Pioneering technology platform designed for marketing, selling and delivery of vaping products.
Business overview
| Location | London, United Kingdom |
|---|---|
| Social media | |
| Website | www.clouder.co.uk |
| Sectors | SaaS/PaaS Digital Mixed B2B/B2C |
| Company number | 09780349 |
| Incorporation date | 16 Sep 2015 |
Idea
Introduction
Founded in 2015 at Imperial College London, Clouder is a pioneering technology platform specifically designed for marketing, selling and delivery of vaping products.
“Airbnb, the world's largest accommodation provider, owns no real estate. Clouder aims to become the world's largest vape store while owning no products.” - Tomas Zalatoris (CEO).
We are a marketplace in the same sense that Amazon is a marketplace: We empower 3rd party sellers to sell vape products on Clouder directly to customers. Vape sellers can sign up to our B2B order management platform and start selling in less than 24hrs without having their own website.
Clouder has three streams of business:
• Monthly recurring subscription service Clouder Club.
• 1-hour hyper-local delivery available in London.
• Worldwide postal delivery marketplace.
Intended impact
The UK vape market is projected to grow to £4.46bn by 2021. With 3 million UK vapers, and an estimated 7.4 million more wanting to make the switch, and the NHS promoting e-cigarettes this Stoptober, the timing for Clouder couldn't be better.
Clouder supports B2C, B2B, and C2C channels and is looking to cement its position as the core platform in the vape space.
The vision for Clouder is to become the world's largest online vaping e-commerce destination. By aggregating 60+ retailers under one platform 100s of products are ready to be shipped worldwide. Besides the UK, our platform has seen parcels flying out to Germany, France, Brussels, Ireland, Poland, Denmark, Latvia, Lithuania, Russia and Saudi Arabia.
Our strategy going forward is to focus on growing the Clouder Club subscriptions in the UK through aggressive marketing, partnerships, influencers and social media, while continuing to grow our hyper local 1-hour delivery and worldwide marketplace proposition throughout UK and Europe.
Substantial accomplishments to date
Over £200,000 has been raised from angel investors with an additional £126,000 being raised during our previous Seedrs round from 110 shareholders, reaching 126% of our target.
A large proportion of funds raised were from leaders within our space. This includes Charles Bloom, founder of Vapourcore and Vapourlites, and Aaron Taylor who founded Ecigwizard.
The marketplace was first unveiled in May 2017 at the annual Imperial College London Festival, where we exhibited at the Innovation Zone amongst a selected few startups. Our beta launch coincided with the London Vape Show, hosted by VapeFindr in August 2017. We have processed £36,000 worth of transactions since then.
The platform has seen rapid growth to 60+ sellers which include some of the largest manufacturers, distributors and vape stores including Vapourcore, Nasty Juice, Ecigwizard, House of Vapes and Le-Vap. In September 2018 we successfully launched our monthly recurring subscription service called Clouder Club. This business proposition leaves Clouder with a 30-40% margin outlining a direct route to profitability.
Stats as of 24/09/2018:
• £36,000+ of GMV revenue to date.
• 32,000+ unique visitors.
• 13,000+ social media followers.
• 2,300+ registered users.
• 1860+ products on the platform.
• 1550+ orders delivered to customers.
• 60+ sellers: stores, manufacturers, distributors on the platform.
• £23.68+ average basket size per order.
• 20+ Clouder Club monthly paying subscribers.
Monetisation strategy
“Our platform is an ecosystem which adds value to both B2C buyers and B2B sellers by providing an unrivalled PAAS solution to conduct flawless and secure trading.”
- Jonas Simanavicius (CTO).
Current revenue streams:
• 30-40% margin on Clouder Club subscriptions.
• 15% commission from each order through the deals section.
• 10% commission from each order (1-hour delivery, marketplace).
• 1-hour delivery also attracts £2.99 delivery fee from the store and £2.99-£5.99 delivery fee from the customer.
Planned revenue streams:
• Advertising within the Clouder Club boxes (leaflets, flyers, stickers).
• Allowing vape brands to tap into Clouder’s customer base for product launches and giveaways.
• We are currently alpha testing a digital distributor model for wholesale which will attract 10% commission on high volume orders.
Use of proceeds
We intend to invest the funds raised as follows:
• 70% Marketing.
• 20% Technology development and backend integrations.
• 10% EU & worldwide expansion.
The marketing funds will be used primarily for direct customer acquisition (50%) with the other 50% being distributed as such: SEO (20%), B2B partnerships (5%), trade shows (5%), affiliate scheme and referral marketing (5%), influencer marketing (5%), video content creation (5%), social media and blog content creation (5%).
Market
Target market
B2B - vape retailers, manufacturers and distributors with and without an online presence (from small independent sellers of vape products to large chains and brands).
B2C - regular vapers, those who are new to vaping and people switching from smoking.
Buyers have an unparalleled service proposition of a huge choice of products, customer reviews, 1-hour delivery and a monthly subscription service providing extraordinary value for money.
Demographics:
• Marketplace - price conscious, new and seasoned vape customers looking for specific flavours, kit or accessories in the UK and worldwide.
• 1-hour Delivery - customers living in London, many of whom are signing up to the subscription service.
• Clouder Club subscription - regular vapers wanting a no fuss curated selection of juice tailored to their preference delivered monthly.
We believe that during 2018 Clouder Club subscriptions will become the primary revenue stream for Clouder both in and out of London.
Characteristics of target market
Most ex-smokers start their vape journey at a local vape shop - they want to learn how it works, what to buy, and try out different flavours. Around 6 months later they know what they want and turn online to find a wider selection at better prices.
25% of vapers buy refills online with 20% buying devices - between £300 and £375 million being spent online per year in the UK alone.
We believe that in the UK, consumer behaviour is similar to that of passing trade for brick and mortar shops, a valuable but not loyal revenue. This is due to the same ‘bargain hunter’ mentality that drives vape consumers online in the first place.
At Clouder, 1-hour delivery has driven a repeat custom rate of 46.67%, while subscription has replaced the ‘try before you buy’ service found in retail stores. We aim for rapid, recurring revenues by consistently marketing our services.
Marketing strategy
Clouder has a comprehensive marketing strategy, which has allowed for rapid growth to 2,300+ registered users, 1550+ orders and 20+ monthly subscribers.
Clouder currently markets its service via:
• SEO.
• Social media.
• Trade shows.
• Email marketing.
• B2B partnerships.
• Field marketing.
• Word of mouth.
Post-Seedrs we plan to expand this to:
• Influencer marketing.
• YouTube and video content.
• Merchandise marketing.
• Referrals and affiliates.
• Phone marketing.
• Cross promotion.
• In-store promotions.
Competition strategy
Marketplace.
We are the pioneers of a vape marketplace model. There have been attempts at building a vape marketplace, but we believe they are behind Clouder in terms of partnerships and complexity.
Subscriptions.
The online subscription market has doubled over 5 years (McKinsey). Online visits to UK subscription box services are rising 30% year-on-year. Clouder can dominate this space in Europe with:
● Exclusive industry deals - to our knowledge we are the only UK company to use known vape brands in our subscription boxes at such low prices.
● Established sales channels and consumer base, ready to transform one-time buyers into full-time brand ambassadors.
● Fulfilment infrastructure in partnership with Vapourcore can scale up to 9,000 shipments a month.
1-hour Delivery.
To our knowledge, no courier network in London has the vape industry knowledge and product databases to tailor their offering to vapers. We believe vape stores don’t have the technology, infrastructure and support staff required to operate 1-hour deliveries at scale.
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