Shop Local CH

Here's what I'm hearing

You're building something Emerald hasn't had before — a proper local online marketplace where the money spent stays in the community, not in an Amazon warehouse. The north star is $20,000 in weekly sales within 12 months, and the two metrics that'll tell us if we're on track are monthly site traffic and revenue moving through the platform. The real tension here is trust — a previous Australia-wide version failed because there was no genuine local connection, no skin in the game, no reason for people to care. This time, the connection is real. Central Highlands people buying from Central Highlands people. That's the whole point, and it changes everything about how we build this.

Where you are right now

Right now you're pre-revenue and pre-launch — zero products live, zero site traffic, no finalised brand assets, and no ad spend. What you *do* have is a solid foundation to build from: 3,500 Facebook followers, 749 on Instagram, a 3,500-strong email list, and tracking already set up through Meta and Google. That's not nothing — that's a warm audience sitting idle waiting to be activated. The gaps are clear though: no brand identity locked in, no product catalogue, no photography, and no system yet to bring vendors on and get them selling. We need to close those gaps fast, because without them, even the best marketing strategy fires blanks.

Where you need to go

The next 90 days are about getting the foundations tight so your launch creates real momentum, not a quiet opening nobody notices.

Finalise brand identity and get the Shopify store built to a standard that earns trust on day one.

Activate your existing email list and social audience to recruit vendors and prime buyers before launch.

Build a content engine rooted in local stories and faces — the thing that separates you from Temu and Amazon every single time.

What that looks like with us

Phase 1 — Build the platform and brand right Lock in brand assets and launch a Shopify store built for a marketplace experience — clean, community-feel, easy to browse like Etsy, rooted in local like Buy from the Bush. We coordinate vendor onboarding and product photography so the store opens looking credible, not cobbled together.

Phase 2 — Warm the audience before you launch Your 3,500 email subscribers and Facebook following are the unfair advantage most startups don't have. We build a pre-launch campaign across email, Instagram, and Facebook — vendor spotlights, behind-the-scenes content, community story-led posts — that creates genuine anticipation and gets local buyers ready to spend on day one.

Phase 3 — Launch with paid and organic working together Once the store is live and stocked, we turn on a social media and content management rhythm across TikTok, Instagram, and Facebook, layered with a marketing strategy that drives SEO traffic for product and category searches. Meta ads targeting the 25+ community-values audience go live here — modest spend, tight targeting, measured against traffic and revenue weekly.

Phase 4 — Optimise and scale toward $20K/week Ongoing partnership and support kicks in — we monitor what's converting, what content is pulling traffic, and where vendors need help. Klaviyo gets integrated to turn one-time buyers into regulars. Every decision from here is made against the numbers, not gut feel.

Generated 16 Apr, 11:57 pm