AnnounceKit is a product update and announcement widget that helps ecommerce businesses communicate with customers in real time. For Tropical Fruit Box, a Miami-based online exotic fruit retailer, AnnounceKit became the engine behind 22% of their total sales — driven directly through the announcement widget on their site. Here is how they did it.
“Speed and Freshness is the name of our business.”
A tropical avocado doesn’t start to ripen until picked from the tree, but the process happens rather quickly afterward. Once ripe, you have a narrow window of time before the fruit starts to spoil.
Tropical Fruit Box has a narrow window of time to announce its fruit updates, as well.
With AnnounceKit, they keep both their avocados fresh and customers updated!
Company
Tropical Fruit Box
Website
tropicalfruitbox.com
Headquarters
Miami, Florida
Industry
Food & Beverages
Features Used
Widgets
Standalone Feed
Email Notifications
Segmentation
Founded by Desiree Morales in Fall 2019, Tropical Fruit Box is the leading online tropical and exotic fruit seller in the United States. They grow and deliver tropical and exotic fruits from all over the world right to customers’ doors, offices, or events.
“Because of my family’s business, I was raised visiting farms in the Caribbean, Central, and South America. Our kitchen was always filled with fresh avocados, mangos, yuca, and other fruits. As I’ve traveled the country, I’ve learned just how hard it can be to find and enjoy fresh tropical produce; that’s why I decided to start Tropical Fruit Box.”
A true visionary in the tropical and exotic fresh fruit category, Desiree collaborates with farmers in Florida, South America, Central America, and the Caribbean bringing the freshest, high-quality tropical and exotic fruits and roots.
Fast Facts: Tropical Fruit Box + AnnounceKit
Before diving into the full story, here are the headline numbers that show what AnnounceKit made possible for Tropical Fruit Box:
- 22% of total sales come directly as referrals from the AnnounceKit widget
- 4 AnnounceKit features used: Widgets, Standalone Feed, Email Notifications, and Segmentation
- Minutes to publish a new fruit arrival announcement — down from hours with their previous blog-based approach
- Founded 2019 | Miami, Florida | Food & Beverages industry
- Audience segmentation unlocked brand strategy insights they had never had before
The Challenge: Perishable Goods Need Real-Time Customer Communication
Unlike many businesses, tropical and exotic fruits are extremely perishable.
This means that when they get fresh tropical fruits to their distribution centers, their customers and shoppers need to know right away so that the fruits can be shipped as soon as humanly possible.
“Tropical and exotic fruits are extremely perishable. So, we needed to communicate with our customers rapidly when we get these fruits on hand.”
Tropical Fruit Box
Tropical Fruit Box’s main challenge was that they had to update their customers in a quick and timely manner every time they made a change to one of their fruit boxes, when fruits came in stock, and other timely general announcements.
They have a freshness guarantee, making it even more challenging because if any of their Tropifruiters gets a fruit box with bad fruit because of shipment delays or other issues outside of their control, this takes additional effort and cost, let alone the less than ideal experience for their customers that they strive to achieve every time.
This is one of the reasons it was imperative for Tropical Fruit to communicate rapidly when they get these fresh fruits.
They considered several solutions, including having a WordPress blog in a subdomain and feeding RSS to a widget reader, among many others. “But using the blog feature in our platform was cumbersome and not agile enough.”
The Solution: AnnounceKit’s Product Update Widget
“After we tested AnnounceKit, we stopped searching.”
AnnounceKit has made it easier and incredibly faster for them to make announcements when fruits come in the stock and when something related to the fruit boxes changes — “We love that we can quickly publish news and updates, and our Tropifruiters love it.”
“We chose AnnounceKit because of several factors but the main ones were ease of use and the Pavlovian effect of the red blinking notification on the latest news.”
Tropical Fruit Box
Tropical Fruit Box uses AnnounceKit in their What’s New section as a front-end plugin. With this, they can create several updates in minutes, and their Tropifruiters can be aware of the updates when they visit the website or get email notifications.
The four AnnounceKit features they rely on daily are:
- Widgets — a branded, embeddable announcement widget that sits directly on tropicalfruitbox.com, surfacing the latest fruit arrivals with a red notification badge that drives clicks
- Standalone Feed — a public-facing changelog page that houses all announcements for customers who prefer to browse the full update history
- Email Notifications — automated emails that alert subscribed customers the moment a new fruit arrives or a box changes, reducing the lag between arrival and purchase
- Segmentation — the ability to target specific announcements to specific customer groups, giving Tropical Fruit Box strategic insight into which audiences respond to which products
AnnounceKit allows Tropical Fruit Box to save tons of time
Tropical Fruit Box noticed an increase in productivity the moment they started using AnnounceKit.
AnnounceKit removed the barriers of complicated formatting and cumbersome blog publishing and made the process of publishing the latest fruit boxes, new fruits available, and all other announcements a breeze.
AnnounceKit allows Tropical Fruit Box to save a ton of time from maintaining our high level of customer service and focusing on getting fresh tropical and exotic fruits to their customer’s homes and businesses.
Results at a Glance: What AnnounceKit Delivered
The most important metric is sales for Tropical Fruit Box — and AnnounceKit delivered results they had never anticipated.
22% of their sales come directly as a referral from the AnnounceKit widget on their site. They never thought the number would be this high but numbers don’t lie. For an ecommerce business operating on perishable goods with tight shipment windows, this kind of direct revenue attribution from a single communication channel is extraordinary.
Beyond the headline revenue number, the audience segmentation feature gave them strategic brand insights that extended well beyond announcements. By seeing which customer segments engaged most with specific fruit arrivals, Tropical Fruit Box gained data they could apply to their broader marketing and inventory strategy — helping them prioritize sourcing, plan campaigns, and refine their outreach timing.
Getting Started with AnnounceKit
One of the deciding factors for Tropical Fruit Box choosing AnnounceKit over other notification tools was how fast and simple the onboarding experience was. There was no lengthy technical integration, no developer dependency, and no steep learning curve.
Tropical Fruit Box was able to embed the AnnounceKit widget directly into their What’s New section on tropicalfruitbox.com without touching their core site infrastructure. Within hours of signing up, they were publishing their first fruit arrival announcement and watching customers respond. The red blinking notification badge — what they described as the “Pavlovian effect” — created an immediate engagement habit among their returning shoppers.
For ecommerce businesses considering AnnounceKit, the path from signup to first announcement is measured in hours, not weeks. Announcing new features and updates to customers becomes as simple as writing a short post — AnnounceKit handles the distribution, the formatting, and the notification delivery automatically.
Message from Tropical Fruit Box team
When looking for solutions, go ahead and give the free demo a shot. See if it fits any or all aspects of your digital support needs.
AnnounceKit truly delivers top-notch customer support and is responsive and resourceful. They answer support tickets and chats in a timely manner and make sure the issues are resolved.
I can go on and on. We love AnnounceKit!
Frequently Asked Questions
How does AnnounceKit help ecommerce businesses?
AnnounceKit is a product update and announcement widget that lets ecommerce businesses publish real-time notifications about inventory changes, new arrivals, and promotions directly on their website. Customers see a branded notification badge that drives them back to the site, resulting in faster purchase decisions and higher conversion rates for time-sensitive products like fresh produce.
What is a product update widget?
A product update widget is an embeddable UI element that sits on your website and surfaces your latest announcements to visitors in real time. AnnounceKit’s widget displays a red notification badge that signals new content, pulling customers into a feed of recent updates. It requires no page reload and can be installed on most ecommerce platforms without developer involvement.
How did Tropical Fruit Box use AnnounceKit?
Tropical Fruit Box used AnnounceKit to announce fresh fruit arrivals, box changes, and timely promotions to their customer base. They embedded the widget in their What’s New section, configured email notifications for subscribed customers, and used the segmentation feature to target specific audience groups. The result was a direct communication channel that now drives 22% of their total sales.
What results can ecommerce brands expect from AnnounceKit?
Results vary by business, but Tropical Fruit Box saw 22% of their sales directly attributed to the AnnounceKit widget within their first period of use. Beyond revenue, brands commonly report improved customer awareness of new products, reduced support volume from customers asking “what’s new,” and faster sell-through on time-sensitive or limited inventory items. The segmentation data also adds a layer of audience insight that feeds broader marketing strategy.
How quickly can you set up AnnounceKit for an ecommerce site?
Most ecommerce businesses can go from signup to publishing their first announcement within a few hours. AnnounceKit provides an embeddable widget snippet that installs with a simple copy-paste into your site’s theme or template. There is no developer dependency for basic setup, and the dashboard is designed for non-technical users to publish and manage announcements without any coding knowledge.
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Inform your customers about product updates, new arrivals, and keep them coming back — just like Tropical Fruit Box.
