Rob Heyns, founder of League of Beers. Photo by HumanIPO.
South African craft beer e-commerce business League of Beers believes a viable product is the key to success in online sales.
Founder Rob Heyns started the business in 2011 because of his love for craft beer. He considers it part of League of Beers’ duty to educate people about their product.
“We are also the link between the passion of beer lovers and the passion of beer creators,” Heyns said.
Considering his business at the forefront of craft beer and e-commerce, the realisation of the demand for craft beers has contributed greatly to its success.
“I learnt my viable product,” he said.
Whereas gift shopping has boosted sales significantly, building around data gained from website traffic has helped to improve the customer service.
He related the hard times of investing money without proper return, though profit started growing over time as the business scaled around the data.
“I realised it is not this long dream to become an entrepreneur and to launch e-commerce business,” he said.
When the sales started spiking, collaboration was needed to handle capacity.
Making use of the WordPress platform, together with solutions provided by WooCommerce and Yuppiechef, the scalability was soon possible.
“I wanted to partner up with people who shared our heart for customer service and our product,” he said.
Looking back, he believes the x-factor is not his technological skills, which was rather a shortcoming than expertise at that stage.
Rather, his ability to talk about what he enjoys and the feasible product around which League of Beers built the business which led to success.
“I am not a tech person, I am not a systems person. I like talking and drinking beer,” he said.
Heyns spoke at last week’s WordPress Cape Town community event on his startup journey with League of Beers at the Rocca restaurant in Cape Quarter.
HumanIPO reported on Nic Harambulous’s presentation about online sales and his most recent venture NicSocks.
