A new online marketplace is helping Alta. small businesses sell their products

A new marketplace has been launched online to help small businesses maintain sales during the pandemic.

The Alberta Chambers of Commerce have launched the Chamber Market, a tool that local vendors and manufacturers can use to sell their products in addition to in-person markets.

“We were only doing strictly farmers’ markets,” said Heidi Mirander, owner of Andys Beef Jerky.

However, Mirander has moved his business online to stay afloat. She said 70% of their sales came from the internet at the height of the pandemic and 30% from the live markets.

“We were very fortunate as a small business to be able to keep our doors open. “

“Albertans love to support the local and for good reason because when they support the local they are a very thriving community,” added Ken Kobly, President and CEO of the Alberta Chambers of Commerce.

About 67 cents of every dollar spent in a community stays in that community, Kobly said.

Longtime visual artist Trish McIssac said after retiring from teaching she decided to go back to school and become a full-time artist. What she wasn’t ready for was to market her work.

“We’re not very tech-savvy, we learn, but sometimes Facebook the complexity of the algorithms gets a little too much and all we really want to do is create the art and have someone come along. buy, ”she laughed. .

McIssac told CTV News the market is the “missing link” she needs to be able to spend her “time creating.”

Plus, “you get a lot more traffic, sometimes even more than in a live marketplace,” Mirander added.

“It’s like a mall, but it’s online.”

According to Kobly, hundreds of Alberta companies are poised to be integrated and the market will remain active for the foreseeable future.

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