Our own brandWordPress build, ecommerce management and three channels
The one client we cannot blame
HoneyBee and Co. is not a client. It is our own brand: six generations of beekeeping, a full WooCommerce store, and channels we run ourselves. Every mistake on it is ours, which is exactly why it is in the portfolio.
★★★★★ 5.0 on Google from 10 reviews
See the WooCommerce work or tell us about the brand. We work with clients worldwide, and scoping is turned around in about five working days.
The brand
Why an agency should sell something
HoneyBee and Co. was founded by Dragos and brings six generations of Romanian beekeeping to a modern shop. The honey comes from the Yorkshire Moorlands and Midlands, and from the Acacia forests of Transylvania where the family has kept bees for six generations. Acacia, Wildflower, Heather, Linden, Sunflower and Soft Set, each single origin and never blended.
It sits in the case study portfolio for one reason: every agency says it can build and run ecommerce, and most have never had to answer a customer email about a late parcel. This is the brand where we carry the risk we ask clients to take.
- A full stack, not a shop pageSubscriptions with a subscriber discount, free UK delivery thresholds, NHS and Blue Light codes, EU shipping and email automation. Every one of those is a rule that has to be right on a real order.
- Every variety earns its own pageOrigin, tasting notes, how it behaves in the jar and customer reviews. A honey range where six pages differ only by the word at the top does not convert.
- Checkout built for a phoneStripe, PayPal, Apple Pay, Google Pay and Link. Most food purchases start in a thumb, not a browser tab.
- The channels are ours tooWe produce the content, run the calendar and grow the audience on this brand the same way we do for clients, which is why the static ad work on the ad creatives page uses it as an example.
The build
A WordPress and WooCommerce stack, run daily
honeybeeandco.uk is a full WordPress and WooCommerce build rather than a shop page bolted onto a brochure site. Every part of it is configured, maintained and monitored by us, and every one of the rules below is something that has to be right on a real order rather than plausible in a demo.
| Layer | What is running |
|---|---|
| Platform | WordPress with WooCommerce, self hosted, fully owned by the brand. No marketplace commission and no platform that can change its terms underneath us |
| Subscriptions | Recurring honey subscriptions with a subscriber discount, renewal handling and customer self service through the account area |
| Shipping | Free UK delivery thresholds, EU coverage, and rules that differ by weight because glass jars do not ship like a paper print |
| Discounts | NHS and Blue Light verification codes alongside standard promotions, each with its own eligibility and stacking rules |
| Payments | Stripe, PayPal, Apple Pay, Google Pay and Link, tuned for a checkout that mostly happens on a phone |
| Automation | Transactional and lifecycle email, from order confirmation through to subscription renewal reminders |
| Ongoing | Product updates, stock, order processing, customer service, plugin and core maintenance, and performance monitoring. Every day, by us |
This is the same stack behind the Silvi the Artist store, which was built afterwards and went faster because this one had already taught us where the rules break.
Performance
The site passes Core Web Vitals
A food store lives or dies on a phone, usually on a mobile connection, usually while the buyer is doing something else. Core Web Vitals is Google's measure of whether a page loads fast, stays stable while it loads, and responds when it is touched. honeybeeandco.uk passes it.
- Largest Contentful PaintThe main image on each page is preloaded and sized explicitly, so the browser reserves the space before the file arrives rather than reflowing the page around it afterwards.
- Cumulative Layout ShiftEvery image, embed and banner carries its dimensions. Nothing appears late and pushes the add to basket button out from under a thumb, which is the single most expensive layout fault an ecommerce site can have.
- Interaction to Next PaintScripts are deferred and the cart updates without a full page load, so a tap on a variation or a quantity is answered immediately rather than after the next request.
- Why it is on this pageMost agencies treat performance as a launch task and never look again. It is checked as part of the ongoing management, because a plugin update can undo it in an afternoon and nobody notices until sales dip.
The channels
Instagram, TikTok and Facebook, written and published by us
The store is half the work. We also run all three social channels for the brand: strategy, creative, copy, scheduling, publishing and community. Not advising on it, not handing over a calendar for someone else to post. Writing it and publishing it.
- 01Instagram
The main channel. Product photography, static ad creative, seasonal work and reactive posts. The static set on the ad creatives page is a month of this brand's output, used there precisely because it is ours to show in full.
- 02TikTok
Short form video around the beekeeping side of the story, which is the part of this brand that no competitor can copy. Six generations is a narrative rather than a product claim, and it belongs in video.
- 03Facebook
An older and higher intent audience for a premium food product, and the channel where gifting and subscription messages perform best. Run to its own specification rather than cross posted from Instagram.
This is exactly the service sold as social media management, delivered on our own brand where a weak month costs us unsold stock rather than a client an awkward report.
Recognition
Vogue, and what that does and does not mean
HoneyBee and Co. has been selected for the Vogue Summer Hot List three consecutive months. That is recognition of the product, the provenance and the presentation of the brand.
It is the brand's press, not the agency's. Velena Lifestyle's own press is a feature in Women's Health, and the two are kept apart deliberately. An agency that quietly borrows its own brand's coverage to decorate a client pitch is doing something a prospect can check in one search, and it is a bad trade at any conversion rate. The same rule applies to the Conde Nast and TimeOut coverage on the No Escape London page, which belongs to that venue.
SALSA certification, Safe and Local Supplier Approval, is the food safety standard that opens wholesale, retail and institutional supply in the UK. It matters here because compliance is a build requirement, not a marketing line: it changes what the product pages have to state.
Questions
Answers about our own brand
No. It is our own family business, owned and operated by Dragos Nistor, co-founder of Velena Lifestyle. It is labelled as ours everywhere it appears on this site, including in the shop examples and on the case studies index, because a portfolio piece presented as client work when it is not is the cheapest kind of dishonesty.
Because we cannot blame a client for any of it. Every shipping rule, every returned parcel, every abandoned basket and every gateway failure at eleven at night was ours to fix. That operational knowledge is what transfers to a client build, and it is the part an agency cannot acquire by reading documentation.
WordPress with WooCommerce. The stack covers subscription management, discount codes, regional shipping rules, several payment gateways and email automation. It is the same stack behind the Silvi the Artist store, which was built afterwards and was faster because of what this one taught us.
Yes, and food carries constraints most ecommerce does not: certification, labelling requirements, shelf life and shipping rules that change by region. Those are build decisions rather than afterthoughts, and a store designed without them has to be rebuilt when the first wholesale enquiry arrives.
No. It would be easy to, since it is our own brand and nobody could object, and that is precisely why the number would be worth nothing to you. What is checkable is on the page: the stack, the certification, the range and the fact that it is still trading.
Yes. Instagram, TikTok and Facebook are all run by us for this brand: strategy, creative, copywriting, scheduling, publishing and community management. It is the same service sold as social media management, and running it on a brand we own is how the approach was developed before it was sold to anyone.
Yes. Images are preloaded and sized explicitly so nothing shifts as the page loads, scripts are deferred, and the cart updates without a full page load. It is re-checked as part of the ongoing management rather than signed off at launch, because a plugin update can undo it in an afternoon.
Why it works
Practising on ourselves first
The build is the easy half
Any competent developer can launch a WooCommerce store. Running one teaches things a build never does: which shipping rule breaks at a border, which product page question keeps arriving in the inbox, which discount code gets abused within a week. Every one of those lessons arrived here before it arrived on a client project.
Content strategy tested where it costs us
The static ad work and the monthly content on this brand is not a case study we were paid to produce. When a post underperforms, our own stock sits unsold. That is a sharper feedback loop than a client report, and it is where the approach we sell was actually developed.
What we would not claim
No revenue, no growth rate, no conversion figure. On our own brand we could publish any of them and nobody could contradict us, which is exactly the reason not to. The Vogue selection belongs to the brand and the Women's Health feature belongs to the agency, and neither is allowed to stand in for the other.
See the case studies index, the Nikolov Nikola build, the social media management plans, or everything else in the shop.
Client reviews
What clients say, word for word
“Working with Velena and Dragos has been one of the best decisions I have made for my business. They built my entire ecommerce website from scratch, with over 870 products and worldwide shipping, and the result is exactly what I had hoped for.”
Silvi, SILVI The Artist. Client testimonial.“Velena Lifestyle have been a breath of fresh air for our social media accounts. Their professionalism and knowledge have supported us massively.”
Sean Thompson, Head of Marketing, Snaptrip Group. Google review, 5.0.“If you want a self-starter with the ability to think strategically and minimize the time between ideation and creation, Velena is your go-to. She has done a phenomenal job with managing our UGC portfolio, curating and creating our content.”
Naila Abbasova, Enara Wellness. Google review, 5.0.Every review is reproduced word for word. Read them all on the reviews page.
Monthly plans
Social media management, done for you
Small Business Social Pack
£149 per month
12 static posts, 1 platform, content creation done for you
View Small Business Social Pack- Most chosen
Rolling monthly, 2 months notice, no setup fees. All plans on the social media management page.
Who you work with
One team, from the first brief to the last hand off
Velena Nikolova
Co-Founder and Creative Director
Velena leads the filming and the edit, so the idea and the execution never pass between strangers. A lifestyle creator with 13,000 Instagram followers, featured in Women's Health. More on the about page.
Dragos Nistor
Co-Founder and Business Strategist
Dragos runs the brief, the schedule and the delivery, and is on camera for couple and male led work. Named a LinkedIn Top Entrepreneurship Voice in 2024. More on the case studies.
Want a store built by people who run one?
Ecommerce work is scoped individually, and you approve the scope and the figure before anything starts. If the channels need running too, social media management starts at £399 a month.
Prices are in pounds sterling and no VAT is added. If you are ordering from outside the UK your card issuer sets the exchange rate, and anything due in your own country is outside our invoice.