Dragons Den meets SHOCAL which aims at Saving the High Street and making Canterbury independents great again.
Hello, my name is Chris Parsons. I am the Director of SHOCAL Canterbury, which recently went live.
Local shops and restaurants are in a strange hold with the big delivery apps, they cannot live without them but they are being charged up to 40% in commission, SHOCAL is below 20% and a 100% of delivery fees and tips go to the driver.
SHOCAL’s story
SHOCAL started in Manchester June 2019, founded by two neighbours Max and Ashley. They were on Dragons’ Den in 2023, which is how I heard about SHOCAL. I liked the idea so much I decided to invest into what I believe is a great cause and business.
So, what is SHOCAL?
SHOCAL is a platform for all things local. Takeaways, tickets, shops, services and more… if it’s local, it can be on SHOCAL. We are a local community app/website – imagine Deliveroo, Amazon and Ticketmaster all combined, for local independent businesses, no big chains. SHOCAL delivers to customers within an hour or at a pre-selected time. We are also happy to list events that are free. Our goal: HELP SAVE THE HIGH STREET!
To top all of that off, we want to help the local community, such as donating to good local causes and other initiatives, such as allowing local schools and charities the use of our ticketing services for their own events for free. (Completely free even if it’s a paid event, they get 100% of the funds raised).
Recent Strikes:
Recently, drivers for Deliveroo, Just Eat, Uber Eats and Stuart all went on strike, over pay. I had a driver message me saying he was going on strike over pay along with other drivers, but that he would pick up any SHOCAL orders as we pay fair.
What makes us different:
- We are for all things local (we live locally and want to help improve our lovely local area)
- Only independent businesses (no big chains)
- Great prices – because we offer such great rates (most vendors’ prices on our app are the same or better than other platforms)
- Savings for businesses! In some cases our commission is better than half other platforms
- Majority of the money spent on SHOCAL stays in the local area
- Re-investing in local businesses – e.g. printing locally
- We meet with all drivers face-to-face
- Helping the local independent businesses