We worked with Visa to develop a way of bringing entire high streets online and allowing residents to easily see what’s available locally. We basically thought wouldn’t it be great if you could quickly and easily see what’s available locally… browse and pay for local products as easily as you can via Amazon and other apps. Amazon for Indies!
Our pilot site for our High Streets Online initiative launched in Hebden Bridge and was warmly received by local businesses and residents. We’re quite chuffed with this, digitising high streets is something we have been thinking of doing for years now and the 2020 lockdown accelerated the need for this and focussed our minds into creating this ourselves. Local independent businesses could register on the site, tailor their shop front, add products and accept orders and payments online. Customers (local and anywhere in the UK) could browse or search by shop, product category or name and buy from several businesses at once with one easy payment, with local delivery, click-and-collect or orders by post.
This initiative was developed with support from Visa as part of their Where You Shop Matters campaign which you can read more about here.
This project has now been retired but you can see how this worked here: totallylocally.shop.
Our work and the site were even featured on BBC and ITV news leading to a huge spike in online orders, shops in Hebden Bridge were collectively fulfilling up to 100 orders a day from all parts of the country and even had requests from customers in other countries who loved the mandmade products they were finding on the site!
In Halifax we built on this and as part of a project for Calderdale Council to support residents of Halifax who need to isolate or are vulnerable from Covid19, we created a collaboration between ourselves, electric cargobike company CargoDale and Halifax Borough Market.
Local residents could now have food, drink and essentials delivered to their door for free, whilst still supporting Halifax’s local independent market and nearby shops. What’s more it is delivered via green energy so it is good for the environment too! This pilot scheme was made possible with funding from the Government’s Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) to help people who need to isolate to access good, fresh local food plus all the essentials they need.
Shoppers could go online at www.deliverhx.co.uk and order their shopping from many of the stalls from Halifax Borough Market plus a few shops across town, pay with one secure, online payment, and have free next day delivery by carbon neutral electric cargo bike. We also expanded the scheme to also deliver parcels from food banks to deliver to families identified by the food bank operators as needing to isolate.
Calderdale Council: “We recognise that having to isolate due to a positive Covid test for you or a member of your family can be inconvenient, and day-to-day living can mean needing to nip out to the shops. This is our solution to help you isolate or shield successfully and easily, while being able to support Halifax’s independent traders. It’ is also helping to create a green transport infrastructure for the town. It’s a project that has many positives for Halifax and the surrounding area”.
Shortly after launch, the government relaxed the rules concerning self-isolation so the scheme was opened up to anyone wanting local delivery from the site.
Here’s a little video we made that shows the whole process.
