(File photo/paNOW)

By Dawson Thompson

Shopping Local

P.A and District Chamber of Commerce creates online shopping portal for small businesses

Jun 30, 2021 | 5:00 PM

A new shop local initiative is being announced by the Prince Albert and District Chamber of Commerce thanks to community collaboration and grant funding from the federal government.

The project will consist of two parts. The first, being a series of professional videos that showcase locally owned, for profit businesses. The second portion of the project will be a multi-vendor shopping portal where businesses from Prince Albert and Northern Saskatchewan can sell online to their local community.

The portal is called www.princealbertnorthmarket.com and will be available to the public in the middle of August.

A recent survey done on behalf of the Canadian Federation of Independent Business (CFIB) shows 59 per cent of shoppers are spending less at small businesses during the pandemic, and more at big box stores and online giants. Despite this, 87 per cent said they wish they could do more to support small businesses in the community.

Jonathan Alward, CFIB director for the prairie region said it’s incredibly important to support local. Adding the online portal is a great initiative for smaller businesses to get out of the woods.

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The Chamber initially submitted an application including the idea for the project in December. They were approved in May.

“The reason we felt it is so important is because, it is the way of the world,” Elise Hildebrandt, CEO of the Prince Albert and District Chamber of Commerce told paNOW. “We found that not everybody is quite there yet, so we thought as a chamber what if we can create that opportunity.”

The grant funding from the federal government, is to support awareness building campaigns that promote local businesses. The amount of funding allocated to each chamber is based primarily on the percentage of small businesses in the area. The total of the nation wide grant is $33 million.

An investment of up to $7.2 million will be going to Manitoba, Saskatchewan and Alberta. The breakdown for the prairies is as follows:

· Alberta: up to $4,950,000

· Manitoba: up to $1,100,000

· Saskatchewan: up to $1,150,000

The Prince Albert and District Chamber is one of 13 separate districts in Saskatchewan the grant funding will be split into.

Businesses that wish to participate in the project need to connect with the Chamber.

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Dawson.thompson@pattisonmedia.com

On twitter: @dawsonthompson8