Shopping online has reached epic proportions, and today (Black Friday) is evidence of that. People aren’t running out to the High Street, they are just logging on and clicking. Which is great news for larger retailers with an online presence / ecommerce, and bad news for gorgeous local shops. But it is not all doom and gloom for small businesses: enter cool new French startup called Get, founded by Adrien Touati and Deezer co-founder Daniel Marhely. Get allows local shops to ‘get with the times’ in terms of technology and modernise their retail approach.  

What does Get let you do?

• Get lets you build a white-label app in less than an hour for free. More importantly, Get handles the ordering and payment parts (which is key to understanding the startup’s strategy). Get doesn’t rely on a traditional software-as-a-service approach. You don’t have to invest tens of thousands on agency to build an app. Instead, Get gives you an app for free and then takes a cut on every transaction.

• Get is building a same-hour delivery service similar to Amazon. It would appear the company is building this service in-house, as it is currently recruiting runners and a runner manager on its website. Clients like Fauchon, Lavina and L’atelier de L’Éclair can use Get to deliver to anyone in Paris in less than an hour.

• Get is also building its own app to deliver fresh products to your doorstep by leveraging its delivery service.

With Get, you can expect to get flowers, bread, a Christmas tree, breakfast and more – but not restaurant deliveries (as they think this is an over-crowded space already).

The white-label approach combined with the delivery service will probably convince many shop owners who didn’t have the time (or money) to look at an e-commerce option, or actually set up an app. The only problem is, they are only in France, and as far as we can tell, do not have an English-speaking arm, or product. Which means two things: a) you will have to wait until they get the English versions of everything up-and-running, or b) you will need to create your own start-up doing something similar in the UK before they do.

The question remains though whether people want to order their baguette online via an app, or have breakfast from the lovely little café down the road arrive on a motorbike half as warm as it should be. While we love the notion of helping keep High Street shops alive, we also think that half of the attraction to shopping on the High Street is the experience of walking down the High Street itself.

We believe the genius of Get actually lies in the notion of equipping small businesses with big business abilities, but without the initial financial outlay typically required, i.e. for an app development team, or a fleet of delivery motorbikes. We found that at least with regard to business phone systems, this is exactly what the small business market wants—to have what larger companies have, but without paying a huge amount upfront. And as this trend continues from everything from business telephony to delivery abilities, small businesses will thrive, larger businesses will suffer and hopefully your gorgeous local shop will live to see another day—or better yet, a successful Black Friday.  

For more information on VTSL’s offering for small businesses, including no upfront costs and free installation, please email info@vtsl.net.