Answering the call for digital adoption

Digital Main Street tackles the digital divide

Main streets are much more than commercial hubs. They are often the anchoring point for citizen interaction, providing a neighbourhood with a sense of identity.

A Main Street with a healthy retail mix and successful businesses typically also points to healthy surrounding residential areas; thus, investing in the success of the area also means realizing increased property values.

With this deep connection between main streets and their surrounding residents in mind, in 2015, the Toronto Association of Business Improvement Areas (TABIA) and the City of Toronto came together to explore opportunities for supporting main streets across the city.

Both TABIA and the city recognized that locally owned small Main Street businesses were falling behind as e-commerce and online retailers increased their market share. And, if they didn’t collaborate on solutions, the health of Toronto’s residential neighbourhoods could suffer.

Three Challenges of the Digital Divide

Before developing a response, TABIA and the city undertook extensive consultations with small, locally owned businesses from across Toronto and engaged with the 80-plus business improvement areas (BIAs) operating in the city. The feedback identified three main challenges to digital adoption for small businesses.

1. Where to start

The first challenge was not knowing where to start. Businesses knew they were behind, but they didn’t know where to begin with many solutions and possibilities. They needed advice from a trusted source to help guide them toward the correct answers at the right time and at the right cost for their business.

2. Managing time and change

Small businesses are already stretched for time. Finding time to adopt new technologies while managing the associated changes can act as a significant barrier to adoption. Entrepreneurs indicated they needed hands-on support through training and one-on-one assistance to help them implement new solutions.

3. Funding

With margins already stretched, having access to funding to support their adoption of digital technologies was also identified as a need.

Program Background

Based on the feedback gathered, TABIA and the city worked to develop a program that would be responsive to the needs of small businesses along Main Street. The program, ultimately named Digital Main Street, took on several features, including:

• Assessment and Roadmap — A program website that included a digital assessment that allowed businesses to benchmark their digital literacy and provide a recommended digital roadmap for their business.
• Training — A range of in-person, virtual, and pre-recorded online training sessions to help businesses with everything from building a website and social media to email marketing and setting up a client relationship management system.
• Digital Service Squad — A group of recent graduates that would provide hands-on support in identifying and setting up technologies for businesses at no cost.
• Funding Support — Development of a small grant program to help businesses onboard new technologies.

In the spring of 2016, TABIA and the City of Toronto launched Digital Main Street officially. Thanks to funding from the city, as well as Google, Mastercard, Microsoft, Rogers, Shopify, and Yellow Pages, the program began supporting main streets across Toronto. Since then, other partners like Facebook, Intuit QuickBooks, Square, and Lightspeed have financially supported the program.

In the first year, the program serviced about a thousand businesses, found its legs, and was well received by small businesses. The most popular component of the program was the Digital Service Squad, as businesses enjoyed the hands-on support in learning and adopting new technologies.

In some cases, a squad member might visit a business more than 10 times, helping them do everything from building a website and updating their Google My Business Page to setting up their social media channels and onboarding a point-of-sale system. For example:

• Supercoffee Founder Cassandra Nicolaou was one of the first business owners to engage with the program. Located in the Mount Dennis area of Toronto, she leveraged the program to support her café, advancing a digital strategy to increase customer engagement, including 360-degree interior photos of her store for her Google My Business profile.
• Steve’s Quality Meats and Deli in the Danforth neighbourhood of Toronto used the service squad to work on their overall online presence, including their first website. They also saw an increase in online orders and free home delivery through a focus on social media.

Based on the success in Toronto, with the city as the core funder of the program, and the program expanding into other municipalities like Durham and Waterloo Regions, in 2018 the province provided funding for the expansion of Digital Main Street across Ontario.

Expanding beyond Toronto allowed more businesses to benefit from support, to adopt new technologies, and built a broad network of communities sharing their best practices for supporting their main streets. This helped communities learn from each other and continuously improved the available resources and tools to their local small businesses.

Response to Pandemic

When the pandemic hit in March 2020, communities across Ontario immediately leveraged the program and their local service squads to respond. Municipalities across the province used the personal relationships that their squads had built to help their small businesses transition — whether that meant changing their business model entirely or adopting e-commerce tools to sell online.

With small businesses locked down, Digital Main Street and the City of Toronto responded quickly to design a new program called ShopHERE, Powered by Google. The program was focused on rapidly building e-commerce sites for small businesses at no cost.

The program leveraged hundreds of volunteer web developers from across Toronto. It quickly expanded, though, thanks to funding from the Federal Development Agency for Southern Ontario and the Province of Ontario, including over 750 youth who were trained and enlisted to build e-commerce sites for Main Street businesses across Ontario.

Launching an e-commerce site is a challenge at the best of times, but through ShopHERE, local businesses not only got a site at no cost, but were also trained on how to manage and set up their site. Businesses received support for digital advertising, including advertising credits and assistance with shipping and cybersecurity. This allowed entrepreneurs to build their store and launch successfully, knowing they were protected while advertising their new store to customers.

All this support made the transition easier for entrepreneurs needing to pivot, and many quickly picked up this new way of selling despite having limited technical skills. For example, Karen Conabeare owns Beech House Studio in Huntsville and creates timeless, nautical home decor items from rope. Unable to sell via her usual channels of farmer’s markets and craft shows, the program allowed her to reach a broader audience with an e-commerce site.

Likewise, the owners of Gravity Espresso and Wine Bar, a Calgary business, were able to quickly pivot and launch an online store, allowing them to stay open and generate revenue while they navigated the pandemic and store closures. Owner Andy Fennell said, “As a business owner you keep going, you try your hardest … if we didn’t have access to [this program] there’s no way we’d still be open.”

Impact on Main Street

From May 2020 through June 2021, ShopHERE helped over 15,000 businesses launch e-commerce sites across Ontario. Of these businesses, 57 percent were operated by women and 33 percent were racialized entrepreneurs. The program also saw over 750 jobs created for youth trained to build e-commerce sites and support businesses with their launch. Of these youth, over 55 percent were female, and 75 percent identified as Black, Indigenous, or a Person of Colour.

Beyond ShopHERE, Digital Main Street has helped over 40,000 businesses across Canada. With programs running in Ontario, Alberta, and New Brunswick, businesses have been supported in over 700 municipalities.

The need for digital adoption among small, independent Main Street businesses was always required, but the pandemic accelerated the need for entrepreneurs across Canada. Luckily Digital Main Street was there to jump into the breach and support Canadian communities with a unique approach to a common problem facing small businesses across the globe.