The Random Acts of Business website has only been up and running for three weeks but it has already seen hundreds of orders as it attempts to become #moreviralthanthevirus.
The site, which offers people a chance to purchase items from small businesses in Waterloo Region and gift them to others, was designed to help them survive through the coronavirus pandemic.
“I thought it would be so devastating to lose these businesses because we all love and enjoy them,” Eric Silveira, the driving force behind the Random Acts of Business, said.
He says he and the other volunteers were looking for a way to help when they built the website.
“A lot of local businesses, they’re going to be affected by this, and we thought ‘there’s got to be something that we could maybe do to try to help,” Silveira explained.
“So we came up with this idea: more viral than the virus.”
He and a team of volunteers figured that since, on average, every person who catches the coronavirus spreads it to 2.3 other people, they would come up with a way to have a larger impact than the virus.
moreviralthanthevirus.ca offers people a chance to make purchases from at least three local vendors to give as a gift “to friends, family, business employees, clients, whatever.”
All of the participants are locally-owned small businesses located within the region. It has quickly spread to more than 40 businesses with more to follow ranging from restaurants to spas to yoga studios and more.
“We’re kind of just going through the details with them as far as what would be a good fit based on what we’ve seen over the last couple of weeks as far as what’s selling,” Silveira said. “Then the process of how it all works, explaining that, making sure that they’re going to be able to fill and keep things rolling.”
He says has had requests to expand as far as Hamilton and Owen Sound but they are trying to keep it to Waterloo, so it remains manageable and helps local businesses that need it the most.
“We’re looking at smaller businesses, not franchises because we’re hoping that the corporation could help out or has some pockets that they can reach into to maybe help support some of the franchises, whereas you’ve got local small independent businesses that really don’t have anything backing them up,” he said. “So that’s that’s who we’ve really tried to focus on.”
The site is completely free to local vendors outside of credit card payment fees.
Jennifer Appleby Vines and Sara McMurphy, who own the Crumby Cookie Dough Company, were to open a new location on March 15.
“But of course that didn’t happen,” they told Global News through email.
They say they heard about the website from a customer and immediately jumped on board.
“We love the idea of people gifting items from small businesses,” they said. “These gifts have definitely introduced our product to people who had not yet heard of us and who are pretty excited to have edible cookie dough delivered to their door.”
It has proven popular as Silveira says the site has already received more than 500 random acts of business generating over $30,000 for local companies its first few weeks of existence.
While Silveira says the business has done well so far, there are no plans to keep it running for more than a couple of months.