Hackathon Births Alert Level 3 Small Business Saviour

Over the weekend hackthecrisis.nz saw almost 1000 kiwis participate in a completely virtual hackathon. With 210 submitted ideas and 55 teams, the weekend saw Millions of lines of code written and very little sleep. However, in rapidly shifting times some of the most innovative, ‘Economy-life-breathing’ solutions of this Lockdown were produced.

Uncertainty killed the cat.

With so many New Zealand businesses on the verge of extinction we need an injection of community spirit and backing to save our locals. Uncertainty fosters inaction, in-action promotes stagnation.

The barrier, of course, is Alert level restrictions. The purpose was to discover high impact, lightweight solutions that could be rolled out quickly to get Small New Zealand Business back on its feet.

Swiftly.nz - one of The Weekends fan favourites, delivered a lightweight online store front for ANY business that could be setup in 10minutes, require no online experience or knowledge, and get local business selling to local residents immediately.

Driven from a cookie addiction in Team-Swiftly, they produced a solution out of a “need” for their team to order cookies from their local cookie shop. The Cookie Shop’s ‘Swiftly Page’ allows users to click and collect from their local store.

No tricky integrations or complicated systems means that business owners use their current Point-of-Sale and payment methods to process the order.

The Death of Foot Traffic

Remember when we used to ‘go online’? Back when we lived offline and occasionally went online. The world has changed forever. We now live online and occasionally ‘go offline’.

With this rapid change of behaviour (forced or otherwise), local businesses lost 100% of foot traffic overnight. Digital traffic is now the most valuable commodity. Having a Digital shop front is a must for any business to survive the next 12 months, let alone surviving the lasting effects that these alert levels will have on New Zealand’s shopping behaviour.

Without the usual resources businesses would have to craft beautiful custom web experiences, that take months to plan and thousands of dollars, New Zealand Businesses need to be able to trade with their regulars as soon as regulation allows.

A Sense Of Normality

Swiftly, on the surface, is a lightweight, click-and-collect online ordering store front. But take a little look deeper and you will see a valiant attempt to band with the little guy, the local bakery, the florist on the corner, and bring a sense of normality back to our daily lives.

A Coffee from your local, A Pie from your local, Flowers for mum from your local - All at the tip of your fingers.

Swiftly is now available completely FREE. Forever. At www.swiftly.nz

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