Shared Mall: Online e-commerce for local businesses

By Chuck Lynd, on March 25th, 2013

On March, 20th, SOLE and small businesses attended a webinar presentation on the Shared Mall system. We were impressed with the advantages that it offered for small businesses to network together online, share reward programs, close the sale and take orders online for local pickup or delivery, utilize flexible scheduling and inventory tools, reach and sell to institutional buyers.

About Shared Mall:

For the past two years, Jatin Patro has attended (and sponsored last yer) the BALLE national conferences to promote his “Shared Mall” platform. It is designed in response to the Amazon.com approach to online purchasing and is intended to offer an alternative for people who want the convenience of online browsing and purchasing of products and services available locally. Jatin is marketing his platform to BALLE chapters (like SOLE), AMIBA members (American Independent Business Alliance), and Chambers of Commerce.

I am including below information about the service provided by Jatin Patro. If you have specific questions you want to raise, let me know and I can ask Jatin to address your question or concern in the live webinar. You can also visit sharedmall.com and look around.

From Jatin -

While much of the attention is on generating Buy Local “awareness” and going green, the true potential of Buy Local will be realized only if local shopping becomes the default choice for all, not just in philosophy, but also in practice. For this to happen, the current local shopping infrastructure that is mostly “manual” must be upgraded to offer the conveniences and ease currently offered by the non-local and not so green online shopping alternatives!

This is exactly what SharedMall offers you and your community… a ready-made online marketplace like Amazon.com, but reinvented to make it truly local and green. It’s the only one-stop-shop online Buy Local automation that connects restaurants, farms, brick and mortar stores, bakeries, service providers, local market vendors, and your entire local community, and enables them all to automate their local sales online, within minutes! The playing field is now level for local businesses to effectively compete online and you now have the opportunity to spread the word and make a positive difference in your local community.

If you are a BALLE network, Chamber of Commerce, or any other Buy Local proponent, SharedMall offers you the most capable and absolutely free database to build your map-based member directory listing and business locator. SharedMall also allows your network to have its own identity and gives your local community the ability to identify and shop local only from within your network. As a network, you can now increase your organization’s value proposition and offer your members exclusive privileges and unique benefits on SharedMall.

For qualifying business communities (all free):

1. Funding from $200-$1000 each, depending on level of collaboration.

2. Advanced searchable business directory for your community.

3. Online mall for local ordering from within your community members.
4. Member product search and local ordering capability on your site.

5. Community-wide loyalty rewards capability for your community.
6. Future funding opportunity, depending on your level of collaboration in 2013.

7. Member businesses automatically eligible as a qualifying business (see below).

For Qualifying businesses (subsidized fees where applicable):

1. FREE 30 minute online marketing assessment and coaching
2. FREE e-commerce training and assistance with product listing
3. FREE database access to advanced searchable business directory.

4. [$$] Dedicated URL and online pickup/delivery/shipping ordering capability
5. [$$] Product search and ordering capability on current website, if any.
6. [$$] Advanced automation of inventory, coupons, orders, invoicing, etc.

Again, contact me (Chuck Lynd), if you want more information on SOLE central Ohio business community on Shared Mall.

Post expires at 2:14pm on Wednesday March 20th, 2013