The coronavirus pandemic and subsequent governmental orders have forced many local shops and retailers to close business. The lockdown has resulted in huge losses for the retail market. Missing orders caused considerable financial losses and economic ruin over a longer period of time. Many local retailers do not have an existing online shop and shy away from the effort of creating one because they have no experience with digital sales and the corresponding payment mechanisms.
One regional platform
At lokalkauf.org, local business owners have the opportunity to present and sell their products online, free of charge and very straightforwardly, without having to create their own online shop. All they have to do is create a short profile in which they introduce themselves and their products, upload pictures and provide further information on opening hours, contact and delivery.
On the website, the customer can easily search for his “local stores” using the postcode search and a filter function to contact the business. “We would like to have our favorite shops, favorite restaurants around the corner even after the Corona crisis. Hence we have decided to act now,” states Friederike Seidel from the executive committee of the association.
Hacking for the locals
“lokalkauf” originates from the “#WirVsVirus Hackathon,” initiated by a cooperation of the German government and actors of civil society. In approximately 48 hours, more than 28.000 participants have developed innovative and digital solutions to counter the coronavirus-related challenges for society.
“We are a group of developers, industrial engineers, project and innovation managers, who have searched and found each other at the Hackathon of the Federal Government,” their vision: to create a non-profit platform that will help local retailers throughout the coronavirus crisis. Their #WirVsVirus pitch video further presents their idea of local online shopping, including subtitles in English.
“#WirVsVirus hackathon” video pitch
Friederike Seidel further declares,
“with our charitable action we want to protect German city centres from bleeding and offer a clever alternative to large corporations such as Amazon. Everyone can participate – in the interest of us all!”
“lokalkauf” is now part of the “#WirvsVirus Solution Enabler” programme by the social acceleration platform “Project Together” and therefore working on successfully and effectively implementing their project on a broad-scale to positively impact as many retailers as possible.
About the “#WirVsVirus Solution Enabler” programme
The “#WirVsVirus Solution Enabler” is a six-months implementation programme for 130 selected innovative solutions developed for coronavirus-related challenges. The programme that is supported by the Vodafone Institute with startup funding, know-how and digital expertise, encourages projects from 12 action fields, such as health, everyday life and crisis management, to successfully implement their solutions on a broad scale. The Institute supports the project teams with individually tailored support by providing access to the Vodafone corporate network. Particularly the startup programme Vodafone UPLIFT with their PACESETTER offering supports the teams in the areas of IT infrastructure, public cloud, IoT solutions and individual consulting. The programme under the patronage of the Federal Chancellery has started working with the projects on April 8 of 2020. Find further information here.