The Bainbridge Island General Store, our new online marketplace for buying local, is looking for Valentine’s Day-themed merchandise. The shop-local-from-home campaign will be supported by social media posts and ads.
New vendors are invited to sign up here. Current vendors can go to the Contact page to send information about new products.
The General Store provides an important link between island merchants and a population that is trying hard to stay out of harm’s way during the pandemic. And it brings some uniquely Bainbridge offerings into view for the entire world.
Currently, the site features items from 77 Bainbridge Island businesses. Although the site has been up for only a month and a half, almost 5,000 people have visited as of Jan. 21. And more than a third of them clicked through to a vendor website to buy something.
Seventy-percent of the visitors have been local. They’ve been engaging well with the site, spending an average of almost 3 minutes and viewing an average of 3.4 pages per session.
Social media and SEO drove 50% of the traffic to the site. Facebook and Instagram posts and ads reached 18,000 targeted potential customers and gained 500 followers.
In the relatively short time that the General Store site has been active, it has quickly moved to the Top 10 search results for “bainbridge island shopping” and “shop”.