Meet the company: Down Your High Street

The high street has been close to Dan Whytock’s heart ever since he worked on the stalls at his local market and that’s why he launched Downyourhighstreet.com in 2013.

With a sparkling new website and app due to be launched in Q1 2017, you can shop via all your favourite high street boutiques, jewellers, furniture shops, plus more in the comfort of your own home, (or click and collect at a convenient time).

I caught up with Dan to find out more about the Down Your High Street marketplace and ask him why independent high street retailers should be signing up to his site:

1. What does Down Your High Street do?

Down Your High Street is a bespoke online marketplace that gives independent, brick and mortar retailers the opportunity to showcase their products to a wider audience. The great British high street is the lifeblood of our economy but it’s been severely impacted by the rise in online shopping. We decided to flip that on its head by helping independent retailers get online too and create a dominant online presence, whilst keeping their physical shops alive.

For shoppers, Down Your High Street provides the freedom and convenience of being able to choose from thousands of products from reputable, independent sellers.

2. What are you doing to attract buyers?

We are really active on social media, which has been a great way to engage with new customers and boost our SEO efforts. We have over 20,000 SKUs listed on the site and every shop profile is search engine optimised to make it easy to search by location or product type.

We run regular email marketing campaigns and two types of newsletters, and the local press up and down the country have run stories promoting the website. We work with some of the largest affiliate marketing companies in the UK and are shortly launching a national TV ad.

How much traffic does your site have?

Our live website attracts on average 70k unique visitors per months. With our affiliate marketing strategy and launch campaign next year we expect to double that by our second quarter next year when the new site launches end of Jan/beginning of Feb.

3. What would your ideal retailer look like?

We work specifically with independent high street retailers so we’re keen to talk to anyone in that category, but our ideal partner sells interesting, bespoke products that you won’t find in larger stores. We love to hear from anyone who sells environmentally conscious or fair trade products too.

There are 3 types of retailer we work with; those who have no online presence at all, those who have a small online presence through social media and basic websites, and others who already have their own website but would benefit from selling on multiple 3rd party platforms.

4. What does it cost?

The yearly cost is £99.99 plus VAT and 5% commission on sales- this works out as less than £2 a week and enables sellers to use a platform where they won’t be undercut by online only retailers with no overheads like rent, rates and staff.

We also offer an additional service where providers can run adverts on the site for £49.99 + VAT for the year.

5. Which channel management companies do you integrate with (if any)?

We have invested in a brand new universal API that can be easily integrated with. The details will be ready by early January and every stock integration company in the UK will receive ad copy alongside a meeting to discuss joint working. We are still in the early stages of channel management but judging by the interest we’ve had so far we’re confident that we’ll be able to extend our reach even further in the new year.

6. Any announcements, strategies, or upcoming product releases this year or next?

We will be releasing a state of the art app in late 2017. We have high hopes for the app and believe it has the potential to become every shopper’s best friend- not only will they be able to buy on the go at the touch of a button, it’s fully interactive. This means that when they walk past independent retailers they’ll receive an instant notification of any sales and special offers.

We will also be launching a national TV advertising campaign over the coming months.

7. What else would you like to tell Tamebay’s readers?

We genuinely have the interests of smaller, independent retailers at heart and want to make the high street thrive again.

We’re a very vocal, friendly company and we really enjoy hearing what shoppers and retailers have to say. We welcome any questions or comments from Tamebay’s readers so if there are any ideas you have about how we can further improve our service, let us know. You can find us on social media on Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, and twitter so come along and join in the conversation!