‘Businesses were really getting hit hard’
Laurier student aims to help local shops with new online marketplace OptLocal
WATERLOO REGION — A walk through Cobourg’s downtown core sparked Joshua Ethier’s idea for a new e-commerce marketplace for local businesses.
Home from Wilfrid Laurier University last year as the pandemic raged, the student took a walk from his isolated rural home to the town’s core and saw most of the familiar shops locked down.
“It was kind of the moment I realized that the pandemic was real and that businesses were really getting hit hard.”
Determined to support local stores as best he could, he went home to order a few things he needed. And that’s when the frustrations began.
“It took me, I think, two and a half hours to go from website to website to find the products from local businesses,” Ethier said.
“It was hugely inefficient.”
It would have taken 30 minutes or less to find the same items from a single big box store.
Ethier set to work developing OptLo- cal, a new one-stop, user-friendly site that lets businesses list goods or integrate with their existing websites and inventory and allows consumers to purchase from multiple stores in a single transaction. Items can be shipped or picked up in-store, which drives foot traffic to brick and mortar locations.
It’s set to launch in Waterloo Region on Nov. 8, ahead of Black Friday and the holiday rush, with plans to expand Ontario-wide; Ethier is in the process of signing businesses onto the platform.
Now in his second year at Laurier, the 19-year-old began developing OptLocal last year and is working on it full time as part of the StartUp Lab entrepreneurship incubator program.
He wants to give people who desire to shop local the convenience that big box stores provide while offering businesses that may not have a significant web presence another avenue.
“From a business point of view, our goals are to decrease their workload while increasing their sales.”
As a single web entity representing multiple businesses with more content, Ethier said OptLocal will be in a better position to rank higher in web searches than individual smaller businesses could on their own.
He’s also planning targeted marketing campaigns on behalf of participating businesses.
A standard version is free to join, with a 15 per cent commission on sales. A premium version carries a monthly fee plus a 2.9 per cent commission.
Lad Terban, who operates Wooden Toys by Ingrid and Lad with his wife, said he was drawn to OptLocal in an effort to give his business more online exposure.
“It’s a really good idea. You don’t have any upfront expenses,” said Terban, who has two locations at the St. Jacobs Farmers Market offering wooden toys and Russian nesting dolls.
He opened an online store more than a year ago but with another full-time job, he found he didn’t have the time needed to devote to it.
“I like to support young people who are trying to do some business as well,” he said.
“Young people who are in high-tech businesses, they know what they are doing. They can help you to grow your business a lot.”
As Ethier discovered when he went online to shop locally last year, customers aren’t as likely to try it again if the process isn’t efficient.
“Businesses are missing out,” he said. “I wanted to try to solve that issue that I faced firsthand.”