A new digital platform being dubbed “Saskatchewan’s Amazon” is gaining popularity after launching last month.
Local House, a platform showcasing products from Saskatchewan companies has made supporting local during the pandemic a lot easier.
Co-founder Mike LePage says the idea came after doing some last-minute shopping for his fiancé’s birthday. He wanted to have products from local businesses delivered to her throughout the day.
“I got in touch with local businesses, and I was going through their product, they were sending either text messages of their product with pricing, or I was doing Zoom calls with them, it was a very, very tedious process,” said LePage. “It was just like I wished there was a ‘Skip the Dishes’ for local businesses in Saskatoon, and that’s where it kind of came about, that’s where the idea sprouted.”
LePage says he’s not sure if he would have had the idea if the pandemic never happened, but it definitely has boosted the support local initiative.
He says he wanted to provide a quick and reliable way for people to support local with the same ease as Amazon or eBay.
“Basically, what we wanted to do was, with our offering of same day/next day delivery services, was provide instant gratification for our customers,” said LePage. “The only way for us to compete with Amazon is to be as good as them. We may not ever be able to offer as many products, but really the only way for us to compete is to be as reliable as Amazon can be.”
While Local House services are only available in Saskatoon and Regina, LePage says there are plans to expand into smaller centres soon.
He says despite only being online for just over a month, the response to Local House has been overwhelming.
“We’ve had a lot of really, really, good, positive feedback from our customers, and a lot of good feedback in the media, and customers that haven’t even purchased too,” said LePage.
Anyone interested in becoming a vendor, or doing some shopping from home, can go to www.localhouse.ca