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North Shore community wants local businesses to go digital

Wawa joins Google's ShopHERE program to put 100 business owners online
wawa townsite

Wawa has signed up for a Google program designed to help small and medium-sized business owners build the digital skills to start selling online.

With pandemic-related store closures hitting small and medium-sized business the hardest, Google Canada is spending $1 million to expand its Digital Main Street's ShopHERE program to municipalities across Canada. The target is to put 50,000 Canadian small businesses online this year.

Local businesses and artists can apply for the program at www.digitalmainstreet.ca/shophere to get their online store built.

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"It's a free program that's being rolled out across the country," said Shah Mohamed, Wawa's economic development director.

"It's amazing program for northern businesses to have the opportunity and be competitive in a digital marketplace."

The local launch of ShopHERE is a collaboration with the Economic Development Corporation of Wawa (EDC) and the Wawa Business Improvement Association (BIA).

The goal is to get more than 100 Wawa-area businesses online this year. 

To be eligible, participants have a registered business that is either home-based or commercial location. It must have fewer than 10 employees or fewer than 25 employees if a restaurant or bar. It cannot be a corporate chain or franchise.

“Wawa has a thriving community of local bricks and mortar and home-based businesses as well as artisans and artists that will benefit from the program” said EDC chair Andy Stevens in a news release.

"It will make getting online accessible and serve to support businesses and the Wawa Goose Nest Market vendors to access a wider market segment that was not available to these businesses in the past."

Wawa BIA chair Liz Talian Clarke said that "if businesses are going to thrive in the information era they must have an online presence that is attractive and functional."