A Delivery App For Local Businesses Created Amidst The Pandemic
Lokii is a local shopping and delivery app that provides same-day delivery of essentials, home goods, gifts, and more - all from local, small retailers in your community.
Have you ever gotten frustrated from ordering items halfway around the world, paying high shipping fees with long wait times, when thousands of quality products exist right outside your door? Lokki wants to help small businesses compete with big box stores by giving them effective retail technologies and help them to better leverage their physical retail locations in proximity to the shoppers.
Co-founder of Lokii, Polly Cannella, started her career in shopper marketing as an Account Executive working for brands like Oreo, Chips Ahoy! and Trident. There she led large scale retail initiatives across the US and saw firsthand the tools that large retailers have at their disposal. Now as a co-founder of Lokii, she is dedicated to bringing those tools and tech to independent brick and mortar stores. The other founder of Lokii, Ryan Cannella, is a software developer with ten years of experience building web applications. They are a husband and wife team and have been together for over 11 years and counting.
The pandemic helped kick-start Lokii's delivery feature. Some of their favorite shops were closing up and they didn't want that to keep happening across the map, so Lokii launched delivery in RVA. People were, and still are, apprehensive about going into stores but want to support their local shops. Co-founders also talked to several consumers who wanted to support local businesses, but high local shipping costs were a deterrent. The Lokii app fulfills that need and fulfills the orders faster than Amazon.
The difference between Lokii and apps like DoorDash or Postmates is that they are focused solely on food and do not support local retail economies. They have half-heartedly tried to introduce retail on their platform for years. Despite recent partnerships with large clothing brands like Banana Republic and Old Navy, they have failed to entice small businesses partly due to their lack of inventory management.
Because Lokii works with a small business's pre-existing inventory systems, there is no need for a merchant to re-upload products and manage real-time inventory. All of the products are synced directly with Lokii. This is vital for brick and mortars because their inventory is constantly changing due to simultaneous in-store and online shopping. Lokii is also committed to only featuring small, local businesses on their app, making their inventory unique and thoughtfully curated.
They expect to increase their staff to four employees doing both marketing and engineering, by next November. If they keep the same growth rate, they should be at around $5,000 monthly recurring revenue. They are currently in the Richmond, Virginia market but have plans to enter the Los Angeles market before next November. With 30 stores in 2 markets, they should be around $10,000 monthly recurring revenue.
Lokii needs help from their community raising awareness about the app. They have done some small paid promotions and giveaways that have helped raise awareness but still only have a small subset of the Richmond market who knows about Lokii. Sharing Lokii with friends, co-workers, and reposting their content on social media are great ways to support their mission. For more information on Lokii, to submit a small business, or to download their app, please visit their website at www.trylokii.com.
Location: Richmond, VA
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