'Trellis' fills small business niche

By Rose Sgarlato SPARTA — With the help of Trellis, a new mobile platform connecting consumers to merchants in Sussex County, people can now text or transmit their Chinese take-out order or pizza delivery instead of being on hold. President and co-founder Kevin Kowalski is filling a local niche that has long been overlooked, launching the application from his home base of Sparta and neighboring Newton. “All the technology that is out there does not cater to small businesses; they have been left out,” said Kowalski. “90 to 95 percent of the time you are still calling or walking into a store in person.” An entrepreneur in the technology industry, Kowalski’s fifteen years of experience and success with his former consulting business, Cresting Wave, gave him the confidence to bring a new mobile strategy to market that has not been previously available. Kowalski has plans to optimize Trellis for traditional computers by the end of summer. Once activated, users click on the town they want and participating merchants pop up. With a few more clicks, users can view menus and place an order in real time. An option is also available to text orders directly. The Sparta businesses that are currently in the Trellis network are Café Pierrot, Casa Mia, Chicken Dun Rite, Cloveberry, Fu’s, Krogh’s, The Fit Experience and Villa Capri II. With the exception of the Fit Experience, which uses it for products they sell, Trellis is focused on restaurants where customers can place an order to be picked up or delivered. The functionality of Trellis is offered to the merchant at a monthly fee of $49.99 plus 25 cents per transaction. Using Trellis doesn't cost consumers anything. With just a few taps, an entire food order to Casa Mia can be ordered, paid for and delivered. A credit card can be used for payment on goods and services ordered or customers can pay upon pick-up. If changes need to be made, a text dialogue can be initiated through the application. Kowalski said health and beauty merchants are coming soon. “The reservation model will soon be in place where consumers can have a text dialogue to secure an appointment or reservation,” said Kowalski. “Replacing the phone calls that are pervasive in local communities and merchants is our goal.” Since 2011 Kowalski and his partners have been building the Trellis prototype and completing the research and development process. The testing period began this past January with limited users and minimal production. As the year went on, due diligence was done, and Trellis went live on July 2 and is available to all. Now Trellis is in a launch and growth stage. “We look to grow this into a viable company across all industries that help the small business community adopt a mobile infrastructure that will interact with any web enabled device.” For those who are looking to dodge the hassle of calling merchants, Trellis may be the answer. Trellis can be downloaded for free on the iPhone, iPad or the latest Android phones by visiting http://trellis.mobi in the web browser.