North Bay's One Red Maple is stepping up in hopes of boosting the "Shop Local" initiative by creating its own delivery service for local businesses.
Beginning this July, the North Bay tech firm has elected to provide customers with free same-day delivery from all participating local independent retailers in an effort to boost local spending and create a more convenient shopping experience.
Currently, the list of stores participating in delivery includes The Engraving Shoppe, Creative Learning, Cheapskates, The Annex, Bay Brims, Laporte’s Nursery & Greenhouses, Vested Interest, Junior World and Source for Sports – with the intent of additional retailers joining in the coming weeks.
It doesn’t matter if the purchase is made in-store or through the One Red Maple app or extension, it can be delivered either way.
“We’re trying to level the playing field between our local independent retailers and Big Retail corporations,” explains Mark Sherry, president of One Red Maple.
“Delivery is a big part of Amazon and Walmart’s user experience, so we’re trying to match it. If we can give shoppers the same convenient services, they’ll be more likely to support our local stores.”
One Red Maple’s shop local initiative is built upon the development of their mobile app and browser extension. With the extension, consumers can search for any product on any retail website, and instantly find a local match and compare prices.
Recent findings from One Red Maple’s data collection go a step further.
“We've gathered and compared millions of product data points so far, and I can tell you unequivocally that shopping at locally owned stores is actually less expensive more than half the time compared to big multinationals,” said Sherry.
“People have no excuse not to at least use the One Red Maple web extension to instantly compare the products they see on their favourite Big Brand’s site to their local retailer’s offering. If they still buy the least expensive product 100 per cent of the time, they’ll be shopping local more than half the time and keeping more dollars in their community. Think of the impact we could make on our communities if we all just dared to compare!”
Local spending certainly is in the best interest of Canadians. According to a report published in October of 2022 by leading Canadian shop local advocate, LOCO B.C., and the research firm, Civic Economics, an estimated $389 billion leaks out of the nation’s economy every year as a result of consumers shopping from non-local multinationals.
“Obviously we’re not going to recover all of it, but even if everyone just shifted to 10 per cent more local spending – that would be nearly an extra $40B per year staying in Canada. We'd be boosting our economy by $1,000 per person,” expressed Sherry.
“We’re trying to find the key to revitalizing our local economies. Whether it’s through offering free delivery or exclusive local discounts – whatever it takes. We’re not going to stop. We’re like The Little Engine That Could, only this time it’s a white Ford Bronco driving around town fulfilling deliveries.”
For more information visit please visit oneredmaple.com, or go to your mobile and browser store to download the app and web extension.
