Why and How Towne is on a Mission to “Save Main Street”

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Small local businesses are the lifeblood of our communities. They are the mom & pop stores we grew up with, where everyone knows each other, that employs our friends and neighbors. Our country was built on entrepreneurs and small business owners realizing their version of the American Dream. They created legacies for their children to be passed down for generations to come. They are “Main Street.”

But Main Street isn’t doing so great right now. By itself, the push from local merchant associations and chambers of commerce just isn’t enough.

A Modern Day David and Goliath

Competitors like Amazon and Walmart have gradually changed the retail playing field to one that is foreign territory to many traditional shopkeepers – the internet. And, of course, they’ve dominated that space. In this David and Goliath scenario, small local stores don’t have the proverbial slingshot--the tools to compete in this arena.

Towne is on a mission to change that. By pooling small businesses together online and giving them the right tools and support, we empower them to go toe-to-toe with larger online retailers while still maintaining their local roots and continuing to benefit their communities.

Many local independent merchants lack the time, money, and/or expertise to bring their inventory online and deal with the marketing and fulfillment involved with e-commerce. By creating a collective of sorts, Towne can offer the expertise and operational support at scale that no individual store would be able to afford. In short, Goliath suddenly doesn’t look so big.

And people want their local, independent shops. Each shuttered storefront chips away at the Main Street they love. Case in point: Books, Inc. the last holdout bookstore on Burlingame Avenue (Burlingame California’s “Main Street”) closed in 2019. When an Amazon storefront opened down the street a year later, many members of the community were indignant. A corporate entity couldn’t replace the warmth and authenticity of the region’s oldest independent bookseller.

The Burlingame Avenues--or “Main Streets”--everywhere are the heart of their communities. I believe that if we all support our merchant neighbors by shopping local, the community as a whole benefits. Towne is all about making it easier for shoppers to get what they need when they need it from local stores so that shopping locally becomes a no-brainer.

Local Business Takes a Brutal Hit

We all know that the pandemic has been hard on small businesses. Retailers who already had an active e-commerce presence--primarily regional and national chains--were able to take online orders and offer curbside pick-up. Those that did not were left out in the cold.

We still don’t know the full impact of the pandemic, but some estimate that about a third of small businesses have closed. Many families saw their dreams--businesses they had been building, sometimes for generations--crumble under the weight of mandated closures and restrictions.

In October 2021, Census.gov reported that 23.3% of American small companies stated that the pandemic has had a large negative effect on their business while 43.2% stated it has had a moderate negative effect.

It has been tough. An estimated 61% of small business owners with brick-and-mortar stores saw a decrease in sales in 2020 while 78% of small business owners reported a decrease in revenues in 2020. This left many business owners struggling with increased debt. In fact, 79% of small business owners had outstanding debt in 2020.

This year, experts are predicting a higher-than-ever percentage of dollars going to online shopping. This leaves small businesses and retail shops at a distinct disadvantage because most rely on customers visiting their brick and mortar establishments.

The state of our local economies – and why we need to support them

Marketplace changes present a host of challenges for Main Street USA, but that doesn’t have to mean the demise of our independent, local businesses and their entrepreneurial spirit. There’s too much at stake here. There are so many powerful contributions that small businesses bring to a community. They:

• Enable people to work closer to home
• Boost the local economy
• Increase the tax base for funding community resources
• Create a more self-sustaining community that doesn’t rely on the big box chains as much or at all
• Help to shape the community's identity

Many of the small retailers that have “survived” the pandemic are not yet out of the woods. A report in September 2021 shows that 44% of small businesses don’t have three months of cash on hand. And 35% of small business owners had to use their personal funds via credit cards or savings to keep their business running.

Towne’s passion for helping Main Street thrive again

The Towne model, currently operating in San Mateo County, CA, is designed to level the playing field for small retail businesses. We have developed new technology that enables us to show our merchants’ inventory in real-time, we’ve signed up and onboarded nearly 50 merchant-partners in the area, and are now beginning to market the site locally. Once the model is proven here, we plan to expand into additional regions.

Our mission is simple. We work to help local commerce thrive so that local communities can thrive. Right now, our services areas include:

• Belmont
• Brisbane
• Burlingame
• Daly City
• Emerald Hills
• Foster City
• Hillsborough
• Millbrae
• Redwood City
• San Bruno
• San Carlos
• San Mateo
• South San Francisco
• Woodside

We have a robust online marketplace designed to boost business for local stores with best-in-class marketing, inventory management, customer service, and store-to-door delivery. While the focus is on local independents, and the site prioritizes their merchandise when a customer searches for an item, Towne also accommodates local locations of national and regional chains, such as Target, Nordstrom, and Walgreens, whose products can enhance the overall assortment available. They are, in their own right, contributing to the local economy by providing jobs and keeping tax money local.

We truly invest in our merchant partners. We sometimes spend dozens of person-hours helping them organize their inventory and setting them up to offer real-time online inventory updates. We also help with sourcing images and item descriptions and at times set up branded online storefronts for them – anything they need to succeed in e-commerce.

Bringing local stores online with local delivery benefits consumers, their communities, and the environment.

Shoppers have the security of knowing where their items are coming from (and that those items are *actually* there at a store nearby). They can have confidence in product authenticity and quality because trusted people in the community have curated these goods, ordered from reliable sources, and staked their reputation on the quality of what they sell.

Because the items are local, customers can get their purchases from multiple stores in as little as two hours (for a reasonable extra fee) or choose free next-day delivery. They avoid the potential delivery delays of traditional e-commerce companies, especially at holiday time when inventory goes fast and traditional couriers are overtaxed.

Communities benefit from the fact that the stores on Towne are storefronts first, allowing a rebirth in the vibrancy of downtown streets. This, in turn, strengthens community ties as people tend to congregate more in these centers. Communities also benefit economically with more jobs and more tax money to fund community resources.

Finally, the ecological benefits of reducing long-haul transport and avoiding excess shipping packaging are obvious. It’s a win-win all the way around.

These are difficult times for everyone. But it’s also a time for us to come together to preserve those things we hold dear – the things that make our communities unique. It takes the community to uplift the community. That means everyone working together in all our interconnectedness to support the local businesses that are the bedrock of our community. So the next time you’re thinking about ordering something online, choose to support your local merchants. Towne just wants to make that a little bit easier – and we are.

Towne is a mission-based start-up shopping site that brings together goods from local, independent merchants in a single online store with free and fast delivery to make it easier than ever to find, buy, and get products locally.

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