SANTA CRUZ – Local businesses and organizations are promoting a “shop local” model for Santa Cruzans this holiday season to support local and small businesses during the pandemic.
Santa Cruz County Chamber of Commerce is enacting a plan to keep shoppers safe and help local businesses stay afloat during uncertain times. By partnering with commerce organizations across Santa Cruz, Capitola, Pajaro Valley, Boulder Creek and Scotts Valley, they are launching the Shop Local Santa Cruz County campaign.
“We’re trying to get people to realize the retail industry has really suffered in Santa Cruz County,” said Casey Beyer, CEO of the Santa Cruz County Chamber of Commerce. “Anything we can do to promote the survival of those businesses is our goal.”
The Shop Local Santa Cruz County campaign launches Monday and will center around holiday shopping. The campaign promotes online shopping to keep people safe from the pandemic while being able to support local businesses during the holidays.
It’s not traditional online shopping. Instead of a catalog, shoppers will be presented with a list of local businesses that need support. With a simple click of the mouse, patrons can order a gift card to either pick up, receive in the mail or receive instantly in an email.
It’s not too late for businesses to register, either. Those wishing to register a business will need to be able to offer online gift cards.
Businesses that do not yet have that capability will be able to do so with ease. The Shop Local Santa Cruz County campaign included instructions from Square to help local businesses quickly set up a link to perform online transactions.
“A lot of those retail shops are come in, buy-in, hangout-type of stores,” Beyer said. “They aren’t really geared to the 21st-century buyer now. The pandemic is having to shift you to a new process.”
Shoppers and businesses interested in the Shop Local Santa Cruz County campaign can participate at rideoutthewave.org.
The more conventional online shopper will be more pleased to hear about the development of a new company, instock.org. In Stock helps small businesses by putting their stock online and allowing people to order products from local stores to be delivered to their homes or set aside for curbside pickup.
“It’s like local Amazon,” Beyer said. “In Stock is a program that is trying to help businesses get their stock on their website so that the inventory is searchable. The founder is a local guy.”
However, online shopping isn’t the only avenue for holiday shopping, this year. Stripe Design Group is hosting weekly Maker’s Markets to promote local craftsmen.
“In Santa Cruz, the local maker community is big and thrives. We wanted to offer our platform to local makers,” said Stripe Marketing Manager Anne Martinete. “Luckily, we have this outdoor space to accommodate that.”
Supporting local makers and small businesses is nothing new to Stripe. It has created a space for local creators to showcase their goods for years, said Martinete. Now, it has taken it a step further with the Maker’s Market.
Shoppers can peruse the assortment of items from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. every Saturday. The market is hosted outside of Stripe on Pearl Alley.
“When you can buy something like a wallet or gifts, small things, it’s cool to buy from people in your community,” Martinete said. “When you shop local, you know there are actual people behind the company, and they live in the community. When you shop local, you help your neighbors.”
This isn’t the first time Santa Cruz has come together to help local businesses when disaster struck, said Beyer. Santa Cruz County was the epicenter of the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake. The earthquake devastated local businesses, even bringing some to the ground.
In an effort to keep the community strong and local businesses afloat after the earthquake, the chamber created a plan to get the affected businesses back on their feet. Similar to the current landscape of Pacific Avenue at Cathcart Street, business was conducted out of tents in downtown Santa Cruz.
“It saved the downtown,” Beyer said.
Now, the community is looking for ways to save local businesses again while they are in a time of need. Whether it’s through the Shop Local Santa Cruz County campaign or the Maker’s Market at Stripe, the community has shown its dedication to uplifting its neighbors.
“I think it’s going to be a lifesaver for a lot of companies,” Beyer said. “If we do it successfully, I think it’s going to prompt people to buy locally more than they normally do. In some cases, it’s going to be a make or break for some companies.”
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November 22, 2020 at 05:15AM
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Santa Cruz organizations support local businesses during pandemic, holidays - Santa Cruz Sentinel
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