Lianne de Beer started her from-home catering service, Party Platters, to take advantage of her passion for food. “I enjoy trying new ideas and am always looking for a delicious recipe to add to my selection,” she writes on her website. She offers a wide variety of customised platters of freshly-made food, delivered to your door.
When Lianne started out, she depended on friends, family, word-of-mouth referrals and flyers. Business was good, but not spectacular. She had always wanted to go online, but was discouraged by the high costs of creating a website and maintaining it. However, when she recently went online via South African Businesses Woza Online, the impact on her business was immediate:
"Before that, I would have on average of four jobs per month with an average of two-to-four platters per job. In the first month of my website going live, I had 18 individual jobs, with an average of five platters per job!”