Meet my Localism

A New Online Marketplace is in the Works

“Local Amazon” is how Pam Tallon describes her latest project. It’s a multi-vendor online marketplace called myLocalism.ca, scheduled to launch in late 2021. As most of us know, it’s pretty easy to hit Amazon at midnight, pick, say, a red bowl or purple shoes from an assortment of vendors, click and check out, she says. “That’s what [local vendors] are competing against.”

As part of her research, Tallon put out a survey to find out how TBayers want to shop. One stat that stood out was that only 11.5% of respondents said that they like to shop at an individual vendor’s website versus a multi-vendor online marketplace. Tallon has been interested in the benefits and challenges of local commerce for years, but realizing that a small business owner was putting a significant amount of time running an individual website that only about one in 10 potential customers was interested in was startling. So, she started thinking. “We will create an online marketplace that will allow these vendors to actually compete on the field that they need to compete on. We will create this same sort of subscription fee as all the other large marketplace players, about $40 a month [and] they could list unlimited products.”

The goal is to create a seamless shopping experience, where you can go to myLocalism.ca, search for your item locally, whether it’s purple shoes or car parts or a puzzle, check out with your digital shopping cart and arrange shipping or free next-day local pick-up. Currently myLocalism.ca has one full-time developer and one full-time designer, and the organization is overseen by Tallon, who, in addition to her work with her urban garden company Growing North and running research labs at the Northern Ontario School of Medicine, also has a MBA and has run a website development company for New York and Boston business clients since 2008.

Part of her business plan includes giving back to the community. Within two or three years, Tallon says myLocalism.ca will donate up to 5% of its earnings to local grassroots organizations that are tackling basic human needs. “[It would] not only support the general economy, the businesspeople and the people that they are employing; it would also support the grassroots organizations that are trying to help everybody get back on their feet so they can also become a part of that viable economy and an active city.”

For more information, go to mylocalism.ca or visit Facebook @MyLocalism.ca or Instagram @mylocalism.