Founder of Notonthehighstreet.com talks about Small Business Saturday, online marketing and the importance of shopping local
Do you think that Small Business Saturday has had an impact on small businesses which sell online?
I think it has absolutely had an effect. It's a brilliant way of shining the light on this talented, hidden army of businesses across our country and really asking the customer to look at how they are spending their money. Could they go up to the local high street, find a small business and have the same experience as they would online but actually interact with the owners?
I know that it will make a difference as Notonthehighstreet.com has been making a difference every single day, 24 hours a day, seven days a week for the past eight years. I think the public are now looking to buy something unique and have an emotional attachment to where that product was either sourced or made. Small Business Saturday is a great way of publicising this movement.
Why should people consider shopping locally?
I think that as an online marketplace supporting small businesses, we are slightly different to other larger online businesses. I'm not really here to say that you shouldn't shop online with these larger companies. They can be very convenient. I think really what I want to do is make sure that we, as a nation, don't forget how we felt when we were able to walk into a butcher and talk about how to cook a chicken, or go to a gift shop and discuss why you would buy this candle over something else.
We all love our heritage but if we're not careful it will disappear before our eyes and we don't want that as a country. This day really reminded us of what we love about shopping small, and helped us discover more local independent businesses.
How did you come up with the idea for Notonthehighstreet.com?
Notonthehighstreet.com was born through a smaller business that I ran about a decade ago, called Your Local Fair, where I brought together small, brilliant businesses from the local area and put on an event. I would also introduce businesses from outside of that area to the customers in certain regions and this is where we would run these small business shopping events.
They were a huge success when the sun shone but unfortunately it was quite old fashioned, because when it rained the customers wouldn't come and the small businesses weren't supported. So Notonthehighstreet was born from taking that small business event and just putting it on the internet. It's essentially a 24 hours a day fair.
What would you advise to small businesses looking to stand out from the crowd in online retail?
Small businesses that want to stand out really need to be very savvy to the ways of online marketing. We ask our businesses to be brilliant at what they do, make the products, source the products that we know our customers want and leave the rest to us.
If business owners also want to have a say in their own marketing, I think they really need to make sure that they understand the web, Google search and how important photography and written copy is.
If you had a shop window on a high street you wouldn't let it be tatty or rundown and it's exactly the same online. You must make sure that you put your best foot forward and present yourself very well.
What would you say are the main issues you faced with your business and how have you overcome these hurdles?
Some of the largest issues that we faced, we still face today. Luckily we've hit upon an area where customers and shoppers were crying out to find something unique and original online, but that presented its own growth issues.
How do you keep your business scaling through such fast growth? It presents cashflow problems, problems finding talent, plus there's making sure that you can scale the business just enough to deal with your growth but not too much that you're spending money before you need to.
It's important to find great people to come and work for you, and raise enough capital in the early days to actually support future growth.
Holly Tucker MBE is the CEO of notonthehighstreet.com, an independent online marketplace which she co-founded in 2006.
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