Hassocks men launch firm to support independent high street businesses

Two Hassocks men have launched a firm to support independent high street businesses.
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Co-founders Jon Parr and Wayne Douglas are launching new tech start up highstreet.ly which is designed to help local high street shops sell their products online easily and for free.

Jon said when lockdown was first put in place he, along with Wayne Douglas and co-founders, Chris Chrisostomou and Michael Gill, saw how independent high street businesses struggled more than most.

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He added; “Whilst some national chains were able to focus on selling products online, we could see that many smaller businesses did not have the ability to do promote their products and take payment through an online system.

Jon Parr, left, and Wayne DouglasJon Parr, left, and Wayne Douglas
Jon Parr, left, and Wayne Douglas

“We knew that, whilst the e-commerce industry is saturated with apps and services, they often charge hefty fees that can make it extremely difficult for smaller businesses, like our fantastic high street retailers, to sell online at competitive prices.

“We wanted to do something that would help local shops easily sell and process payments online for free.”

Jon said the new e-commerce platform enables local shops and restaurants to easily build their own, fully bespoke, online shop and sell directly to consumers for free.

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Chief developer and co-founder Wayne Douglas said: “We’d already seen the high street suffering due to the growing popularity of services like Amazon and Just Eat, and now we see the pandemic is causing greater havoc.

“With many consumers now shopping online exclusively, and 59 per cent of customers saying they are more likely to start click and collect pickup after the pandemic, we wanted to make buying local products online as easy for customers as going onto Amazon.”

With no setup fees or hidden costs, highstreet.ly comes with a set of initial features to enable high street businesses to get started selling online, said Jon. There are also a number of additional features in the pipeline to help the team ‘empower the high street and bring the business back home’.

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