There has never been a more relevant time to be in the business of making people’s day. At a time when so many people feel isolated, lonely and anxious it’s incredible to see the outpouring of love, support and thoughtfulness that Victorians have shown through the simple act of gift giving.
Sending flowers and gifts is a way of being there when you can’t physically be there, it’s a ritual as old as time that has been revolutionised thanks to direct to consumer eCommerce businesses.
Mental health is new trigger for gift giving
Occasions such as birthdays, engagements, anniversaries and births are still driving huge sales, but mental health and wellbeing have become new triggers for gift giving. We see first-hand how small, thoughtful gestures can have a positive impact on people’s emotions and attitude, it’s why we started the business in the first place – to spread more happiness in the world. It’s humbling to know we’re playing a role in keeping people smiling throughout this incredibly difficult time.
Local supply chains save the day
Whilst COVID has posed many complex challenges for businesses a lot of the obstacles overcome in Lockdown 1.0 have paved the way for success with the latest round of restrictions. We’ve always placed huge importance on having a local supply chain and we’ve reaped the rewards for that recently being able to rely on our Australian suppliers to not just maintain but increase their output so that we could continue to service escalating customer demand. It’s been a very different story for businesses who have relied heavily on international imports so we count ourselves very lucky.
New duty of care of employees and customers
Our biggest focus throughout the COVID crisis has been on protecting the health and safety of our team and our customers. It’s a difficult path to navigate when your duty of care to every stakeholder in your business changes completely overnight. We have spent a great deal of time and energy developing and evolving our COVID safe plan over the last few months so that we can continue to operate safely. It’s something we’ve taken a very transparent approach to and stayed in constant communication with our customers about. Measures we’ve introduced include contactless delivery, tripling our warehouse space to maintain social distancing, split-team operations, mandatory PPE equipment and extensive cleaning schedules.
Scaling down is the new scaling up
Amidst the new normal of “lockdown whiplash” there has been a mass shift to online shopping which we don’t expect to disappear, but there is no doubt that temporary periods of lockdown create an amplified level of demand which will inevitably rise and fall to the rhythm of state based restrictions. There’s a risk that if businesses can’t scale down as quickly as they scale up it will create crippling cashflow issues because of high operational costs. It’s a whole new retail landscape with a whole new set of rules. Being flexible enough to pivot up and down at breakneck speed will be what makes or breaks many online businesses.
Hannah Spilva, Co-founder and CEO, LVLY
