Platform for a group of shops to sell their wares together ...

March 31, 2021 3:23 PM

I live in a small village. I was talking to our local butcher today and he was saying he and the other shop keepers in our village wish there was a platform where they could each individually list their wares but where customers could browse as if the wares were offered for sale by (for eg) a supermarket - so ONE checkout process but after that the orders get sent to each shopkeeper for picking and packing.

Does anyone know if this platform exists in a 'well done' way? I've seen some pretty mediocre implementations - anyone know of anyone doing this well? Thanks!

posted by dance to Computers & Internet (4 answers total)

Mercato does this for our local market, but don't know what you consider "well done" (esp. on the vendor side, where I have no information).
posted by praemunire at 3:27 PM on March 31, 2021 [1 favorite]

There's a site in the UK that lets local shops put their products online, and customer see separate shops but the basket/payment is combined and there's a single shipping charge. It's not a "platform" per se but might be a good example of what you're looking for. It's called ClickIt Local. An example postcode you can put in to see what the shops look like is BN1 and then choose any Brighton address.
posted by EndsOfInvention at 5:45 PM on March 31, 2021

Seconding that Mercado is who is doing this where I live in an analogous situation. From the customer side, it works pretty darn well.
posted by desuetude at 8:49 PM on March 31, 2021

I think the most common implementation of this in canteen type environments - often ones at fairly high traffic areas like airports, in business districts, at conference centres.
posted by rongorongo at 2:52 AM on April 1, 2021