Happy Holidays! It’s a busy time of year for retailers and everyone else. I hope you’ve found some unique gifts at your favorite independent shops and are enjoying the season. We’re looking ahead to 2013 and have in mind a great project for an intern.
Say you want to buy a gift from an independent shop. Local would be ideal but maybe you’re at work or you have a baby in your lap. You can’t really get out and about so you’d like to shop online. If you have a particular store in mind, you could google them and see if they have an e-commerce site, but wouldn’t it be nice to have one website that could link you to dozens of independent, brick & mortar retail shops’ online stores?
What are independent shops selling online today?
One of the reasons we created Little Independent was because we wanted to make it easier to buy from mom and pop shops online. We’re working to grow with more stores and sale item content but, right now, there are only 236 items listed on the site and not all of them are available online. (Some are listed, but available in-store or over the phone only.) There are definitely more than 236 items you could purchase right now online from small shops with e-commerce sites but I’ve never been able to find a straightforward directory of links to those websites.
There are some wonderful independent business directories out there, but they’re not curated to get folks right down to independent online shopping. When I googled “independent online shopping” I was please to see Little Independent come up on the first page. I also found this Racked.com article Get Your Indie On: The 38 Best Independent Shopping Sites We Could Find on the Internet. I’m not sure all 38 have actual storefronts, but it’s a start.
I’m looking for an intern to help develop a directory to make it easier to shop independent stores online. The ideal candidate would be someone who is interested in e-commerce and digital marketing. If you or someone you know would like to learn more, please contact me through our Get Involved page. Thanks so much and Happy Holidays!
