Local online shops

[Love Our Shops]

Are there any websites which group geographically online shops and resources, so you can see which are local to you, rather than websites like Etsy, ebay and amazon which are great at what they do but usually require any purchases to be posted?

It would save on postage and you get to meet the seller!

[EJMedia]

I'm not aware of anything like that out there, but to be honest i think the idea of using the internet allows you to shop without geographic constrictions so you could find a better deal that's 100 miles from you rather than 1 mile... some websites do offer free postage as well so you wont have to worry about that.

[greannancrafts]

I agree with EJMedia

However, we offer a local pick up service, whereby customers can select a few areas around Leicestershire where we can deliver to - saving them postage.

We do ask customers to try and buy a few things from the pick up shop - this all helps the wheels of small business to gain a win win for everyone.

Jane

[Critchley]

I would suggest you carefully scrutinise our rules before venturing much further on this.

[AnnieAnna]

I see where you are going Critchley .....
but I just want to butt in to say I have just spent a whole afternoon trawling the net trying to find a farm where I could pick up a sheaf of long stemmed straw as the postage is twice the cost of the straw. I know they exist but could I dig them out? No such luck. It's so frustrating.
I'd just say that there are local directories on line for real shops....but I'm not sure how you fit in if you are a shed and a virtual shop.

[Critchley]

Its OK. I just didn't want anyone to fall foul of the advertising rules. There are ways round them which saves issuing infractions. lol.

[nattynetty]

Are there any websites which group geographically online shops and resources, so you can see which are local to you



I'd just say that there are local directories on line for real shops....but I'm not sure how you fit in if you are a shed and a virtual shop.

A lot of online shops actively discourage people visiting in person for lots of reasons such as the business is based in their family home and they don't want strangers calling, the owner works all day so don't want customers turning up unexpectedly and also some insurances don't cover visitors on your 'premises'.

However those that are happy for visitors or collection in person sales will usually list on yell.com and a number of other online directories where you can search geographically - so in answer to the initial question yes they do exist.

[Love Our Shops]

Thank you so much for your replies... it is so good to have your views.

[Oakdale Studios]

There could be a "Members-Map" introduced in the "Community" tab on this site.

It could include the locations of our "virtual" shops, again, not compulsory but voluntarily.
You'd put your location on there and your "shop" could be in your signature as most have already?

There are quite a few benefits of these maps, meeting up, asking for help with larger items to ferry a large item up the Country.
(this was done to help someone out retrieve a canoe that was stolen, recovered and reunite it with the owner 100's of miles away)

Just a thought.

Vik

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