With 60% of online marketplace environments, rather than individual business websites, a bunch of passionate South Aussies have created a solution for supporting local businesses.
Shop Local SA gives customers a local, online marketplace where they can purchase, knowing they are supporting local shops.
The platform has been built to provide SA business owners an opportunity to increase their sales and tap into a whole new market, and even offers support to get you up and running.
After the bushfires, and now into a pandemic, South Australian businesses with a limited online presence face economic loss with the inability to trade.
Shop Local SA has developed a way to combat that by building an online shop to sell straight to shoppers who want to buy local and have it delivered or collect in store.
An exclusively South Australian collective website showcasing businesses from the State’s metro and regional communities, many businesses from across SA have already signed up to the platform in sectors such as food and wine, craft beer and spirits, tourism experiences, art, jewellery, party supplies, fashion and beauty products.
Shop Local SA Sales and Marketing Manager Amanda Bridge says this self-funded labour of love has been built to bring business to locals and help to keep our community afloat.
“The marketplace connects local SA businesses with shoppers who want to buy local, but find it hard to find local businesses online. Research tells us that about 70% of Australians want to support local businesses, but can’t because many have a limited online retail presence,” she says. “It’s also challenging and sometimes expensive for businesses to establish their own online retail presence. They know that selling online is an essential part of doing business these days – and even more so following business closures due to COVID-19 restrictions. However, setting up a site and then marketing it to attract customers takes a lot of time and investment, which many small businesses don’t have.”
Shop Local SA, run by a small team based in Stirling in the Adelaide Hills, gives individual businesses their own branded online ‘store’ within an eCommerce marketplace solution.
The new shoplocalsa.com.au site can be discovered by customers from across SA and beyond.
“Over 60% of all online sales happen in marketplaces rather than from individual websites. Bringing South Australian businesses together in one place like this creates an online shopping hub that draws customers from around the whole State,” Ms Bridge says. “Our focus is on getting SA businesses and their amazing products onto the site as soon as possible so they can become accessible online for new customers and build some redundancy into their business models.”
To find out how to register your business, click HERE.
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