The Covid-19 pandemic has disrupted our lives in more ways than one for about a year and a half now and we are still currently dealing with lockdowns, restrictions and border closures.
Small business has been hit hard and especially retail and hospitality are suffering immensely as many businesses have been forced to (temporarily) close their doors on and off for the last year and a half, depending which state you are based.
However, for Pigeonhole founder, Johann Kim, where one door (literally) closed another one opened when he launched Hello Houseplants in the middle of the pandemic.
“We’d been selling houseplants in my Pigeonhole stores for the past few years, but never in a serious way,” he explains.
“As plants seemed to be the only thing that was selling in the days leading up to the final closure of all my stores, I thought ‘what if I could spread a little bit of joy by helping people buy plants for one another during lockdown and send them to each other as gifts’?
“I spoke to one of my nurseries who allowed me to take photos of all of their plants and using my smart phone we photographed their entire range, made a website and organised my JobKeeper staff to be delivery drivers.”
Fortunately things opened up very quickly in Perth where Kim decided to launch this business first and he found a small space in the city to open a popup store from―to keep the risk and commitment low but also to act as a marketing tool for its website and delivery service.
“We consider it to be Pigeonhole for plants,” he enthuses. “Pigeonhole is primarily a gift business and Hello Houseplant is plants as gifts. On our website you can add on a bottle of wine, gift wrapping, a personalised card and date specific delivery. So you can order a gift to arrive at your loved one’s house on their special day even a few months in advance.
“We’ve reduced our plant offering in Pigeonhole but have also opened Hello Houseplant near Pigeonhole stores so that they can play off each other and share customers.”
Hello Houseplant has now grown into three stores in Perth and one in Melbourne and a website servicing Perth metro delivery of plants as gifts.
It’s quite a feat for someone who had to (temporarily) close all of his 10 Pigeonhole stores and stand down about 50 staff at the height of Covid-19.
“Our stores are in Perth CBD, Melbourne CBD and then two major Perth suburban shopping centres. Our goal is to make plants accessible to the masses―bringing the plants to the people rather than people having to travel out to a nursery or garden centre to get beautiful plants. Our website at the moment is for our Perth and WA customers.
“We’ll expand our online services to Melbourne Metro shortly and then also look at incorporating an east coast postal service as we can ship plants up and down the east coast (though not from east to west or vice versa).
“Quarantine is tricky issue for us to navigate as strict bio security laws mean that it’s not that simple having plants cross state borders.”
Want to read more? Check out the full article in our spring digital magazine, which is out now!
