Shopping local without leaving your home- suggestions?

March 16, 2020 7:50 AM

I'm trying to work out an idea for a local shopping aggregator beyond simply having a list of places that deliver. Both for myself and my neighbors- I'd like to find a way to shop local without leaving my house. Does this exist? If not do you have ideas for how I could create something like this?
posted by arnicae to Grab Bag (4 answers total)

Not sure where you are, but in Canada e-transfers are free of charge; you basically sign into your online bank account and "email" money to someone. I know there are services like Venmo in the US but I don't know how much they charge for each transaction.

If you have a high enough level of trust, you could post something to Craigslist 'gigs' and pay someone to purchase and deliver stuff to your door, pay them through an e-transfer, they leave the stuff at your doorstep.

If you're paranoid, you can spray down the delivery and each individual item with 70% isopropanol, let it evaporate, and you should be good.
posted by porpoise at 10:48 AM on March 16, 2020

I don't know if this is helpful for what you are trying to do, but Etsy lets you filter by location.
posted by Jess the Mess at 11:46 AM on March 16, 2020

The Portland area has a service called Milkrun that is basically an aggregator for local CSA farms and purveyors. There is a online order UI and then they deliver on Tuesdays and Thursdays to my porch (back when I used to go out of the house to work) It is pretty great. Maybe touch base with them?
posted by janell at 12:48 PM on March 16, 2020

In NYC, Mercato.com is a local market deliery service. Worth a look for your research perhaps.
posted by wowenthusiast at 12:59 PM on March 16, 2020