Published on the 23/03/2011 | Written by Newsdesk
Website builders Smallfish are offering to help small Christchurch stores affected by the quake to start trading online…
The Canterbury earthquake has had a devastating effect on local retailers. The Christchurch CBD is still cut off and scores of small businesses have been decimated by the quake and its after effects.
Wellington-based Smallfish, whose product makes it easy to build and run an online store, are offering their product for free to 100 shops that cannot continue trading because their physical store is damaged or inaccessible as a result of the earthquake. The offer includes 250 products for each store and the shops will remain free for 12 months. There is no set up fee, no success fees, and the $39 per month hosting fee is included. Smallfish will also promote the stores on their site and encourage New Zealanders to buy from them.
Smallfish director Shane Bartle says: “This is the best way that a small New Zealand business like ours can help.
Canterbury shop owners will be able to get an e-commerce shop up and running in less than a day and continue to sell their merchandise. By encouraging people to buy the products online, maybe we can help keep these businesses open until they can move back in to their physical stores.”
Whether they can access their product catalogue and digital imagery off a server under a pile of rubble may be another question.
If you are the owner of an affected Canterbury business and are interested in taking advantage of this offer, contact Smallfish at canterbury@smallfish.co.nz or visit www.smallfish.co.nz.
