ShopHERE: Richmond Hill partners with Google to help local businesses sell online

City becomes second municipality in York Region to join the partnership

Yorkregion.com
June 12, 2020
Sheila Wang

Small businesses and artists in Richmond Hill can now launch an online store at no cost.

Richmond Hill has joined a Canada-wide initiative, ShopHERE powered by Google, to help local businesses sell products and services online with ease.

The city announced the partnership on June 9, becoming the second municipality in York Region that has signed up for the program, after the City of Markham.

“Even as businesses are able to open to the public again, being able to sell online will help them thrive,” Richmond Hill Mayor Dave Barrow said.

It is important to “spur the recovery” of the small businesses, which represent more than 80 per cent of the city’s businesses, the mayor said.

ShopHERE was created to help independent businesses and artists to build a digital presence and minimize the economic impact of the COVID-19 pandemic.

By applying at digitalmainstreet.ca, participants can not only build a free online store customized with their information, branding and logo, but also get training to support the business, including digital marketing, shipping and inventory management.

The new initiative was created as part of the Digital Main Street program which offers tools, resources and connections to trusted digital vendors.

Google Canada committed $1 million to ShopHERE in May to expand Digital Main Street across the country with a goal of building 50,000 online stores by the end of 2020.

The program is “crucial” to local business and an “important part” of the city's plans for recovery, said Coun. Godwin Chan, who is the chair of the Recovery Richmond Hill Task Force.

He said the task force, formed on April 22, has been evaluating a range of ideas to help accelerate the city’s return to economic prosperity.

There were more than 5,000 brick-and-mortar businesses in Richmond Hill as of mid-2019, according to the York Region Employment Survey.

A significant portion of these businesses have had to close their doors, lay off employees and struggle to stay afloat.

The city has implemented a series of measures to help local business mitigate the challenges and prepare to reopen.

Visit RichmondHill.ca/BusinessHelp for more information.