Naas based skincare company Pestle & Mortar have continued to flourish despite all the issues Covid has thrown their way.
With a product launch in lockdown and another release due next month, there is little stopping them after five years in business.
As part of our Boost My Business initiative, CEO Sonia Deasy told Fiona Alston of how past experience and forward thinking has helped them thrive.
"I suppose that we probably knew that it was coming because we do business in China, all of our components come in from China," explains Deasy.
"We weren't surprised in March when the schools closed but obviously, we did get a big shock as we've got five children."
"When we looked at everything and with the stores closed, we predicted we'd lose 30 to 40% of our business overnight," she says.
"We made moves immediately, we didn't sit around and wait to see what would happen. We had a team which we took off the road and we furloughed ten employees straight away," she continues.
"This isn't our first business, and we have experience from the 2008 recession where we probably made a few mistakes and we didn't react quick enough," she says.
"We do have a fully functioning e-Commerce business so that week we set out a plan on implementing a new website - which we're launching next week," she adds.
As the first week of the closures unfolded they found online sales were doing very well and they didn’t end up losing the 30-40% of business they’d initially thought they would - their loyal customer base had moved online.
"We don't manufacture we outsource. We have good forecasting generally we would carry at least eight to ten months stock. We have a really good supply chain so we don't have any stock issues," she says.
The local lockdown in Kildare is not having such an impact on the business this time around,. They are business as usual and due to the large office space, they can allow for social distancing when the whole team are in.
"We have a good digital strategy, so I suppose that all of that groundwork we put in at the beginning has paid off," she says.
"We are forward thinking, and we know that our brand now has to be multi-channel, we were always aware of that."
"It’s not like we only sold in retail and online was an afterthought, or only online and retail as an afterthought - to be successful you have to be multi-channel," she explains.
While they are not affected by the county travel restrictions, the country restrictions on travel out are putting the brakes on any new markets they had planned on for this year. Pestle & Mortar sell in 32 countries, so travel is very much a huge part of the business.
"If you can't travel it’s very anti-business. I’m usually in two different countries a month although I don’t really miss that," says Deasy.
"I don't know how our country can survive if we remain closed. You know, there has to be some sort of compromise as soon as it’s safe to do so - we cannot continue to live like this, it's not sustainable," she says.
"Hopefully, we will be able to, to travel and get out there next year. We've one or two markets where we need to meet with distributors to decide if they are the right fit for us," she explains.
While the business world have moved most cancelled overseas meeting to video calls Deasy feels that it’s not conducive when trying to seal the deal.
"There's nothing like a face to face meeting – you can do all the Zooms in the world but when you're signing a contract, and handing them your business, you really need to make sure they are the right partner for you," she says.
And that delays things slightly for gaining new distributors," she continues, "because we're certainly not going to sign with a distributor unless we’ve met them."
"Enterprise Ireland have been very good to us as they have put us in touch virtually with all of their offices overseas. We are making initial contacts through that for now until we can get on a plane," she adds.
