Rick Miller, a director for the Kindersley and District Chamber of Commerce, discusses a Shop Kindersley Online program.
Kenneth Brown
of The Clarion
Online shopping is having an impact on businesses, and the Kindersley and District Chamber of Commerce hopes to capture a part of that online market for Kindersley.
Rick Miller, a business owner and chamber of commerce director, came up with the idea to start a program to promote local businesses and to attract customers using an online platform. The chamber-led initiative will be known as the Shop Kindersley Online program.
Miller shared the idea with a group of people during a lunch meeting on March 1 in the conference room at the G-Mac’s AgTeam office on Main Street. Members of the media were invited to the meeting and he said it is important for the message to get out to those people who are shopping online. The goal is to get online shoppers to shop in town, he stressed.
He noted that he has been thinking about the idea since Christmas, and he chose to join the chamber’s board of directors with hopes of bringing the idea to fruition. Miller was sitting with family at Christmas when the idea struck him.
A group of women from the family were talking about all of the things they had purchased online. One of the women asked Miller for a donation to support a cause, and an initial thought was to make a suggestion to write a letter to Amazon. He said Shop Kindersley Online is about much more than a website.
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“It’s a cultural concept,” Miller said, recognizing that it is about promoting a culture to get people to shop locally. “It’s a thought process that we have to have the people that are buying online go to Shop Kindersley Online first – not second.”
He said local businesses give back to the community by supporting local causes and charities, but he doubts online shopping companies have given much back to Kindersley. He noted that people support local charitable causes by supporting local businesses and it is the culture he wants to promote. Miller said he believes people have forgotten about the concept, so he wants to remind them.
Miller shared various statistics he had found on the Canadian Internet Registration Authority (CIRA) website. The statistics included percentages for what Canadians are buying online, and the items Canadians are shopping around for the most using the Internet.
The CIRA statistics also showed results for people who prefer online shopping to shopping in a store, how often people compare prices online to prices in a store and the percentage of people who compare prices online yet prefer to go to a store to make the purchase. Miller said people could avoid extra fees, tariffs and other hassles by shopping locally.
There are other benefits to shopping locally. Miller said if people buy something locally and it is damaged, it would be easier and faster for the person to deal with a local business than it would to wait for all the steps it would take if dealing with an online company.
Miller said the online shopping program is in its infancy and he is not sure what it will look like in the end. The discussion focused on whether or not people will be able to purchase items online or if it would just be an online directory.
A person suggested it has to be more than a search engine because people could type a search into Google and local businesses will pop up. Miller said the discussion about what it will look like and include has not taken place yet, but the feedback from the initial meeting will help. What ever is done, it has to be done right.
“We’re going to make it happen,” he added, recognizing that 10 per cent of all business is done online and local businesses are missing out on an important market. “We’re not going to make it happen lack luster. We’re going to make it happen all the way.”
The next step is to send out a letter to all businesses in Kindersley whether or not they are chamber members, and then the chamber will conduct a survey of the businesses. The fourth step is to have a meeting with business owners, and the final step would be to create and launch Shop Kindersley Online.
Mayor Rod Perkins attended the meeting, and he said he believes Shop Kindersley Online is a great concept. He agreed that it must be done right and if it is done right, the idea could help to attract new businesses to the community.
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