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Meet Jackie Mulligan: The tech entrepreneur innovating to save British high streets

As online retail giants such as Amazon constantly offer us new, innovative ways to shop, British high streets continue to suffer.

Entrepreneur Jackie Mulligan believes she has a solution to regenerate footfall to the high street, encouraging both natives and tourists to support local business.

This solution is Shopappy, a website which allows users to order and collect shopping from local retailers, daytime or evening.

As someone who often travelled for work, Jackie would return to her home in Saltaire, Yorkshire, to notice struggling shops and vacant retail property.

Following the closure of her favourite shop in town, Jackie decided something needed to be done to support local retailers and encourage people to look closer to home instead of online.

With an idea that just wouldn’t go away, she took the leap to leave her full-time job as a Director of Enterprise to launch the business.

Launching in Saltaire and Otley at the beginning of December 2016, Shopappy connects customers to independent retailers and is currently in full swing across eight towns in Yorkshire.

Jackie Mulligan, Founder, explained: “I felt very passionate that we needed to do something and we’ve got to stand up for the high street and with that idea I had I thought, this is one solution.

“It’s not the entire solution, because there’s bigger issues, but one simple solution is that if you make it easier for customers to find you and shop with you, then your high street is going to do better.”

The main aim is to drive footfall to small high street retailers, through the convenience of ordering online and a click and collect service.

Jackie continued: “After a few weeks we found that we were getting thousands of users on the site and most of them were browsing, but then we started to get some orders.

“The browsing was really interesting, we looked at the behaviours online and saw that people were really having a good browse and looking into the shops.

“And then we thought, there is actually going to be a footfall impact on this as it was showing intent. When Otley then reported it had had an additional footfall, we could see that what we were doing was working.”

At the end of January, Jackie appeared on the BBC’s The One Show, which provided great results for brand awareness. People responded positively, with requests coming in from those who resonated with the business’ beliefs. This, according to Jackie, resulted in an enormous pipeline of town contacts which the business is still working through.

Fast forward to today and the site is continuing to go from strength to strength, with expansion plans on the horizon. With 8 towns already under its belt, Shopappy is hoping to be up to 20 towns by Christmas.

But with all new businesses, there have been hurdles to overcome as Jackie explains.

“Trying to sell a vision when I didn’t even have a website was quite a challenge. Independent shops are independently-minded and this is about thinking about a network rather than a single entity.

“The beauty of Shopappy is that you don’t have to have tech skills. It’s been designed simply and as long as you’ve got a smartphone and you know how to type on a keyboard, then you can do it.”

As the hard work continues to pay off and more retailers come on board, Jackie believes that her offering provides an ideal solution for busy families.

“When we launched in a village just south of Doncaster, called Tickhill, we started a new part of our site which is called Inspire Me which basically creates very convenient meal packages.

“My personal favourite is ‘in the dog house dinner’, which you can just click on and it’s got everything you need from your vegetables to your meat from the butchers and the wine -it’s your get out of jail free card!

“Inspire Me”, Jackie continues, “shows great collaboration between the shops and it’s really for the super time-pressed customer and families as well as the people genuinely interested in travel and just getting the most out of life.

“People are so busy enjoying their life and they really like where they live but they just don’t have time in their lives to do everything they want to do so Shopappy’s just providing them that ability.”

According to Jackie, it’s Shopappy’s ethos of ‘Happiness, Heart and Footfall’ which enables it to scale and stand out from the crowd.

She said: “There are people who have tried to do shop local websites and shop local initiatives and I think what they do is complementary to what we do, so we don’t see ourselves as competing - we collaborate with whoever we can.”

Jackie believes success for Shopappy would mean being the number one shop local alternative to Amazon, which in turn could create happier communities.

“Shopappy’s proposition is we’re going to people that know that it is better if they spend their money locally. They’ll be supporting local jobs, local produce, local suppliers and they’ll be reducing their carbon footprint. They’ll be able to pick up things and feel happier about where they live, keep the character of their town.”

As well as the value for residents, Jackie explains that the business can also benefit tourists seeking the best local experiences on their travels.

“When you’re a tourist, it’s good to find the local shops and you want to feel like you’re behind the scenes, so you’re seeing how it is. You want to feel that you’re in a different place, that’s why we travel isn’t it?”

People take pride in where they live and believe that the makeup of their towns are unique to their locality. A big part of that makeup, Jackie believes, is the businesses that sit on the high street.

She adds: “I’ve never felt more truly authentic than I do now, I’m making a difference and following a passion.”

You can find out more about ShopAppy by visiting: https://shopappy.com

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