City of Amsterdam launches platform to promote local retailers

By

Shomara Roosblad

Published
Nov 23, 2018

The City of Amsterdam has officially launched Bij Ons Amsterdam  (With Us Amsterdam), a digital platform promoting local retailers.

The municipality of the Dutch capital said that the arrival of online shopping has made it more difficult for retailers to achieve sufficient turnover, which was the motivation to create the project that is a partnership between the municipality and developer Greenhouse innovation.

The website is designed to make local retailers in particular more visible to local residents. In addition to promotion and creating more visibility, the retailers featured on the platform will receive support from the municipality in regard to digitalization, online order systems, CO2 neutral delivery partners and mobile payment options to further stimulate local shopping in the city.

Udo Kock, head of Economic Affairs in Amsterdam, said: “Unique local shops are threatening to disappear from the streets. The website Bij Ons Amsterdam ensures that Amsterdam-based retailers are found better online, with the aim of attracting more customers, online or in-store. Bij Ons Amsterdam is a great new initiative [created] to strengthen the local economy.”

On the website, retailers are able to operate their own web pages as well as offer deals, manage their social channels and chat with costumers. They also have the opportunity to access the website at all times via an intranet network.

Consumers are able to search the platform by neighbourhood, shopping street or destination such as Centrum, 9 Straatjes or Beethovenstraat. From there, they can access a digital shopping street, click on a storefront and enter a store digitally. Consumers also have the option to search the website by the product or service they would like to purchase.

Bij Ons Amsterdam currently features 350 retailers.