E-commerce
It forced small businesses to compete on price with giants, ignoring management costs, shipping and required technical skills. For many local activities, simply out of reach.
Where it comes from
An idea born from the territory.
Sometimes it takes the right circumstances to see a problem that was always there.
How it all started
A consulting job that changed the perspective.
It was 2021, in the middle of the pandemic. Funds were allocated to help small merchants and artisans adopt tools that would improve their business. As an IT consultant, I was called to evaluate the proposed solutions.
What I saw left me puzzled. E-commerce platforms were proposed that forced the corner shop to compete with Amazon’s prices. Social pages were recommended, without explaining that they require constant content, paid boosts and skills an artisan doesn’t have — and shouldn’t have to have.
No one talked about the real costs, the continuous work these tools require, the margin that shrinks until it disappears. The moon was promised to those who needed simple, concrete things.
So I asked myself: why not put businesses at the center? Why not build something that truly helps them, without complicating and without reducing their margins?
The proposed solutions
What was being offered.
Social media
They demand constant content, graphic skills, paid boosts. And visibility only reaches those who already follow you — not who walks past without knowing you exist.
Marketplaces
High commissions, volume-oriented. Designed for those who sell a lot, not for the shop that has few products made with care.
The physical storefront
It only works for those who walk by. Whoever isn’t in the area — a tourist, a new resident, someone a few blocks away — will never know you exist.
The flip
What if the customer discovered you?
All proposed solutions had something in common: they forced the business to chase the customer — compete on price, create content, pay for boosts. But why not flip the perspective? Why not make the customer discover the business, naturally, in the moments when they’re already open to discovery?
These moments already exist. They’re brief and spontaneous: a glance at the smartphone, a quick scroll, a free moment. They’re the fleeting moments — small attention windows where content can become a real opportunity.
From that experience and this intuition, Fleety was born: a tool that puts the territory and those who work in it at the center. Not an e-commerce, not a social — something different. From fleeting to Fleety.
This is where Fleety begins.
Register your business and support a different way to connect customers with local shops.