PAUL & NIGEL

WHO? Paul Cranwell + Nigel Fryatt

FROM WHERE? I BUY LOCAL

I (Paul) was born in Kenya and I spent my early years living on a tea estate because my dad worked for Brooke Bond Tea. Every week, my mother and I would head in to town to get groceries and other supplies. I knew and talked to everyone, which used to confuse my mother. She couldn’t work out how, as a young child, I knew so many people. The penny dropped the day she caught me stealing biscuits from the pantry to give to the local tea pluckers.

I didn’t plan on starting I BUY LOCAL, it just sort of happened. I was working on a website development project with Nigel and we started talking about a website business I had once developed back in 2000. As we were talking we realised that the model would work well today. So, after a couple of pints up at the Flemish Weaver in Corsham, we decided to set up a business and get started.

It was a good early lesson and I quickly learned that small acts of kindness go a very long way. Even later, as an adult when I started my sales career, I would arrive with gifts of biscuits and cakes for client meetings. Sugary treats and going the extra mile, it always goes down well.

We didn’t have a name to start with. The name ‘I BUY LOCAL’ came to me a couple of days later at 4AM – sadly, this happens to me a lot! Later that morning, I called Nigel, who couldn’t believe the URL was available. We bought the name and ibuylocal.co.uk was born.

We sell choice and convenience, offering an alternative channel to multi-national retailers like Amazon and larger national brands. Independent businesses should be part of the menu when customers want to buy online and have it delivered to their door. Our ambition is be the number one place in the UK to find the widest selection of independent retailers to buy from online.

My advice for starting a new venture is to have a plan, get advice from people that really know, and test your idea on others before investing. We’ve been lucky to have had a lot of help and advice along the way, including support from Lisa Merryweather-Millard, editor of Counter Culture, with brand design, guidance and ideas to keep us on track.

w ibuylocal.co.uk // t+f+i @ibuylocaluk

From p14 of Counter Culture Magazine ISSUE 01 2021