Interview - Steven Koch

Steven Koch

Last week, Click it Local, the delivery service hoping to help independent usinesses compete with the likes of Amazon, launched in Brighton, Uk

Already, 20 local retailers in the UK have signed up to the platform, including Barney’s Deli, stationary shop Pen to Paper, and pet supply shop The Pet Shed. For a flat rate of £3, customers can get the best these shops have to offer delivered to their door the very same day. This local delivery service will be looking to expand globally soon. Their founder Steven Koch says the company’s mission is “to allow independent shops to offer their customers all the convenience of online ordering and same day delivery, without the need to comprise the environment, local community and employee welfare.” We caught up with Steven for the inside story of the UK’s most exciting new enterprise…

Q Hello Steven! What is your business background? As a dyslexic individual, I’ve always thrived within the creative industry throughout school and my early career. You could argue my business acumen started in my early teens with countless ideas for ways to make my pocket money! But skip forward a few years, after graduating from Central Saint Martins, I started my career as an industrial designer, setting up a collective with other graduates who I still work with to this day. Then at 23 I set up my first design agency which specialised in retail design and strategy for many global brands. Over time, the agency began to focus on creating the future of retail through the integration of technology on the high street to innovate both shop and shopper experience. This background in retail and tech gave me the skill set and knowledge to create Click It Local.

Q What made you want to start Click it Local, and how did you go about setting it up? I personally love to buy from local independent shops and work really hard to make environmentally friendly choices about where I buy from and how I live my life. I’m also, like many others, faced with the challenge of juggling a busy home and work life. With four home-schooled children and a busy work schedule, limited time means convenience sometimes takes precedence. Current shopper behaviour and consumerism needs to change long-term and across the board to help ensure we all move to a more sustainable future. Whilst many see the value in shopping local in terms of sustainability and supporting the local economy, there is still a larger portion of the population who have no option but to rely on large online monopolies such as Amazon.

The way to change customer behaviour is not to change the behaviour itself but change the model that delivers and sources the product. This way we are able to provide everyone with a super convenient same day / next day delivery service akin to Amazon, but based solely on the local independent infrastructure.

Q Did you encounter any stumbling blocks along the way? Touch wood most parts of the puzzle have fallen into place seamlessly so far, in part because we are a very positive business which many people wish to be involved with, which is great! The team and partners are naturally growing as we scale up. One challenge with any marketplace is the need to gain critical mass of both customers and stores on day one in one area, so we are continually looking at fun new ways to engage with shops and shoppers to overcome the balance. How to scale, where to scale and how fast to scale is another continual internal battle we have. We know we need to scale in multiple locations across the UK and hopefully the world to become a true alternative to Amazon, but we are not prepared to compromise our ethics in order to do so. So our plan is to continue to scale up but not at the expense of our core ethics to support shops, local communities and the environment.

Q What has the response been so far, from retailers and customers? The response from both retailers and customers has been exceptionally positive, with many customers ordering multiple times from multiple stores. We have also had requests to bring Click it Local to other areas which we hope to be able to do in the not so distant future.

Q How do you envisage Click it Local aiding small local businesses?

We want to take away the common notion that the online retailer will kill our high streets and instead empower our independents to fight back and use the online revolution to their advantage.

Q Do you think Click it Local has the potential to really change the way we shop and to allow independents to compete with the likes of Amazon? Yes, absolutely! It’s all about levelling the playing field. With Amazon, you can buy everything in one place and have it delivered the next day, and now with Click It Local every small independent retailer can offer the same – and they can offer it ethically. “The power of the people is so much stronger than the people in power” – I believe the same can be said for independent businesses. Together we are stronger than the online giants!

Q Some people are saying the Covid-19 pandemic is really going to change the way we shop, speeding up the total transition to online shopping.

What do you think about this? I think Covid-19 will have a lasting effect on retail and change the way we interact with each other, but, on a more positive note, I also think that we will see many innovations, and many retailers and consumers adopting new technologies to support the sector as a result. The online vs offline retail battle we see covered in media should not be looked at as two separate entities where only one can survive. I believe it is more about a journey to a point that we no longer talk about online and offline and it simply becomes one seamless journey where both will coexist and complement each other.Click It Local seeks to create the best of both the online and offline shopping experience, without threatening or compromising independent businesses. As humans we seek meaningful, personal experiences, which is why physical retail will always exist.

Q The company seems to have a very strong ethical focus, in its commitment to zero emissions and paying a living wage. Could you talk a bit about this please? Do you have a vision of a fairer economy, with more companies prioritising people and the planet? There are too many monopolistic tech giants worth billions that are only viable, profitable businesses because they do not prioritise people or the planet. In my view this is not a sustainable approach, but a short sighted way to make big profits! Since the government are not putting in place adequate restrictions to force these types of businesses to change, we seek to demonstrate a business model that innovates an industry at scale, one that can be both viable and have a positive impact on the environment, the economy and people in equal measure.

Q What’s your long term plan for the business? To create an ethical business accessible for everyone, one that forces billion-dollar monopolies to re-evaluate their business models.