Buy Local… on Amazon | LesAffaires.com

The store launched without fanfare “this year,” the US company confirms via email. (Photo: 123RF)

LA TECHNO PORTE CONSEIL is a section that demystifies current technological trends and makes you discover platforms, new tools or new functions that can be easily and quickly implemented in your daily work.

Techno Door Advice. It is now possible to buy Quebec products online. It’s not through Blue Basket — whose transactional component is still planned for the fall — but through the new Fleurdelysé store, accessible on the Amazon site.

The store launched without fanfare “this year,” the US company confirms via email. It shows all products that meet one or other of the following conditions: the last substantial transformation took place in Quebec or at least 51% of direct production or production costs were carried out in Quebec.

It was Simon Margot, vice-president of the group J’acheté québécois, j’achete local (JQJL), who put the flea in his ear. Contracts After contacting Amazon tech in June to find out if there was a tab to filter all Quebec products. Following a negative response, he found Fleurdelise in July. JQJL took advantage of this new outlet to build a platform fleurdelyse.caIt allows you to redirect to the store, whose hyperlink is not so easy to remember (https://www.amazon.ca/b?ie=UTF8&node=23914625011).

The team began promoting this new tool on their Facebook group, which has more than 300,000 followers. “Competing with Amazon is a big project,” says Simon Margot.

Thanks for the announcement Blue Basket

Without taking anything away from other Quebec initiatives like Blue Basket, he believes working with the Californian company is the best idea to achieve their goal. “It’s a good plan,” he says. This helped encourage local purchasing. Still, he believes the provincial government may have seen what has already been done elsewhere in Quebec.

“When the Blue Basket was announced, we were the first to talk about it in our Facebook group,” recalls JQJL President Nicholas Beaudry. Because it aligns directly with our mission to do something to support local businesses.

The history of this popular Facebook group today attracts 180,000 daily visits and 65 to 70% of its members visit it every two days – according to data provided by JQJL – precisely linked closely to Blue Basket.

At the time it was founded by Nicolas Beaudry in 2018, the goal was to educate people to “look at the label” in response to NAFTA negotiations that saw softwood and milk “at risk.”

“A small train goes a long way, so we grew,” the latter notes. “But when the Blue Basket was announced, it was a huge boost.

In fact, overnight, tens of thousands of new members appeared in the group every day. “It didn’t stop, it went up 10,000, 15,000 or 20,000 people a day,” the president recalled.

Strength of community

At the same time, JQJL was working on an exchange platform which went live around the same time as the government announcement. The goal was to allow young companies without a website to sell their products easily.

At the same time, the group has set up a Facebook group membership card system for people who want to promote their products.

All monies generated through the transaction platform or membership cards are reinvested in advertising. JQJL’s artisans, numbering “a dozen” according to Nicholas Patry, are all volunteers.

The strength of this movement, according to Nicolas Beaudry and Simon Marcotte in the community, is an asset that other exchange platforms lack. “The group helped a lot of companies find themselves,” assures Simon Margot.

And to further help entrepreneurs, JQJL has started producing short capsules, the first of which, “Take Time!”, was published online in mid-August.

“Companies can put their products on Amazon, eBay or Blue Basket, but there’s no guarantee you’ll get more sales,” he continues. “People aren’t looking for your products. They need to know you exist.”