Solenco – in its current form – started in 2006/7 “as a result of some consulting work we were doing for a UK based company who was then the largest domestic air treatment appliance importer and distributor into that country,” says the company’s Bianca Leonard.

‍EHS International wanted Solenco to find a distributor in SA for their products and “while there was a lot of interest in the products, no one was willing to get involved. So we decided to take the business on,” says Bianca.

‍Why did you get into ecommerce?

‍The products that we initially imported – dehumidifiers – were not really known in the domestic market. While there was knowledge of commercial units, no one really understood what the reason was for buying a dehumidifier.

So initially we started the website to educate the market. We created the interest and then passed the customer onto the retailers through whom we were selling the range. We then had several requests to sell to people who were nowhere near any retailer and this prompted us to start selling online.

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Why did you choose Peach to be your payment gateway?

The most important factor for a payment gateway choice is trust.

The customer needs to trust the payment method, the information that is given, and of course the management of money. Ditto from our side, but added to that is that we needed someone who would be both efficient and effective in the process through our website, and for us to receive the money as soon as possible after the transaction.

The other factor was cost.

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How has business been during lockdown?

We have seen massive growth in our online business, more than likely more so because of COVID-19.

Do you sell globally?

We sell globally but not via ecommerce channels – yet!