Connecting local businesses with the outside world
Challenges still abound after Hurricane Helene tore through Western North Carolina a little over a month ago. But one resource created by local leaders in economic development is aiming to put WNC businesses on the map and connect the local economy with the outside world.
“We know the different communities in our region, but people outside of the area do not,” said Leniece Lane, interim director of Rutherfordton’s Main Street Program and creator of ShopWNC. “By collectively covering all of Western North Carolina, we give them a one-stop shop for our entire region with links to each community and their businesses.”
After Hurricane Helene hit the region, communications were down for several days. But when internet and cellphone service began to return, there was an overload of information on ways to help the region coming from a vast array of sources.
“It seemed like every community was trying to get the word out to help their businesses,” said Lane. “Talking with others in the area that were struggling with the same issues, we collectively thought it would be great if all these were in one place, divided by community. That way people who wanted to help support our businesses or find out what was open and accessible could have one single source for finding that information.”
Lane built the ShopWNC site and has had integral help from Sylva’s Economic Development Director Bernadette Peters, Boone’s Downtown Development Coordinator Lane Moody and Joanna Brown of Mountain Bizworks.
“The challenge in my area was that, like most towns who avoided that extreme weather, we had to also work with the businesses who are used to having a lot of leaf lookers in this time of year in order to prepare for the winter where things are a little leaner,” Peters told the Sylva Town Board during its Oct. 22 meeting.
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After the initial shock of getting merchants in Sylva back up and running, processing credits cards offline while communications were down and connecting businesses to functioning internet services, Peters turned her attention to dealing with the perception that all of Western North Carolina was closed to visitors. She worked alongside Jackson County’s Tourism Development Authority, Economic Development and Chamber of Commerce to create a communication strategy so visitors would know that Jackson County was open for business.
“Visit NC and the entire TDA network across the state did a great job with color coding things based on roadways being open, cell service, grocery availability, fuel availability, that sort of thing, to have that check and balance system so people could see what they were getting into if they were coming here,” said Peters.
The ShopWNC site aims to compile all this information into a sort of services directory that provides a way for people to search by community, town or type of business for those that have online shopping. Businesses that are open but do not have online shopping are listed as well but have been separated out so that people who are just looking to shop online can easily navigate the businesses that provide that option. The site also lists service-based businesses.
“Julie [Donaldson, of Jackson County Chamber of Commerce] and I worked together to put all of the Jackson County businesses, as many as we could, in there,” said Peters. “It is still in the process of being fully built out.”
ShopWNC is still collecting listings for every town in Western North Carolina and is receiving business and community submissions daily.
“We hope this continues to grow and be a resource not only for visitors to find out information about our region, but also a resource for our region to help identify business and community needs,” said Lane.
Right now, the site has over 46 communities and over 730 businesses listed on its site. Since the site launched it has had over 7,000 visitors and several businesses have told Lane they have received multiple online orders from outside the region.
While the site began as a way to organize information into one place and help support small communities that don’t have the resources to build a similar product on their own, Lane and her team have identified other opportunities for the resource moving forward — communicating opportunities for grants, loans and funding, and collaborating across the region between different Main Street organizations, Chambers of Commerce and Tourism Development Authorities.
“We hope to use it as a communication and collection tool to help tie together other efforts and opportunities and make them known to the larger region,” said Lane.
