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The Inspiration

Many small and local businesses have had to shut and pause trading due to lock down measures. They have no sales and no income and are at risk – business risk, employment risk, family risk. What is a pause in trading could lead to a cease in trading unless they can immediately start trading once again.

Many small and local businesses could move online if they had the right tools and support. Many cannot afford fees of existing platforms and have no digital presence. Those who have a digital presence and have been fortunate to have larger revenues have capitalised as they have had the funding to change to a digital model and service their customers. The balance now needs to be restored and assistance offered to those businesses less fortunate or who have not had digital foresight.

The customers are facing an inverse problem, they cannot enjoy the food they once went out for, they cannot attend local specialist and niches shops which offer excellent support, service and deep knowledge. They want to support local and crave to have their loved food, services and products delivered to them.

Therefore, it is an absolute necessity and priority to help and support local businesses and help them get digital, provide them with the tools to sell and deliver online. Protect their existence and preserve jobs and the local economy. Otherwise business that were once a stable of the community could be gone forever.

The solution in brief

A platform to allow local business to quickly setup and start trading online. One which is tailored for local stores and business that can offer door to door or curb side delivery. A platform which will outlive the virus and provide digital resilience and a new digital selling channel for years to come. Give tools needed when restrictions are eased, such as contactless ordering and payment in eateries and local stores.

What impact do we want to make?

We want to get local stores and eateries online as quick as possible, in the simplest form, so they may start to trade once again and serve their customers. We want to ensure that they are not caught out again and help them to embrace and use digital channels.

We want to take the message to the customer that they can continue to support local business and enjoy the products and services offered in the safety of their home. Have understanding that when restrictions are eased, it’ll not be business as usual and they can play a huge part in the success of easing and the success of local stores and eateries.

Thousands of businesses can be saved with digital adaption and many more jobs saved. In Cyprus, Germany and the UK alone – we can protect and help to save over 340.000 independent and local stores, of which 130.000 are eateries that currently have little or no digital presence and cannot fulfil order and fulfilment via digital means. Statistic in the UK show that less than 30% of local businesses have an online means of order or delivery fulfilment and almost half only have a basic landing page or social media page.

Our solution will further make an impact on the crisis by offering tools for no contact ordering in local stores and eateries when lock-down measures are lifted, using QR codes and the digital marketplace. We will also offer local stores ways they can collect online bookings to limit customers and maintain social distancing and minimal contact measures

Our Solution

1) Essential Features:

• Simple sign up; enter an email address and follow the instructions. No payment needed, no contact with sales representatives and on boarding agents. Simple, click and create.
• Easy integration via links and QR codes.
• An easy to use interface for customers to find what they want, place an order and arrange/await delivery.
• A simple dashboard of incoming orders and details, a dedicated section for those in kitchens, front of house/sales and delivery drivers.
• Allow simple input of business parameters, such as; o Opening times o Estimated delivery times o Delivery areas o Delivery and additional costs
• Simple payment, either cash on delivery/collection or a call back to take payment over the phone – this utilises existing payment methods.
• The ability to not only arrange delivery, but collection too.

2) Extended Features:

• Integrate with local and international payment gateways.
• Offer no contact QR ordering from within eateries or stores to prevent contamination via catalogues, brochures and menus.
• Search features and a list of businesses in your local area, via lists and interactive maps. Local discovery.
• When measures ease, offer an easy way to take bookings for eating in or shopping/browsing in store.
• Enable the platform as a point of sales system to be used not only by customers, but staff also.
• Offer products and services to those offering consolidation services, like delivery drivers and grocers.

3) Bringing companies to the platform Simplicity and speed will be crucial to attract and onboard businesses. The use of open data can be used to pre-populate certain information and keeping the process simple will be key.

• Business can sign up without trial, entering payment details or the need to be onboarded by a representative.
• They will have an instant and usable online store and they can start marketing they are open for business once again.
• They can provide users a link or QR code for direct access to the platform and can use these links on their existing digital presence, like Facebook, Google Marketplace, landing pages or websites. Integration is simple, it is just a link.
• Develop user guides and videos to assist with on boarding and getting setup, however the platform will be simple and intuitive to accelerate on boarding via intuition.
• The use of on boarding tools, such as platform tours and guidance, or simple check lists with links to sections.

4) End user / Customer on-boarding Businesses know their customers and have often built relationships over many years, they are best placed to direct their customers to the platform, so they can place orders and the businesses fulfil them. To aide this:

• Simple links can be placed on social media, current website or printed materials like menus and brochures.
• To assist further, QR codes can be generated by the store owner and used by the customer go direct to the marketplace to placed orders and arrange delivery.
• Local solidarity, community and business groups on social media can be used to spread the word and let people know local stores are open for business.

5) Delivery and Logistics Local stores and eateries may have existing logistic solutions in place or know of local companies who can assist. In the first instance, they should look to utilising their existing networks and local business. However, this may not be possible and resources needed.

• A directory of local drivers who can deliver and collect in certain areas. This can be added to by local stores as well as delivery companies looking for additional revenue streams and other community and business projects. It’s also possible to seek collaboration with businesses solving this issue.
• Self-delivery is the most likely solution for most local stores.
• The use of businesses who have delivery solutions, but massive extra capacity or those looking for new revenue, such as taxi companies and couriers.

What you have done during the weekend

• Idea generation to solve a problem faced by local business.
• Refinement of business plan and platform scope.
• Idea validation via peer and local business input.
• Creation of basic landing page.
• Creation of working MVP which can be used to onboard local business.
• Creation of business/pitch document.
• Creation of pitch slide deck/video.

The necessities

• Funding for web services, such as hosting, storage, domain services and email.
• Potential funding for complimentary tools, such as CRM, Analytics, Support.
• Legal and Accounting services for tax and legal compliance, as well a liability.
• Insurance for liability.

Already Secured

• Credits/Barter which would allow up to 100 companies to use the platform for 180 days, or 200 companies for 90 days. Contractual based exchange of web services for professional services and consultancy.
• Locally secured 23 local businesses who are waiting and wanting to be onboarded – company formation and legals need to be sorted, along with domain and support. 81 business have shown an interest and a total of 180 businesses in the local region contacted.
• Working MVP which can be deployed in the current Alpha state and developed whilst business is onboarding. Post crisis value The goal is not only to make local stores digital whilst lockdown and restrictions are in place, but to create and embed digital into local business.
• Local stores will have an additional sales channel to complement their physical store and can offer easy deliveries or introduce click and collect systems.
• Stores can embrace digital and use an extended version of the platform as a point of sales system. This could easily be attached to a sales register and printer, but the main aim would be to drive digital – contactless payment, e-order, extended ranges, customer loyalty, etc.
• Order via QR can reduce contact during easing, but can further reduce the need for excessive menu, brochure and catalogue printing and versions – digital can offer more insight into products or dishes, easy and collaborative ordering, multi lingual options and take digital and contactless payments.
• Offer additional revenue streams for those who can or do deliver, taxi companies in quiet periods can deliver food and items, so could logistic companies and couriers for example. Take-aways with a good fleet of transport could sub-contract out their deliver fleet or those struggling for work can quickly register and start delivering in less than a day. All supported by digital, meaning quick and efficient payments, quick and efficient job bookings and feedback.

Up coming extension

Markets have been closed for weeks, and for many small producers, small farms and those who grow and offer fresh and dairy, their income stream has been cut-off. Only the large entities who have supermarket contracts and with large grocers can retain their revenue. In additional local grocers are suffering too, as their stores are closed, and they commonly have no digital means to offer deliver. Our platform can be extended to create a digital grocery market with little effort when grocers can offer their products for delivery and collection – this in turn helps the producers and farms they purchase from. For some producers and farms, they may already have existing delivery channels or indeed be able to do this them selves to local customers, they too can create a listing and sell direct to customers. The hybrid option is that they can do both, they can list their items once and they can be sold direct by them selves and fed into a consolidation market like a grocery, butchers or virtual fresh and farmers market.

Notes from checkpoints

Problem

1. Local take-aways, restaurants and cafes have little or no digital presence; they rely on physical menus or images on a Facebook site.
2. Produce sellers often have no digital presence; they rely on local markets and grocers.
3. Grocers often have no digital presence; they rely on footfall in stores and usually the digital presence is marketing flyers.
4. Local logistic and courier companies have significant extra capacity and no readily available additional revenue channels.

Solution

1. A platform that allows menus and produce to be digitally listed.
2. The platform should allow for delivery (home and curb side) and location (when lockdown restrictions are eased).
3. The platform should accept or give a route to digital payments to avoid extra contact and possible contamination.
4. The platform should allow for restaurants to take digital bookings for when lockdown restrictions are eased; this will allow numbers to be kept low.
5. The platform should allow ordering at location in the place of a menu when locked restrictions are eased; easy ordering via URL or QR code. This will reduce time sanitising menus and possible contamination.
6. A platform that allows logistic, courier or consolidation companies deliver on behalf of establishments.

Build in Progress

1. I am building a platform to over points 1, 2, 3 and 4 from above.
2. I am building a landing page.
3. I am curating a list of solidarity offers that have been offered to myself which other projects or business could take advantage of. Team Members
4. I am a sole team member at present. I decided not to waste time debating after trying to join several teams who were going in circles and the project lead had their own strong ideas and vision.
5. I am actively looking for team members who can assist with media/presentation, marketing, business development.

Validation

1. I have contacted potential fresh providers and producers.
2. I have contacted delivery companies.

Notes • Costs for existing platforms are high, either monthly or commission based; some a mixture of both. A community and local development driven community can operate at vastly reduced costs and do not need to meet commercial goals for revenue and profit. • Producers have found marketplaces not to attract customers and many have no economical or logistical way to deliver. Its essential to find delivery companies that consolidate; pickup from producers and deliver to consumers. Platforms appear to commonly attract those looking for fast food, so a split market place will give a cross selling channel. • When every cent/penny counts, business are reluctant to incur additional cost and going digital can be a significant cost.
The platform can be operated at a low cost per business and whilst not 100% completed yet, its anticipated enough resources/funding can be sourced to provide at least 90 days of service. Target ongoing cost per unit $14-$17usd to cover cloud based compute, storage, database, domain services, etc. This is comparable to a small, DIY, website builder service.

Landing Page : [http://ec2-3-89-126-137.compute-1.amazonaws.com/]

Sample take-away page : [http://ec2-3-89-126-137.compute-1.amazonaws.com/location-one/menus]

Built With

• amazon-web-services
• bootstrap
• css
• docker
• html
• javascript
• mysql
• php
• react