Save our local small businesses

Kia Ora, thank you for being a part of the SOS initiative. 

This week we passed a really big milestone. We hit $1 million in sales on Friday, a great display of community support from your loyal customers. 👏👏👏

Welcome to those who are new - we send out a newsletter like this every week. We'd also like to welcome a few new supporters - Mercury, The Better Drinks Company, Saving Hospitality, and the French New Zealand Chamber of Commerce who join ABC Business Sales and Kiwibank in supporting the costs running the site. Thanks! (and we are always looking for more supporters if you are keen...)

I also wanted to introduce to the team behind SOS Business - these are the people volunteering their time to help. We got together on Friday night for the first time ever (most of us have never met!)

In this issue we will cover:

• Key Statistics
• Payouts
• Common Questions
• Getting ready for Level 3 and 2
• Offers
• How to get more people to buy vouchers
• Media
• Partners and Friends

Key Statistics

At the time of writing, 2pm 26 April 2020,

Total order value: $1,144,535.50! Check this out!!!



Cafes / bars / restaurants etc joined: 2300
Orders: 20,000+
Vouchers sold: 53,500+
Average order size - $55

These are amazing results - the orders are flooding in. We had a few big days of media (see below) and that certainly helped as the chart above shows, but we also know that when you put this on your social media it really makes a difference.

Payouts

We continue to pay out as quickly as we can; it can take a couple of days for payments to clear from the credit card companies, but we payout as soon as we can. Early next week we will do two payment runs to portion out all the voucher revenue from the huge Friday result, and then the weekend sales figures.

Remember that ALL the sales from the vouchers goes to you (less the credit card fees) - we are a not-for-profit here to help.

Common Questions

We keep a 'Frequently Asked Questions' section on the website - one for Customers, and another for you as Vendors, (and of course our Terms and Conditions)

The most common question is 'how will I know what vouchers I have to redeem?', so we will answer that here. Basically, when a customer buys a voucher, they get sent an email with a voucher and a unique code, like this:

They may bring in a printout, or have it on their phone.

A reminder that you can go into our Vendor Portal where you can track the vouchers, and print them out, or download a file for your POS system. We are also looking into ways we can track the voucher redemption on our vendor portal - keep an eye out for updates on our portal system.

Getting ready for Level 3 and 2

Last week we shared some Click & Collect options for your consideration.

We thought about possibly setting up something for our vendors to host their Click & Collect services via SOS however we know that many of you already use ready-made apps for this.

To keep things simple, we will be creating a directory on SOS where customers will be able to quickly find and locate vendors that are open at each Level and to order directly from them. 

We have created a section in the vendor portal for you to indicate at what level you will be open and if you will be offering Pick Ups and/or Delivery. This will then flow through to your listing on SOS in 24 hours to indicate this to customers. So if you want to be ready by Tuesday, please make sure you indicate this in the vendor portal by Monday afternoon. 

If you are still weighing up your options for Level 3 and 2, we have partnered up with SilverChef to bring you a few articles to guide you on your next steps:

Best Apps & Ordering Systems for Takeaway and Food Delivery

How To Turn Your Restaurant Menu into a Delivery Menu

Offers

A number of suppliers have reached out to surface some offers to vendors. Some of these include Click & Collect setup to a digital mini-series. 

Take a look at these generous offers here: https://sosbusiness.nz/pages/offers

How to get more people to buy vouchers

The success of this depends on getting your customers to buy vouchers from you.

We're trying to get as much media and public interest as we can for the site and the idea, including placing advertising on key channels like Facebook and national news outlets.

However you will also need to promote this as much as you can. Update your Facebook page, Instagram etc with a link to www.soscafe.nz. Email or call your customers and ask them to consider buying a voucher. Find the local Facebook groups in your area, or the Neighbourly groups, and post about it, asking people to support you. Talk to your local newspaper or radio.

One of our top venues did a simple Facebook boost to their followers, and saw a great response (check how many times it was shared!)

 

Now is a great time to be leveraging social media platforms to drive engagement (and voucher sales!) 

If you've been wanting to clean up your Instagram and Facebook profiles but haven't had the time to, it's the perfect time to do it now. Your customers will be stuck at home, same as you, using their social platforms more often than usual.

Make it easy for them to find you and talk to you, so that you stay top of mind. 

If you haven't already, read this article on How To Level Up Your Instagram Game written by kiwi Instagram specialists Ace The Gram.

Media

As mentioned, we've had some amazing media this week, which has really driven engagement and awareness... Check out this story that 7 Sharp did on Friday night - this helped propel us well over $1m in sales!


Social Media
Our main social media platforms (Instagram and Facebook) have 8000 followers in total and is really busy, with lots of engagement and referrals - if you are posting, remember to tag us in on @sosbusinessnz. We are always looking for good content to share, so follow us and tag us in your content and we may feature it on our social.

Other PR
We've also been amplified by organisations like Zomato, some local economic development agencies, and hospitality supply companies. There is so much support for you all! Any new ideas welcome.

Partners and Friends

We have partnered with a few like-minded people to help take SOS to the next level so that we can support small businesses around New Zealand better. 

We would like to welcome Mercury, Phoenix, Saving Hospitality, Uprise Digital and the French New Zealand Chamber of Commerce... They join Kiwibank, ABC Business Sales and Neighbourly as key partners for SOS Business.