Convenience noun 1 suitableness, handiness. 2 a means of giving ease or comfort.

Convenient adjective easy to reach or use, handy. 

Have you ever paid a little bit extra for convenience? Of course you have. Convenience is takeaways, milk from the service station, or your windows or car getting a professional clean. 

Have you ever NOT bought something because it wasn’t convenient enough? 

Of course! The amazing butchery that looks devine, but is just not on your way anywhere. The gorgeous hand-crafted bowl you stumbled across on instagram, that you know your mum would love, but you don’t want to risk having it put in the post. 

Or, (potentially the hardest) the coffee cart that you saw AS you were driving past..if only your tired wee mind had known it was coming up so you could safely and easily pull over…

You can see where I am going 😊

How many of us would shop at smaller places more often, if we could more quickly find them, their location and availability options - i.e. their convenience to you?

Before I launched Passmebuy, people I tested the idea with talked A LOT about convenience when shopping small. 

They gave examples of how shopping small could be made more accessible and hence convenient to them. 

With Roadside Stalls for example, being able to see stock availability ahead of time, where the hidden side-street Stalls actually are in relation to the movements of an upcoming day, and knowing the price and ways to pay before committing to heading to a particular spot.

But hang on, many small businesses are operated as a side hustle, or weaved around raising children…how on earth can a small business owner deliver a “convenient” offering by the standards of today’s consumers?   

I believe it’s all about options. Not all access, at all hours, but clear information on how your offering can be accessed, and that information being easily available to potential customers. 

If you are a small business or venture (that doesn’t have a traditional, main street shop), there are a handful of ways you can reach, interact with and sell to your customers. The most common being…

• Online - either through your own website, or via a number of fabulous sites that have been built especially to pool together small businesses, for easy browsing by potential customers. 

• In person, at markets. The beauty of pooled offerings, in person, at a predictable time and place. Markets and the wonderful experience they provide, have been a part of societies all over the world for thousands and thousands of years.  

• In person/place, as availability and situations allow. An unmanned roadside stall or vending machine, defined hours from home or manned mobile & pop-up shops. 

The first two options have had convenience enhanced, thanks to the pooled nature on offer - a consumer can browse lots of choices in one place, at ease and comfort. 

But what if a buyer needs to hold something in their hands before committing to a purchase and doesn’t trust the care, speed nor want the extra expense, of the post? Shopping online certainly fills some people with ease and comfort, but not all!  

What if they have a clear idea on what they are after and need, but the market doesn’t have that stall there, the week they need it? Or, the market is too many days away from when the desired item is wanted or needed? This uncertainty or delay, can count against ease and comfort. 

And lastly - what if that gorgeous bowl that was wanted for mum, was actually made by someone that lives on the way to work, but this just isn’t known or obvious?

What if you could easefully see that this was the case, and then arrange a rough time with the seller to purchase and pick up the bowl? 

Small makers and growers have not had a mechanism to meaningfully share the information of where they could be found, at an organised time. 

There has not been a pooled forum available, like the dedicated small business websites, or markets. 

Yes, small growers or makers may share their address on a Facebook Page for example, but the information holds little convenience unless the buyer already knows that road/address and its location in relation to them. 

If they are able to see that location immediately on a map however, the convenience the location has to them can be quickly established. 

This is why Passmebuy exists. We are here to pool and make more conveniently available, the information of firstly where, and then when, your small business can be accessed by existing and new customers. We are here to offer a new option of experiencing comfort and ease, while shopping small. 

We are here to make information that is currently inconvenient to access, convenient to access.  

The proof is in the pudding for me - here’s a wee video (on Instagram) of all the Places I shopped at in the first few months of starting Passmebuy that I didn’t know existed beforehand - despite them all being local and accessible to me. 

Passmebuy is about enhancing the convenience of shopping small - it’s about adding another option to the repertoire of how small offerings are found and shopped with, to help them more easily reach existing and new customers, so that they may grow and flourish as much loved members of our communities.