The Cereal Enrepreneur
Piperis Filippaios founded Digitalbeans & in the last month, YourLocal.Delivery, a platform to get their favourite local stores ready for delivery in a short space of time, without the need for creating individual websites.
Anna & Piperis dig into how small businesses are adapting to the changes and how Piperis' team are using their skills to support short-term and long-term goals for these businesses, and what consumers will expect once the lockdown is over.
Anna Flockett0:01
Cereal entrepreneur. Hello and welcome to startup magazine podcast series, this serial entrepreneur, I am the editor and your host for today, Anna Flockett. And I hope you're all doing well. Today, I'm really excited to bring you our guest prepares philipose. md at Digital beans, a digital agency who has in these uncertain times created a new startup company to help local businesses, your local door delivery, which is a new free online store service that's helping these local businesses sell their goods, and hopefully survive in these weird times. Pip First of all, welcome to the show. It's so great to have you on how are you today?
Speaker 10:39
Yeah, very well. Thanks for having me.
Anna Flockett0:40
I thought maybe to start with today, we could just explain to our listeners a little bit about First of all, what Digital Beans do. Tell us a bit about yourself and maybe explain a bit then about your local delivery.
Unknown Speaker0:52
Yeah, yeah, sure. So Digital beans. I founded digital beans about 10 years ago, which is as I was graduating from University. So at the time, it was obviously previous kind of uncertainty or economic uncertainty that we've all been through. And Digital Beans was was founded at that time as a direct result of me not being able to get a job in those times and sort of stumbling into working for small businesses offering them digital marketing services. Fast forward 10 years on, so we're based just outside of Canterbury and we've worked with and work with all sorts of clients up and down the country and a couple internationally, helping them with their digital marketing, digital strategy, and WordPress and WooCommerce web builds. So we've got a fair bit of experience helping and launching e commerce companies. And in addition to that, my wife and I also set up a brand of hair extensions, a brand called simply hair because obviously, all e commerce and all based on on WooCommerce. So we've got that as well. So I've got the the kind of experience of working with clients, but I've also got the other side of working within an e commerce and actually it's started an e commerce as a direct result of COVID. And everything else kind of happening around us, I'm not sure whose idea it was exactly. But in the team, it very quickly became apparent that our skills are going to be needed and when needed by local small businesses. So we thought the best way to help them is to allow them to get online and start selling online for free. So using our experience of setting up ecommerce sites and getting them out there, we launched your local delivery, which is essentially platform based on on WooCommerce and WordPress, therefore, to get our favourite I little stores locally to us online and start accepting payments and start offering collection and deliveries as soon as possible. So the idea was that we wanted to help not just the kind of restaurants and the food industry, but actually any small independent business that either doesn't have a website because they've never needed one on ones with a website, but no ability to take e commerce. So that's what we've done. We've created kind of system to allow us to get them online as quickly as possible. And then give them full control of that site. We're slowly adding videos to our site and adding tutorials as to how they can manage it themselves so that they can, you know, add more products and add images and do all sorts of kind of stuff like that. So yeah, so that's your local delivery. It's all free. We don't charge for our time, we don't charge for the site, we don't charge for the hosting. So it's literally just a tool to help during these times.
Anna Flockett2:54
Oh, wow. That's great. And what sort of companies I know you explained a little bit, not just like food and restaurants, but also companies have been using services what so businesses have been logging on. Do you have any examples that you can talk about?
Unknown Speaker3:38
Yeah, sure. So I mean, I think due to everything we've done so far, and we've had a lot of support, thankfully, by local organisations. So for example, in Kent, we've got a trade organisation called Producing Kent, which does amazing work for local producers and companies sending local kind of food and drink. So we've had a lot of good partnerships and support from the sort of organisation so Biggest uptake has been from the food and drink industry. However, we are encouraging other industries to jump on there as well. So the kind of stuff we have on there is anything from pie manufacturers to beers,
Anna Flockett4:11
Have you got any like pubs on there that obviously had to shop because people aren't allowed in. And then maybe they have a restaurant in the pub, and then the food that they would be making, they can then deliver to people or?
Unknown Speaker4:23
So we actually haven't had any pubs as of yet, but we have spent a few pubs down in talks and thinking about setting up I think the problem pubs, again, I've got, I've only got a very short amount of experience in this, but I think a problem that the pubs are facing is that is the decision as to whether or not to keep the kitchen staff to just therefore offer deliveries, which you know would be would be quite costly if they can't get enough of them in because some of these pubs obviously quite big and have quite a few tables on it on a normal evening and a normal serving so they're struggling with that decision. But the discussions I've had with a couple of pups so far has been them offering essentially becoming a mini supermarket and offering fresh produce and that kind of stuff. Because obviously they've got the suppliers, they're able to buy in bulk, you know, a lot of them can get and use really good ingredients. So that's what they're toying with and offering delivery or collection services for essentially just the fresh produce. So that's, I know what a few of them have been thinking. It's really interesting having these conversations with the different types of shops and these different sort of retailers and how they're adapting. So for example, one of our favourite farm shops around here has essentially turned there, what would otherwise be their parking for for the farm shop, and they've got a little calf they've turned it into is what I can only describe as a McDonald's drive thru. So he call up place your order, and then essentially you just drive through and you just get it and put it in your car and then you just carry on you sort of don't really stop a park. So it's really interesting to see how companies are adapting during these times.
Anna Flockett5:56
Yeah, definitely. And, I mean, how needed is there Right now like obviously we can read the news but I feel like maybe you working with these companies can see more insight and see it firsthand how bad is the kind of the hospitality in the food and drink industry right now because obviously everywhere is shut.
Unknown Speaker6:13
The best ones to comment on that or people within that industry itself but from a consumer but also a someone that's been in digital seeing them watching them and kind of I can feel that there's a change in the air, both as a consumer but also from a digital point of view that there's there's gonna be a lot of things that are going to change once COVID is a distant memory, you know, things like you know, anecdotally and I was having this conversation recently with with people there's going to be a whole new generation of kids that are going to be learning to cough and sneeze into the elbows, right. So Gone are the days of saying oh, you know, sneeze into your hands or cough, you know, cover your mouth, with your hands. So, apart from those kinds of things, I think as consumers but also as as digital consumers, I don't think Once COVID is over, we're going to accept and go back to Not having our local shops and the independence that might maybe on the high street or you know are like for example, I farm shop where you don't even expect it to be online. I think that kind of stuff is going to change and I think as consumers post COVID you know, all the restaurants offering delivery now and collection and things like that, I don't think as consumers we're going to accept that they would, they're going to take that service away from us, right? Because ultimately is a luxury during you know, kind of established during these weird times, but we're not going to accept that that we're going to lose that you know, I do want to stay in and have my favourite food delivered or I'll go pick it up from from the pub that previously didn't do that. So that goes for digital as well. So you know, on your local delivery, we've also got, you know, just just corner shops, right so corner shops, I don't even think many of them even had websites before you know what was the point a Google Maps listing was probably as much as was needed for a corner shop but actually being able to go on there and do a click and collect is actually a huge time saver, and All the big brands have it Argos, you know, how I always shopped with Argos is a click and collect. So I don't, you know, I don't want to go into a corner shop and browse around, you know, it's not not time well spent. And I'd rather just go there, say hello and pick up my goods and just and just leave, I think it's going to change a lot behaviours, and I think it's going to push more and more people onto digital. You know, we live in a little village called wenham, which a big part of the population is elderly and you know, when I'm speaking to them, they're all online, you know, or someone that can help them is helping them place the orders and stuff like that. So, you know, it's also a massive benefit for the community and people that are vulnerable and people that can't get out and people can't drive with or without COVID around the value of an old lady being able to just pick up a shopping or have it delivered from a corner shop is is massive. So I think this is gonna kind of change a lot of habits and behaviours for a lot of us.
Anna Flockett8:51
Definitely. And I think you saying that a lot of your population near where you live being old, and they're they're all willing to be online and you know, go and collect and use service. we underestimate like how many people can't go online and can't use the internet or can't use a website, everyone basically is now capable and ideate and what age you are. So like you say that the shift is changing, the landscape is changing, it's going to be become even more digital after COVID is kind of gone. And thinking about that, how has it been for the kind of small companies, the local farm shops or the corner shops that you said kind of didn't even have a website before? Has it been difficult for them to kind of adjust and adapt to this new digital method of selling?
Unknown Speaker9:34
Yeah, so I mean, from our experience so far, we're really trying to get in a big passion of mine, even pre COVID it has been to empower small businesses and and to get them to use digital and compete from a digital point of view as best as possible with the big guys you know, why? Why should Argos be able to do click and collect but then all of you know the little shops not be able to do that. So I've always wanted to empower more and more small businesses, but going through this and the reason We wanted to offer your local deliveries because there are other e commerce platforms out there. But they either have obviously cost attached to them, which during these times isn't isn't ideal. But you know, obviously everyone's a business. But the big issue here is that companies that aren't online, and by that I mean, aren't selling online, one of the biggest hurdles is getting their catalogue their product catalogue on there, because, you know, for example, talking about a corner shop now, they my understanding, and the way I've worked with them so far is that they don't have that catalogue in anything more than an Excel and they don't need to store things up product images, they don't need to store you know, it's just enough of them to place their orders with their suppliers or go to Booker's or whatever. So being able to turn that into what as an e commerce platform would expect, you know, whether you're talking about WooCommerce, or Shopify is very, very different, and getting them to transition. And that's actually where we're trying to develop custom plugins and really make your local delivery really bespoke is minimising that gap, these shops aren't going to become full blown ecommerce companies, right? We're not looking. And they're not looking to become a digital only kind of business. So it's about having that synergy between the digital and the shop. How do we make that? So that isn't overly time consuming? And how do we really simplify because you know, the terminology between retail very traditional brick and mortar type retail and e commerce. You know, it's it's very different. You know, talking about variable products is very what we talk about probably every week talking to clients that are ecommerce clients, but in retail, they, you know, they in brick and mortar stores, they don't know what I'm talking about. So it's about tryna become an e commerce offer them an e commerce solution that doesn't feel like an e commerce solution because it's an e commerce solution isn't for them to far almost like a whole new business and we're trying to make a hybrid and just be an extension to what they're already doing. We don't want them to feel like they've somehow ventured into this whole new thing and a whole new after learn new terminology and they have to have it set up their whole inventory in a whole new different way. And that's, that's where we're putting a lot of time and to allow us to scale and help more people and actually allow them to spend less time on managing this stuff. And just just work in, you know, in an on their business.
Anna Flockett12:15
Definitely. And so taking it back maybe a set, how does it work for both businesses? And for the consumer? Do businesses approach you? Do you approach businesses? Is it bit both? And then do you kind of create a profile for them or create a section on the website? And how does it work?
Unknown Speaker12:33
So for businesses, you know, so far, because your like delivery has been literally there to help it's been pushed around through word of mouth, a few organisations and local authorities have wished to promote it to their members and to local residents and businesses. So we haven't had a problem with new businesses joining up and although we did it to help our local community, and really their selfish way was to allow us personally to keep buying The goods and services that we wanted from the local shops that we personally like I think the furthest store we now have is in Warwickshire. So you know, we're definitely now out of Kent. So you know, we're being found through word of mouth and through these sort partnerships by the businesses in terms of what they get. So yeah, they they've gone to the website, they they go through an application process, which we're constantly trying to improve and refine, essentially, they need to upload some of their products and their catalogue, and then give us their branding information and a logo. And we at the moment, we've tried to make that as simple as possible. And we gather enough information to allow us to build them a functioning store, then they get their own details. So they get their own URL. So they'll get your local delivery forward slash shop name, and they also get a login to that so they can see their orders. They can manage their products, they can add pictures to their products, they can manage everything through their terms and conditions and all that kind of stuff. So the set up is that those shops will then promote that URL. A unique your local delivery URL so that their existing customers can still shop with them during these times. From a consumer point of view, this is something we've had a lot of feedback on. At the moment, we don't have a portal for consumers to go on and find stores that are on on our platform. It's feedback, we're kind of almost getting back, I would say nearly weekly, that people want that businesses want that. So to have an approach where you know, a consumer can go on there and say, right, show me who's on here and near me, or being able to pick perhaps an industry or you know, whether it's drink or alcohol, or sweets, or toys, or dog treats and dog food or whatever. And it will show you how you can buy that kind of stuff from so that's something that's in the pipeline. It's on our to do list at this stage. We unfortunately don't have it
Anna Flockett14:48
No, of course, well, you've only been going like you said, Is it a month or so?
Unknown Speaker14:52
Yeah, I think so. Yes. We know things about end of March. Yeah.
Anna Flockett14:55
youve done so much in such a short space of time. People can't.
Unknown Speaker14:58
And of course for us, you know, the big priorities. Getting these businesses on there, you know and supporting them. So you know yes we've got a lot of ideas but we also try to manage this in between our kind of day jobs of running and looking after our clients in digital beans. So yeah, but of course our main priority is getting the businesses online and then yes, we want to get more customers to them we want to offer more for consumers to find explore more shops near them but yeah, for now it's about getting those businesses on them and helping them start making some some more money,
Anna Flockett15:28
Of course, and I feel like you've probably touched on this slightly but I'm going to ask you anyways in case you have anything to add, what different challenges have you faced whilst funding your local dot delivery?
Unknown Speaker15:38
I think the biggest challenge is that it was was a gap I mentioned earlier gap between taking a brick and mortar type business online and the fact that you know, it was never in their business plan and probably isn't in a position to for them to become an e commerce. You know, it's it's more kind of a traditional sense. So getting them to understand that and getting them to, you know, see what they need to do that was perhaps a bigger jump than I realised, which is why we want to put some more work into really simplifying that down. But I spoke to someone that didn't even know what Excel is, you know, they don't even use Excel to manage their progress stock. So going from that, to, you know, suddenly having to digitise your catalogue or part of your product catalogue and putting it online. That's a big ask for some people, that's definitely been a challenge, because the platform and whilst we're speaking right now, relies on them uploading a spreadsheet, you know, CSV of some of their products for us to be able to work with. So you know, obviously we haven't spoken to thousands of businesses but as a percentage, you know, is still a significant percentage of businesses that aren't using anything to keep or manage their their products on so that is a challenge that we need to work through. And also shocked, I didn't expect that I thought everyone would be using Excel or something to to keep their products on but apparently not.
Anna Flockett17:01
So I was just gonna say obviously you guys have been doing a lot of work with your local delivery and obviously it's being created in the COVID space to help and it's an amazing startup idea. Have you done any other work with Digital Beans or with any other clients around the whole COVID-19 climate and Coronavirus,
Unknown Speaker17:19
all my time and effort has been to start and support your local delivery within Digital Beans. We've we work with a handful of plants within different industries. So some industries have been affected more than others naturally, and we've been working with them kind of individually to to work out, you know, what their plan is and whether we're scaling up or scaling down during these times. So, it has been a very bespoke setup, but nothing kind of I can kind of comment on in terms of you know, similar to to your local delivery.
Anna Flockett17:50
Yeah, of course. And as a company yourself, you know, your local delivery, the team that set it up and digital beans, how have you found it having to adapt and change to this have weird new setup everyone's having to adapt it.
Unknown Speaker18:03
Yeah, it's quite frustrating. So my wife's company simply hair and digital beans has always been housed together. So you know, it just made sense. It always made sense from a financial point of view or commuting point of view to just have the business together. And it was in February that we actually took over the unit next door to where we are because those guys moved out. So we would our space we invested quite a bit of money in making the place look really good connected, the units put doors through, you know, actually made a significant investment to a nice call modern office and that work all finished on the day that I had to tell everyone to start working from home. So I'm so frustratingly for us we've now got, you know, twice the cost in terms of office space than we did before and we've got just pretty much just pay now all the work that has been done. And unfortunately, there's no one there to appreciate and enjoy the space and the nice new environment we've created. So that's a really frustrating, but in terms of, you know, working from home and and all that kind of stuff. Yeah, I mean, the team have adapted really well, you know, honestly, I'm, I'm, I'm kind of super proud of how everyone has been able to adapt. And that productivity has been really good and everyone has been pulling their weight to help Digital Beans get through it, and to try and get through this as strong as possible. You know, I think different members of the team on different days are slowly losing their sanity, including myself, where my wife and I also juggling two and a three year old in between trying to do some work as well. So yeah, our sanity is is slowly going, but in terms of a team and and being productive, it's everyone is doing really well.
Anna Flockett19:50
It's nice to hear when people kind of love pulling together and even though everyone's so separate I feel like it's bringing people together as a team, and just a little offside question, obviously this is more towards the end as Toby's been sighs and but how is the pandemic kind of affected the digital industry as a whole? Have you seen any, you know, massive changes is there? Obviously everyone's working from home and everyone's having to take their business virtual. So is there a massive spike in the whole like digital side? And
Unknown Speaker20:20
Yeah, I mean, yeah, it's interesting. So from our end, you know, going into this we didn't know what to expect because often we haven't been through something like this before as a company or as individuals, you know, marketing budgets always an interesting one because during a recession or during our time of uncertainty, it's an easy budget to cut, right so if there's less money around and and more uncertainty then the kind of natural thing is to cut marketing budgets, which is where Digital Bean sit, but equally, that's a great time to also expand, right. So if there's more businesses going under and still the demand there for your products, then it's just a great time to be able to leverage that providing you you're in in a position to be able to leverage that, so you're offering delivery or, or you can deliver your goods and services through other forms or digitally. So I was quite uncertain, I wasn't sure what would happen. So we have had clients that we've actually had to really scale back things for. So, you know, companies that we work for certainly within the construction sector have naturally seen a big hit when they haven't got their teams on site. So, you know, some some industries are more impacted than others. Whereas on the other hand, we've got other work that has come out directly due to COVID. So, you know, either people are looking to scale up because it's created an opportunity for them. But the bigger thing with we're sort of saying is that a lot of businesses have scaled down in terms of you know, there are less busy than perhaps before, but the the beauty in that and providing that the businesses are in a strong position leading, you know, up until now, the fact that we're all dealing with less customers is actually also an opportunity because it means that, you know, we can spend less time on the customer service and all of that time All of that kind of time consuming stuff. And if the business is in a strong position, well, now's a good time to invest in that business, you know, build a new site, invest in, you know, developing something bespoke that you've always been, you know, thinking about. So leveraging the fact that, okay, fine, there's less money going through the tools or digital tools. But actually, we've got more time, we're just not as strained on the customer service side or project delivery side. And you can actually invest time and money, your own business is something that we're seeing quite a bit of. So we've got a handful of projects where that's exactly how they've come about. So it's an interesting one, like I said, I think bigger picture digital, I think there's gonna be a lot more businesses jumping online after this. And just during this process as well.
Anna Flockett22:41
Yeah, of course. Definitely. And that takes me on nicely to our next question. What do you guys have planned for the future in terms of your local dot delivery? Will it continue after the COVID-19 process?
Unknown Speaker22:54
Yes, that's a question we keep getting asked. So obviously, at the moment, you know, we're putting our time in. Obviously, we're picking up costs to run their site and whatnot. So the project was always set up to run during COVID. for however long that takes, that's still our commitment. So, you know, providing that Digital Beans is still going in which you know, there's, there's no signs I won't be, and we can continue to afford to run it, then that's, that's what we're going to do. We have applied for some different grants to help us through this, it will also help us invest in some of the functionality that we we desperately want. So we can bring in some outside resources to help us deliver some of those things as well. So yeah, we're very much committed to very much looking to keep running it post COVID. I mean, yes, we'd love to run something like your local delivery, beyond COVID. But, you know, I don't I don't even know how far out we're talking about when we're saying post COVID. So for now, we're just trying to improve the platform help more and more businesses, and then we can kind of see where that journey takes us.
Anna Flockett23:55
Definitely. Well, it's such an amazing idea and obviously the fact that you've been able to kind of create this business and help so many other businesses in this time. It's just incredible. So thank you very much for chatting with me today. It's been a pleasure to learn about it
Unknown Speaker24:09
That's alright. Thank you. Thanks for your time.
Anna Flockett24:13
Cereal entrepreneur.