The Tribune

By YOURI KEMP

Tribune Business Reporter

ykemp@tribunemedia.net

THE ShopLocal initiative will be extended through this month as the initiative’s director is looking for “the next big thing” to spur Bahamians into shopping at home.

Alannah van Onselen, ShopLocal initiative’s co-director, told Tribune Business yesterday that the social media aspect of ShopLocal is still “ongoing”, and the leadership team is discussing ways they can sustain the marketing push well into the summer period.

Ms van Onselen said: “We had a meeting yesterday morning to talk about it. The social media aspect is still going and obviously, it’s still an important message that needs to get out there. We were brainstorming yesterday on what the next steps would be and how to bring ShopLocal back to life again and start to come up with different ideas to get people’s attention again.”

Tara Morley, The Bahamas Federation of Retailers president and co-director of ShopLocal, said that they want to “refocus” and get more retailers on board with their plans. “There are some categories of retail that are doing okay and then there’s other categories that are not as strong now.”

The social media marketing effort has been a strong part of ShopLocal’s efforts over the last four months since it launched in November, something Ms van Onselen said is still “very important.” She said: “But at this stage it is still on social media, and it’s still promoting ShopLocal and putting on products from different stores and including stores that didn’t necessarily sign up.

“Even if you weren’t necessarily a vendor in the beginning, we’re still trying to include some of the smaller businesses as well to get the word out there.”

“After Christmas there’s a bit of a lull in our retail seasons, so we’re just looking at now what our next big thing should be and how we could get more momentum going and get more involvement and keep the momentum going.”

In the run up to the last Christmas holidays, prompted by the COVID-19 shutdown where most businesses were closed for the majority of the year due to the restrictions, ShopLocal launched in November as a way to get Bahamian businesses re-energized to capture some of the Christmas shoppers.

Organisers said at that time it would be an “education experience” for consumers by allowing them to appreciate that certain items like clothing and apparel are duty free and there is no need to shop abroad when they can help local businesses.

Along with the consumer education efforts, ShopLocal also assisted businesses with joint-marketing exercises like hosting commercials on their various social media platforms and also have small vignettes of particular retailers as a way to have their brands personalized for their target market.

Looking forward to the “next big thing,” Ms van Onselen said that waiting on the summer time for that big thing depends on certain variables that are out of her control. She said, however, “There is a bit of a boost for Mother’s Day, Father’s Day and then for the summer it depends on if people travel, so summer would probably be the next boost we hope.

“It’s been picking up definitely and we’re hoping that it continues to do so with the vaccines and with tourists and things like that.”

The ShopLocal initiative was originally scheduled to last only 12 weeks from November of last year, but Ms van Onselen said, “Because we have the extra budget, we will extend this until May of this year.”

Ms van Onselen also said: “I think our initiative was educational, and that people sort of realized the costs of doing business and some of the costs of the duties and made it more sympathetic to businesses here with regards to what it costs to do business here with regard to the importance of the fact that when you bring things in, and you buy them here, it’s basically the same.

“It’s the same price and I think it was good that people understand that. Shoes and bags and the end clothing are actually duty free, you just have to pay the shipping fees,” she said.