Kingston is the one place in this part of London where an independent business is judged against a national chain on the same street — and increasingly, on the same phone screen.
Our office is in Tolworth, around two and a half miles from Kingston town centre. Close enough that coming out to a shop or a venue is routine rather than an expedition — which matters here, because understanding a retail or hospitality business is much easier stood in it than described over a call.
Kingston is also the centre of gravity for where we are. A good share of the businesses we work with in Surbiton, Tolworth and New Malden either trade into Kingston or compete with something in it, so we see the same commercial pressures from several directions.
What we do
Working UK-wide — directly with businesses, and white label behind design and marketing agencies.
Discuss a projectKingston is one of the largest retail destinations in south London, which creates a commercial problem that smaller towns do not have. An independent here is not competing with the other independents — it is competing with national chains trading a few doors down, with their budgets, their delivery promises and their apps. A customer comparing you on a phone is making that comparison directly.
That changes what the website has to do. It cannot win on range or on next-day delivery, so it has to win on the things a chain is bad at: knowing what is actually in stock in that shop today, being easy to reach, click-and-collect that genuinely works, and conveying the specialist knowledge that is the reason to come to you instead. Most of that is a systems problem rather than a design one.
The rest of the local mix follows from the town being a hub. Riverside hospitality, where bookings and covers matter more than anything on the page. Professional and public-sector organisations around the borough offices. And businesses running more than one site or branch, where the awkward part is keeping stock, pricing and opening hours consistent across all of them without somebody updating three places by hand.
We do the same work wherever the client is — these are simply the parts that come up most often here.
Ecommerce for retailers, including click-and-collect and real stock levels.
Connecting the site to EPOS, stock and accounts across branches.
Booking and reservation systems for venues and hospitality.
A site that carries a brand built properly offline.
Much of our work is delivered white label or under agreement, so these describe the problem and the approach rather than naming the client.
A bespoke configuration module built on top of a standard ecommerce platform, so customers can order hand-made furniture built to their own measurements.
Ecommerce · DevelopmentBespoke ecommerce for a luxury coffee supplier — one-off purchases and recurring bulk orders, with accounts, history and simplified repeat ordering.
Web application · IntegrationAn API-connected membership platform handling publications, events and a two-way CRM sync — thousands of profiles and hundreds of transactions a week.
We take on work across south west London and UK-wide. Around Kingston that regularly includes Surbiton, New Malden, Norbiton, Hampton Wick, Teddington and Richmond.
Not just what it should look like. We will tell you what it would take, what it would cost, and when something cheaper would get you most of the way — before you have committed to anything.