His role involves helping local businesses garner more online attention and encouraging local consumers and local businesses to embrace the ShopLocal movement.  

The ShopLocal Movement means that customers who previously choose to go to a chain store or business will instead support the local area and the local economy by choosing to shop locally.  

2012 Statistics from Civic Economics suggested that every dollar spent in a local independent business saw 13.6% recirculated into the local community, whereas a dollar spent in a chain store saw 4.8% returning back into the local community. This disparity is thought to have grown since then.  

ShopCity.com was founded in 2008 in Midland, Ontario as a countermeasure to National Chain stores taking business from independents. These independent store owners did not have the means to compete with corporate juggernauts and their expensive marketing teams. ShopCity.com and the ShopLocal movement were the solutions. By offering smaller independent businesses affordable online marketing packages they were able to compete with the big guys.

ShopMidland today is helping hundreds of businesses stand out online and navigate the complicated world of digital marketing. Following on from the success in Midland more and more ShopSites were franchised so that each town and city’s businesses could have the ability to promote themselves online.

In addition to this ShopCity.com started offering website builds. Another avenue to make sure that every business has an effective web presence by creating an affordable ($599/$999) model of websites.

The ShopLocal movement was a huge success across Ontario and neighbouring Provinces with the company making its exciting venture further south (even into the US market)!  

That has finally led to the creation of ShopTO.ca, ShopMississauga.com, ShopBrampton.com, ShopOakville.com, ShopMilton.com and ShopGeorgetown.ca.

 If you are a business owner within the city of Toronto, Mississauga, Brampton, Oakville, Georgetown or Milton then you can create your FREE listing today!  

As the representative for much of the GTA, Andrew is happy to answer any questions regarding setting up your business profile or how you can get involved in the ShopLocal movement.

Andrew is also a proponent of PreSearch, a search engine that is competing against Google whilst also rewarding searchers with a digital currency. Click here for more information about Presearch!