A new two part project from the Prince Albert & District Chamber of Commerce will help show off local businesses and open marketing opportunities through a local shopping portal.
The concept was created through community collaboration and grant funding from the Federal Government.
“We had an opportunity to apply for a grant that was initially put out for us back in December and we applied for two parts to create two parts that actually work together,” Elise Hildebrandt, CEO of the Prince Albert & District Chamber of Commerce, said.
The first part is a series of professional videos that showcase business owners who are locally owned with storefronts and are for-profit businesses.
The second portion is a multi-vendor shopping portal where vendors from Prince Albert and Northern Saskatchewan can sell online to their local community. The portal is called Prince Albert North Market, www.princealbertnorthmarket.ca and will be live Summer of 2021.
“Those when they are complete and actually ready to go out they will actually fit together,” Hildebrandt said.
“The reason we chose to apply for this grant and wanted to do it was because we know that Prince Albert has a lot to offer, but many people don’t realize that. They drive through for the lake and we get a lot of traffic because of that, so I thought, ‘how do we get people to stop or how do we get our own local people to know that they are supporting local when they buy at, for example, the Dairy Queen, that’s actually owned by somebody that lives and works in Prince Albert,” Hildebrandt said.
Hildebrandt said other examples of businesses that may not be perceived as locally owned but are include A & W and Wok Box.
The idea has been around for a while but the federal funding allowed them to create a better solution than they imagined.
“I was thinking how do we take that further> How do we show off more of our businesses? That was what caused us to put the request for the grant in and six months later we finally got the money to do it,” she explained.
The Chamber was one of several organzations selected to receive funding to assist small business in their COVID-19 recovery. The final amount of funding allocated to each chamber was based primarily on the percentage of small businesses in its region. It is part of a national investment of $33 million to support Shop Local campaigns across the country announced by Mary Ng, Minister of Small Business, Export Promotion and International Trade, on June 21.
“Different chambers put in for different (request) and some did not (get approved). We were one of a few who got approved for the money that we requested to create the online market, (and) we are pretty thrilled about that. I have an amazing team working in the background telling me how to put all of that together,” Hildebrandt said.
She explained that the shopping portal idea came from noticing how people’s shopping habits have changed because of the COVID-19 pandemic.
“Because of COVID I started searching a lot of stuff online, not because of COVID itself but because you couldn’t go out,” Hildebrandt said.
Hildebrandt herself has become really into redoing furniture during the pandemic and explained that she now does her searches online and when she does need something she has done thorough research and doesn’t take up time in a store.
“ You know what you are looking for. Now when I go to ask them a question at least I am asking a question with some intelligence,” she explained.
“I am able to support local but I am not taking up all of the time that maybe we did in the past.”
“And a lot of people converted, it has been happening over time but there is a lot of people who buy stuff online. So we were like okay how do we help our local store owners do that and keep it affordable for them,” she added.
They hope to have the portal live in August after they work out some more details.
“We are building it in so that they can ship across Canada and the US through Canada Post. So when out snowbirds go down for winter next year they can still call,” she said.
The local videos concept came from video posting that was done on the Chamber YouTube channel during the pandemic
“The federal government saw that and a number of conversations that we had with them and we thought what if you could do that to support outside of COVID. That was where that idea initially came from. (It’s) something that we were already doing, but they gave us the financial in order to bring in a professional crew to do the videotaping,” Hildebrandt said.
Local partners in the project include the Prince Albert Downtown Business Improvement District, City of Prince Albert, Prince Albert & District Community Futures and Community Network Coalition and Prince Albert Regional Economic Development Alliance.
Businesses that wish to participate in the project need to connect with the Chamber.
“All I would ask is that people would continue to support our local businesses, and then when this goes live, just take a look and work with us to help it. We have had everyone from the artisans who are creating local art to electrical companies calling and asking to be on the marketplace,” Hildebrandt said.
