With the holidays fast approaching the push to support local is bigger than ever.
Saffron Quist is the owner of Do The Okanagan, an online platform that complies a list of businesses from Enderby to Osoyoos.
“When you hit our landing page, it's like a “choose your own” adventure format. So, you can choose everything going on outdoors, or indoors or food related or cocktails and wine. We do have a sommelier on our team as well who does wine blogging so we have an entire local win section.”
They have recently launched Okazon Marketplace on the site, which was born out of a desire to keep people shopping in a centralized way.
“We've got, I think, close to 20 vendors in there right now. We've got everything from pottery to sweatshirts to skin cleansers and books and bags, a good variety of things and it's one add to cart function. So, you can buy from multiple vendors, one cart, one checkout, it all goes into one box and it's delivered using a local courier service.”
The world became significantly more digital when the COVID-19 pandemic hit, sending people to large online corporations like Amazon for their purchases.
Quist said while you may save money at face value, a cost is always incurred somewhere along the line.
“As a shopper and as a mom, when I buy something and it says made in China or made in another country and it's something that should probably cost a lot more money and doesn't, I think about where's the savings. What does that cost? What does that cost our planet or what does it cost the person that sewed that garment or made that item?”
Although it's easy to shop at large corporations, Quist said shopping local keeps community member's livelihoods afloat.
You can find them at dotheokanagan.com