the business go from strength to strength. But it was around 2016 when the family decided it was time to build a website to keep up with growing demand and bring the business online. 

Moving The Business Online

Moving the business online came with its own set of challenges. The first was finding suitable packaging to ship orders. Another was ensuring frozen products arrived still frozen to the customer. Adriano told us: 

“Without a doubt, packaging was our biggest issue. We were completely new to selling online, with zero experience, and we hadn’t thought about how to pack things like cheese, meats, beer and wine.

But once the logistical challenges were navigated, A Di Maria & Son launched their first website in 2016, but the transition online wasn’t as smooth as they’d anticipated.

“We initially had a website built on WordPress, but we weren’t happy with it—the functionality wasn’t great and the page load speeds were slow.“

A slow-loading website with a lack of features became a hindrance more than a help. After seeking advice– ShopWired was recommended to them-- and they’ve not looked back since. 

How ShopWired Helped A Di Maria Flourish Online 

A Di Maria & Son- Online Store Homepage

Joining ShopWired allowed the business to unlock their full potential, helping them become a leading supplier of Italian food and drink online. By utilising ShopWired’s powerful ecommerce features, A Di Maria & Son have scaled to new heights. 

Here are some of the ways ShopWired has helped this Italian food and drink favourite flourish online. 

Web Design 

ShopWired Theme Editor

ShopWired’s intuitive design interface helped A Di Maria design the perfect website with ease. No need to hire developers. No need to learn coding. 

“I love how easy it is to edit the theme and update the visible elements on our website without needing help.”

ShopWired simplifies web design, making it easy for anyone to design a website— no technical skills required! Simply choose a template theme, edit it to your requirements and add your products. 

At the heart of ShopWired’s design interface is the Theme Editor. From choosing your colour schemes and adding your branding, to building complete pages with content-rich sections, the editor makes the design process straightforward, seamless and enjoyable. 

Being able to handle the website themselves means the team can make updates as and when required. If they have new products, these can be easily added to the featured products section on the homepage. 

Latest products section on homepage

During Halloween and Christmas, they also added some seasonal-themed content to the homepage. 

Halloween-themed content on homepage

Whether you want to make small changes or perform a complete visual overhaul, web design is easy with ShopWired. 

Responsive Designs 

Today’s shoppers use different devices to shop online. Whether it’s desktop, mobile or tablet, your website needs to look good and perform well on all of them. ShopWired’s responsive themes are built with this in mind. So, if a shopper visits the A Di Maria & Son store on mobile or desktop, they’ll experience the same seamless shopping experience. This means they won’t lose out on sales due to usability issues across different devices. 

Desktop

Mobile

Search-Engine Ready 

ShoWired websites are built with search engines in mind. Fast, reliable and SEO-optimised, the ShopWired platform has helped A Di Maria gain organic visibility. You can also edit on-page SEO elements such as title tags, meta descriptions and URLs for each page.

Edit a Product Page- SEO Tags

These features have helped A Di Maria & Son gain visibility and capture organic traffic from people searching for Italian food and drink items.  

Earlier this year, A Di Maria & Son also enlisted the help of ShopWired’s SEO experts. Subscribing to ShopWired’s monthly SEO service has helped the business reach record sales this summer. 

“We started using ShopWired’s SEO services in January 2024, and the service has been excellent so far. We receive a full report every month along with recommendations on how to improve our website.  The reports are clear, and the results speak for themselves.“

Showcasing Products 

The most important thing for any ecommerce business is showcasing your products. This is especially true for an Italian food and drink merchant. 

Years ago, when customers would flock to Alberto's delicatessen in Coventry, they would be able to see the goods up close, smell them and perhaps even taste samples. Whilst this isn’t possible through a website, ShopWired provides ample ways for showcasing products. 

ShopWired’s product pages let you add high-quality images, videos, descriptions, enable customer reviews, add Q&As and more. All that’s left is for the shopper to click that Buy Now button!  

Product page

Offering Discounts and Voucher Codes A Di Maria & Son have tapped into ShopWired's array of promotional tools to engage their customers more effectively.

 “ShopWired’s features and integrations are extremely helpful. The offers feature is particularly good and very simple to use. We also run competitions throughout the year and use the voucher codes feature to give winners vouchers to spend.”

Offering Discounts and Voucher Codes

A Di Maria & Son have tapped into ShopWired's array of promotional tools to engage their customers more effectively. 

“ShopWired’s features and integrations are extremely helpful. The offers feature is particularly good and very simple to use. We also run competitions throughout the year and use the voucher codes feature to give winners vouchers to spend.”

ShopWired- Voucher Code Creation

These tools enable A Di Maria & Son to effortlessly manage discounts and promotions, making their offerings more attractive to customers. 

Apps and Integrations 

ShopWired’s array of apps and integrations offers ecommerce functionalities that surpass those available on platforms like WordPress. Whatever the business needs, ShopWired likely has an app or feature ready to deploy. Adriano adds, 

"You can integrate pretty much any app you need, with plenty of available extensions on ShopWired’s Apps page."

In particular, Adriano has found the Mailchimp email marketing integration useful for connecting to the business’s customer base. 

“We have a MailChimp integration that works seamlessly with ShopWired. When customers visit our website, they’re prompted to subscribe to our mailing list. We currently have an audience of around 15,000 on MailChimp, so whenever we run special deals, we can offer exclusive discounts to our regular customers.”

ShopWired Mailchimp Integration 

The wealth of additional features offered by ShopWired’s apps and integrations have proven essential, allowing A Di Maria & Son to tailor their ecommerce environment to meet evolving business needs and market demands.

Results Achieved

Increased Customer Base

Since moving to ShopWired, the business’s customer base has grown considerably:

“Our main challenge [before ShopWired] was attracting new customers. I spent a lot of time making cold calls and showing up at businesses unannounced. Since we switched to ShopWired, I haven’t needed to actively seek out customers at all—we now get 5 to 10 new trade enquiries every week."

This influx of new interest has occasionally led them to pause on accepting new customers. The effectiveness of ShopWired in boosting their online presence has played a key role in this expansion.

Record Sales

A Di Maria & Son have experienced record sales in 2024. Adriano told us,

“Six years ago, our income was 95% from local restaurants and only 5% online. Today, it’s about 50% local and 50% online, and the online side is growing at a much faster rate. I predict that in five years, it’ll be 80% online and just 20% local trade. It is encouraging to see us growing quickly despite the competition.”

ShopWired is proud to have been part of this growth, helping the business reach new milestones with more to come. 

Expanded Market Reach

Moving the business online has allowed A Di Maria & Son to extend their market reach beyond the West Midlands to the whole UK. The adoption of ShopWired’s ecommerce platform has been pivotal in facilitating this geographical expansion, enabling them to efficiently serve a growing customer base. 

Improved Operations 

Implementing ShopWired has helped streamline operations at A Di Maria & Son. The platform's intuitive interface and powerful backend tools have reduced the time and effort needed to process orders and manage inventory. 

With ShopWired helping operations run smoothly, Adriano and the team are left with more time to focus on running the business, and less time spent on things like admin and inventory management. 

Future Outlook

A Di Maria & Son is poised for further growth in the months and years ahead. Thanks to the success they’ve had since joining us, the team will also be moving their B2B wholesale website to ShopWired. 

ShopWired will be there to support them every step of the way, and we look forward to seeing the business continue its upward trajectory! 

Explore A Di Maria & Son

Discover more about A Di Maria & Son’s authentic Italian offerings and their commitment to quality by visiting their website. Experience the rich heritage that has made them a beloved name in Italian cuisine across the UK.

Try ShopWired

Learn how ShopWired can enhance your ecommerce business today. Visit the features page on the ShopWired website for more information, and don’t forget to sign up for a 14-day free trial to experience the benefits firsthand.