Website sells local to mostly locals

[attach]2721[/attach]Shopping local has gone viral.

Bloor West residents Shirley Fairley and Susan Wild launched [url=http://www.100MileFinds.com]100MileFinds.com[/url] last December. The site connects local buyers with local artisans, crafters and manufacturers, most of whom are within a 100 miles of the city.

Visitors can search for locally made items within 25, 50, or 100 miles or use “the sky’s the limit” option, and can further customize their search by selecting certain categories and sub-categories, such as For Her and Clothing. A new e-commerce function that launched in August allows users to buy some items online through the site.

“It’s really hard to find local talent,” says Fairley of their reasons for starting the business.

On the flipside, trying to get your name out there when you’re a micro-producer is hard, she adds, as many don’t have a storefront or an advertising budget.

She would know. A family portrait photographer, Fairley says she’s had so many parents she’s met through her kid’s school tell her they would have used her services if they knew about her.

Wild, meanwhile, can relate to the strenuous craft show circuit many craftspeople and artisans go through. She spent a few years doing it when she was selling T-shirts and jewellery.

“It was a lot of fun but it’s gruelling,” she says.

Of the 350 vendors on the site, about half are people who handmake their products. But that doesn’t mean the site is doily central.

“We were worried at the beginning that we’d be a tchotchke heaven,” says Fairley. But they search high and low for original, beautiful items made in their backyard, and have found everything from cheese products and craft workshops to men’s and women’s clothing to books.

“It’s endless,” she says.

Though their website says they’re not interested in supporting brands you can find at the mall, they do list goods made by larger producers around the Toronto area, such as Cambridge Towels.

“They’re the only towel manufacturer in Canada,” says Fairley.

Promoting local manufacturers is vital, they say, as it’s a disappearing sector.

So far they don’t charge vendors for a basic listing, which allows them to list up to three products on the site — and the goal is to keep it that way, they say. Vendors pay only when they want to have more specialized listings or if they opt for the e-commerce option.

The site, it seems, is offering different things for different vendors. Some opt for listings, while others list and sell through the site. One vendor even abandoned her Etsy e-commerce site all together after getting a good response from 100MileFinds.

“We can be the distribution system and promote them,” says Wild.

So far, buyers are 100 percent local — though they’ve had one visitor from New Zealand.

The plan, they say, is to expand their concept — 100 miles at a time.