HUMBOLDT — Over the pandemic, local businesses have begun shifting their focus to marketing virtually, bringing more normalcy to online purchases.
Brent Fitzpatrick, executive director with the Humboldt Chamber of Commerce, said that if he would make an estimate on how many businesses in the community have turned to online marketing, he would say around 75 per cent.
“What I’ve noticed is a lot of businesses have looked to the virtual world and said, ‘This is where we need to go,’” Fitzpatrick said.
“This means looking at your business and saying, ‘Are we accessible online?’ ‘Can people find me online?’ ‘Can they do the business online then we arrange delivery, curbside or walk-in pickup?’ They’ve really had to look at how they can carry out the business virtually.”
Despite the reopening plans, Fitzpatrick said that being able to offer online sales is part of the tools a business owner needs in their bag to run a business into the future.
“There are a lot of smaller home-based businesses that maybe don’t have that, but I can say unequivocally that if they’re in business they’re looking at going to an online presence.”
One example of a business which shifted to online marketing is Diamonds of Detroit.
Olivia Coffyne, the owner, worked with a staff member over the first two months of the pandemic developing the online shop while the physical storefront was shut down.
“We had to start fresh, we did have the website already but the online shop part was brand new for us,” Coffyne said.
“We had considered an online shop before, but we felt the pandemic was the push we needed to take advantage of the changing times and shopping trends while still being able to conduct business.”
Coffyne said the process required contacting their website’s administrator, asking questions, setting up a PayPal, and taking individual photos as well as descriptions of all their stock items to list them on the site.
“Just getting everything up on the site, finding good quality pictures that would be suitable for the website was a challenge,” she said.
“We continually manually enter everything and maintain it through the store here.”
Coffyne found one use that the online shop was as a place for people to browse items 24/7 without the added stress of a storefront.
In some cases, the customers first check the online stock before visiting the physical store to ask questions.
“It’s not necessarily people are checking out on the website, we do get that, but a lot of them are coming in with questions or pictures that they’ve looked [at] on the website,” she said.
“I think it’s definitely the way things are changing to, and people are getting accustomed to online shopping, so I would definitely recommend it to most retail businesses, for sure.”
When appealing to customers, Fitzpatrick said there is “without question” that online selling makes a difference.
“When you sit outside Canada Post after the delivery truck arrives and you see the amount of boxes coming in over there, being able to shop online is critical for these small businesses in the months and years ahead.”
