From Salon to Solo: How Tech is Changing the Face of Beauty Businesses

When an architect and a banker met while volunteering at a charity raising money for cancer, it set in motion a friendship and a project that has helped rehome over 1,800 families in need. We sat down with Renuka Fernando and Ben Stammer of Sydney-based not-for-profit,  ReLove , to talk about addressing a social problem with an environmental solution, and how Zeller is facilitating new revenue streams for the organisation. For the past six years, power duo ‘Ren and Ben’ have been active participants in the not-for-profit sector in Sydney. Having met running and volunteering at  CanToo , they quickly realised their heads were in the same place. After accompanying a fundraising group to the New York Marathon, they went on to set up a social running group that offered participants practical ways of giving back to the community. The Run for Good Project kicked off at the end of 2019, connecting runners with local grassroots organisations that help people in need and address important social issues including homelessness, asylum seekers, domestic violence, mental health, and First Nations causes. Home truths. When COVID lockdowns scuppered their social running plans, Ben and Ren held steadfast, finding new projects and initiatives to mobilise their community. While the stay-at-home orders were a good impetus for some to spring clean their homes and replace outdated furniture, for others less fortunate, it exacerbated a housing and domestic violence crisis. “We just connected the dots,” explains Ren. “We had gone out to visit one of the women's refuges in Sydney, and realised that, while people could still access social or transitional housing, they lacked the resources to set up a home,” she says. The duo began collecting donated furniture and homewares from friends and family with the goal of helping set up five women. Three years later, their initiative has evolved into ReLove , a registered charity and critical support service in Sydney that has helped rehouse over 1,800 families. “We thought it was a COVID problem, but it turns out it's actually a really critical problem that continues today,” says Ren. Recycle, reuse, ReLove. Since it began, ReLove has saved over 2,250 tonnes of furniture and homewares from going into landfill. “We've created an environmental solution to a social problem,” explains Ren. ReLove collects commercial grade furniture and homewares at scale from corporate relocations, companies with excess stock or return stock, hotels, film sets, property stylists, and individuals. Thanks to an army of volunteers, donations are sorted, stored, and distributed in the charity’s warehouse in Sydney’s South East, also known as the ReLove Free Store. It’s here that people who have been referred to the organisation by caseworkers can walk around and pick out everything they need to set up a home, for free. “We want to give people this really joyous experience… and allow them the opportunity to picture a new life the way they want it,” explains Ren, who says that 75-80% of the people they support are women who have experienced homelessness or domestic violence. Keeping the lights on. While ReLove is well on track to reach its goal of supporting 1000 families this year, the founders’ dream to scale the organisation nationally, starting with Melbourne and Brisbane, is at the mercy of funding. “It costs us half a million dollars a year just to pay the rent,” explains Ren, "but we can’t do what we do without a warehouse.” With the exception of six professional removalists and one operations manager, ReLove is entirely volunteer run, but it can’t stay that way long term. “We can't maintain and scale and make this national until we get funding to pay some staff,” says Ren. Philanthropy, grant rounds, and corporate sponsorship account for the majority of the organisation’s current funding, but Ben and Ren are actively building out alternative revenue streams that can generate income and help keep the lights on. In the past year, ReLove has begun running fundraising events and corporate volunteering programs, selling merchandise, and launching its Shop for Good – a store offering a selection of donated furniture pieces, which can be purchased by the public online or from the warehouse. Tap to pay it forward. Keeping costs down while also streamlining and maximising opportunities to take payments was what led Ben and Ren to Zeller . “We watch every single dollar,” says Ren, “and Zeller’s fees were way lower than what we were paying with the bank.” When they launched their first event in November last year – attended by 220 people – they needed a solution to accept payments for raffle tickets, merchandise, donations, and silent auction purchases, without footing the bill for dozens of EFTPOS machines. “We had our 20 volunteers using their phones to accept payments with Tap to Pay ,” explains Ben, “the ability to scale it up really quickly was fantastic.” Rather than paying for a single EFTPOS machine, the group simply had to download the Zeller App on each of the volunteers’ phones and enable the function. “That flexibility has been brilliant,” says Ren, “We also use Zeller to take payments at the Shop for Good and because we have so many volunteers, it needs to be simple. Zeller is so user friendly. I love it.” Lower fees and flexibility. Ben, who has spent over thirty years in investment banking, including a 17-year stint at Deutsche Bank, is no stranger to the financial sector. It didn’t take him long to recognise the shortcomings of the big four banks in providing not-for-profit organisations with the support they require. “The monthly fees, the ongoing transaction fees, and just the lack of flexibility were the reasons we switched to Zeller,” he says. “At the bank, for something as simple as switching on or off surcharging , you have to make a phone call, you can’t do it on the app… or when we needed to roll over an existing term deposit into a new one, we had to provide board approval. It’s just too much,” he explains. ReLove settles funds into Zeller Transaction Account and sweeps any excess funds into a high-interest-bearing Zeller Savings Account . “Setting up our Zeller Account was very very easy and straightforward,” says Ben, “Plus our team also uses Zeller Debit Cards as fuel cards, and they work really well for us.” The missing link. Working with limited financial and human resources, charities and non-profit organisations have a pressing requirement to identify and mitigate inefficiencies or profit leaks. As Ben and Ren have uncovered in their work, one missing part is enough to undermine a whole. “There’s a lot of funding that goes into crisis programmes around mentorship and trauma recovery… but none of it works when you're sleeping on the floor,” says Ren. Finding the missing links – in society, as in business – is the key to success, and so far, the founders of ReLove have demonstrated a remarkable aptitude for doing just that.

A varied cultural programme with multiple venues poses a unique set of challenges for event organisers, but it shouldn’t for payment providers. For more than 60 years, Adelaide Festival has been delighting audiences with a mix of theatre, music, dance, writing, and visual art from local, national, and international scenes. The two-week long event – which encompasses both Adelaide Festival and Adelaide Writers’ Week – has become an unmissable event on Australia’s cultural calendar and this year’s record numbers are testament to its ongoing allure. Bank services in terminal decline. Just one month out from the launch of the 2024 season, however, administration and payroll officer, Prue Miels, found herself in somewhat of a dilemma. As online ticket sales flew out the door, venues geared up for the influx of visitors synonymous with ‘Mad March’, and international artists and authors prepared to make their long voyage over to South Australia, the festival’s finance team were scrambling to find a way to accept in-person payments. “Our bank just told us, we're not doing this anymore, we're moving to another provider. They'll look after your short-term rentals,” explained Prue. “But when I contacted the new provider, they informed me that they only offered 12-month rentals,” she continued, “Yeah, great.” Zeller takes centre stage. For a not-for-profit organisation whose event runs for two weeks of the year and requires at least seven EFTPOS machines , paying monthly rental fees for these to sit in the cupboard for 11 months was out of the question. And so it was that they found Zeller , “I thought it was too good to be true,” says Prue, who was able to get a Zeller Account set up online instantly and terminals delivered within a few days. “It really saved us,” she adds. In an industry where decisions are made fast, and often at the last minute in the lead up to launch date, having a merchant facility that can be flexible and agile is essential, but increasingly difficult to find. Goodbye receipts and spreadsheets. As a government-run entity, Adelaide Festival is audited by the Auditor-General, meaning that every transaction needs to be accurately accounted for and able to be explained. Up to as late as last year, the process for this required Adelaide Festival staff to print and store every single EFTPOS receipt, after which it was Prue’s laborious task to reconcile each one. “I used to have about 20 brown paper shopping bags full of receipts, which I would have to go through and sort into date order,” explains Prue. “It wouldn't always line up… for example, if someone borrowed an EFTPOS machine from the book tent and used it at the box office without taking note of the machine’s merchant number, we’d have no way of knowing what transactions came from where. It was so much work,” she explains. Raising the curtain on efficiency. With Zeller Dashboard, every transaction can be stored and tracked in one convenient, easy-to-access online portal. The transaction amount, type, status, date and time, and site (where the transaction was processed) are all viewable and filterable. Plus, each transaction can have a receipt, transaction note, tag or category assigned to it to assist finance teams with reporting. “It's all so much easier now, because I can log in to Zeller Dashboard and look up the transaction,” says Prue. “We’re no longer guessing, so there’s much less chance of human error,” she says. No longer having to print every EFTPOS receipt has also helped align the payment process to the festival’s sustainability goals, “This year is the first year we’ve actually saved paper,” says Prue. “To say I am excited about Zeller is an understatement. It’s been so great.” More than a support act. When events are planned year-round, but their window for generating revenue is limited to the few days or weeks that the event runs, organisers simply cannot run the risk of losing sales to unexpected issues. It’s in this regard that Zeller’s local support gave Prue and the team peace of mind. “Someone came in and sat down and helped us set things up. That was just phenomenal,” Prue says. Having spent the last five months trying to change the authorisations on their bank-issued credit card, Prue is accustomed to the state of play with traditional banking services. “It’s just been so nice that Zeller is Australian and that there’s a person you can talk to. It was amazing customer service.” Powering Australia’s event payments. Adelaide Festival stands as Australia’s premier international festival, each year delivering a city-wide programme that spans two weeks and more than 25 venues. While operationally speaking, events of this scope and size pose their own set of challenges, Australian financial institutions have an important role to play in supporting them. Today, new payment technology can offer event organisers more flexibility than ever before, with an increasingly granular overview of sales data, which can be used to inform strategic decisions for the future. Zeller understands the needs of events-based businesses and is proud to be working hand in hand with them to support their growth.

Walking along Military Road in the Lower North Shore village of Mosman, you’ll be stopped in your tracks by a sweet smell of freesia and hyacinth, or by a friendly Italian shouting your name. Either way, you’ll know you’ve arrived at The Floral Craftsman. The man behind the craft is Matt Bisaro, a stalwart identity of the busy shopping strip, who’s floral arrangements have been gracing the homes, weddings, and offices of Sydneysiders since 2003. Taking to customer service like he does to a delicate orchid, Matt’s warmth and careful attention is a large part of what’s kept the business thriving for so long. And in an industry that’s not only physically demanding, but also fluctuates with the ebb and flow of discretionary spending, perennial success is hard to come by. Matt spoke to us about the changing face of floristry, the importance of relationships, and how updating his payment technology helped him navigate a challenging economy. A business rooted in relationships. “Hi Jenny! They’re $15 a bloom!” Matt’s voice booms across the shop. Mid-way through explaining what he believes is the key to The Floral Craftsman ’s long-running success, this interjection says it all. “It's just relationships,” he affirms. “Mosman is a village… they're very community and family focused. I come from a really big family, so it's normal for me. I like it, I like knowing people.” His infectious laugh and exuberant energy make it no surprise that people like knowing him too. And it’s not just his customers: “Staff love it. I do tend to keep them for a good five years or more… They might go away for a few years but all of a sudden I'll get a phone call and they want to come back! That has happened a lot with multiple staff. We always say there's a revolving door here. ” Investing time into training and supporting his staff while also building a strong rapport with his customers has fostered a supportive community that has helped propel the business through more than one economic downturn . Passion, hard work & quality. Reflecting on the tougher moments in the business’ history, he recalls the global financial crisis: “We survived the GFC. I thought we would go under,” he says. “That day that everything crashed, the phone rang and rang and rang. It was corporate clients and regular customers saying ‘cancel my credit card’, ‘cancel my order’, ‘cancel the flowers’... in one day, everything went.” Matt’s tenacity kept The Floral Craftsman afloat in 2007, as it did again when multiple seasons of drought and flood plagued the industry, and again when the global pandemic put a stop to all his event orders. “You just have to work hard,” he says, “I've always had that instilled in me.” But he insists it's also about passion, “I love what I do. They say if you love what you do, it doesn't feel like work. It does. But I still love it. 20 years later. I still love it.” Matt’s dedication to his trade doesn’t go unnoticed by his customers. The Floral Craftsman has become a trusted institution by individual and large corporate clients alike. “It's got to be about quality… these people know quality,” he says of his customers. “Even if I receive stock that’s not as great as what I’d wanted, I’ve just gotta wear it and try and use it elsewhere or buy something else. I cannot give that inferior product,” he says. The changing face of floristry. While Matt’s passion for floristry hasn’t changed, the industry has. Having started out as a “lackey” doing deliveries and cutting his teeth in the workroom, Matt’s initiation was starkly different from those entering floristry today. “Now, everyone does a course and then becomes a freelancer,” he explains. “Back in the day, we all had portfolios. Now, it's all on your social media feeds.” The younger cohort are bypassing the experience of working in bricks-and-mortar florists, which is not only making it difficult for Matt to find staff, but he believes it’s also not equipping them for a long-term career, “There are only a few freelancers in Sydney that have been around for a long time… they might last a couple of years, but the burnout rate is pretty big.” The other significant change is cost. Twenty five years ago, the Sydney Flower Market was the meeting place for hundreds of independent growers, today, it is largely a wholesale market. “Wholesalers put a markup on whatever they buy from the little guys,” Matt explains. “The other thing that's happened is that 60-70% of that stock in the flower market is all imported. From Holland, India, South Africa, Asia, New Zealand… so the costs have gone up again because of freight.” Add inflation into the mix, and you can understand why the bunch of tulips you were buying for $35 a decade ago now costs $65. “They should be about $70-$75 but I can't do it.” Matt adds, “I just can’t do it. For 10 stems of tulips, $75 dollars… It’s kind of laughable. They’re just flowers at the end of the day!” Fresh cut costs. In response to rising overheads, Matt says he’s always looking for new ways to cut costs. “But it's hard,” he adds, “I've had to increase some prices and then I've just got to bear the brunt.” One area, however, where Matt has managed to make considerable savings is through his payment process. Since using Zeller Terminal , he has not only reduced his merchant fees to zero through surcharging , but he’s also been able to welcome back customers using American Express “My favourite thing with Zeller is that I get the same merchant fee for AMEX. Because they do use AMEX more here. I used to have to refuse AMEX payments, and I lost people over it.” What’s more, being able to track his cash flow using Zeller Dashboard, and Zeller App on his smartphone when he’s on the go, has aided Matt in maintaining steady income, “What I love with Zeller is that I can just check in on my phone and see how the sales are going,” he explains, “For example, if we’re getting close to Thursday, I check how much we’ve done so far to make sure we’re on target. It's been the best merchant facility I've had over the years.” Coming up roses. “The one thing about this shop is that it’s got my name on it,” says Matt, “It is me, so it’s quirky and unusual and it changes all the time and there are no set rules.” Indeed, putting his name, as well as his pride and passion, behind the business has been The Floral Craftsman’s biggest strength. Having never relied on any traditional marketing, the business has instead invested in care: for its product, its customers and its staff. In conjunction with a lot of hard work and savvy decisions around cost-cutting and tech upgrades, Matt Bisaro has ensured that even in the most difficult of economic climates, The Floral Craftsman has always come up roses. To read about other Australians growing their businesses with Zeller, head to the Zeller Business Blog and sign up to our newsletter to receive stories straight to your inbox.