Businesses working to connect customers to local options

WINNIPEG -

With many Manitobans turning to online shopping during the pandemic, organizations have created new options to keep Winnipeg and southern Manitoba businesses afloat.

Online shopping has grown during the pandemic, resulting in organizations creating options to help keep businesses in Winnipeg and southern Manitoba afloat.

Good Local was created by Winnipeg entrepreneur Obby Khan. The site features hundreds of Manitoba vendors and merchants.

"I came up with the idea of what if I was to make an Amazon, but local,” he said. “And have an online platform where people can order everything they want local and have it delivered to them in one box."

Local grocery chain FoodFare sells groceries on the website. Then, Good Local delivers the orders from its warehouse.

FoodFare Owner Wajih Zeid said the partnership, “just makes life easier.”

“We'll get orders from 15 to 20 to 30 people every single week and we make one delivery. We don't have to deliver to 15 different people,” he said. “We make one delivery and Good Local takes care of the rest."

Since launching at the start of the pandemic, Good Local now partners with more than 400 vendors selling 10,000 products.

Success like that paved the way for similar local online businesses.

Joshua Vatnsdal converted an old ambulance into the “Prairie Flavours” mobile store. Customers buy made-in-Manitoba products from approximately 75 vendors on his website, and then he delivers the orders within Winnipeg and in southern Manitoba.

“We have so many wonderful products here in Manitoba the people just aren't aware of, and that's the whole point of Prairie Flavours. It's just to get more exposure,” he said.

Hayley Williams started selling her sweet and spicy infused pepper jellies commercially when she launched "Fancy Infusions" last February.

She says teaming up with Prairie Flavours - which sells her products on its website and at local markets - was a no-brainer.

”His business having a website is just another avenue for me to sell my product,” she said. “And for us to sell our products together, like when you buy jelly from me and him, you're supporting seven other local businesses.”

Khan said he wants people to keep supporting local even after the pandemic ends.

"It's really exciting to see that people during the pandemic have really jumped on this local bandwagon,” he said. “But we need to make sure they stay on that bandwagon and we continue to expand and grow that as we come out of this pandemic."