Bishop Consignment Enlists Familiar Help from Digital Main Street
When Nicole and Susan Bishop bought the Collingwood consignment business their skincare company ‘Bishop Botanicals’ had been sharing space with during the pandemic, taking the freshly-minted ‘Bishop Consignment’ digital felt like the next logical step.
The mother-daughter duo decided to try and emulate the success they experienced with their botanical skincare business and that meant enlisting some familiar help.
“The only people that came to our mind was the Digital Main Street team again,” says Susan Bishop.
The Bishops had previously connected with Digital Main Street, through the Digital Transformation Grant program, and decided to seek out it’s help again. The DTG is a program combining grants and one-to-one support from the Province of Ontario alongside partners to help main street businesses strengthen their online capabilities and plan for the digital future.
With the previous $2,500 Digital Transformation Grant and training videos, they’d been able to build out their digital presence for Bishop Botanicals.
“They were amazing to work with,” says Bishop. “They helped us develop the website so that we could sell online and offer that through the pandemic.”
Bishop Consignment gave the duo another project to work with Digital Main Street on. Following a similar model to what they did with the botanical shop, they’ve used the Digital Transformation Grant to build a new website with plans to invest in high-quality photography for the website and social media channels. They’ve also used the funding to invest in an iPad to run the shop’s check-out and integrate the online store with the brick-and-mortar business.
But one of the greatest assets, says Bishop, was being able to go through the training videos again.
“It's like watching a movie and the second time you watch it, you pick up different things,” she adds. “I like the marketing aspect of it, I like the help that it gives you, I like the ideas that are thought-provoking, like, oh, should I think about doing this?”
Bishop says it also helped them curtail their approach to the consignment business. While there’s lots of crossover with clients between the botanicals business and the consignment, it’s not one-to-one. Instagram has proven a critical platform for the botanicals but Bishop sees the website being the most critical part of the consignment shop’s digital strategy.
They’re putting time into both but Bishop says she’s cognizant of the power and reach that comes with a well-designed website with search engine optimization.
“With Instagram, you have to actually go and get the followers,” says Bishop. “Whereas a website it's on there so if someone is searching Norma Kamali sleeping bed coat, we might pop up… they could be in Oregon or wherever – to have that reach that takes you out of your small town and more international is really exciting.”
To check out Bishop Consignment you can visit their website, or check them out on social media. (Instagram, Facebook).
To learn more about how Digital Main Street can support your small business, visit our Ontario programs page here.
Digital Main Street was created by the Toronto Association of Business Improvement Areas (TABIA) with direct support from the City of Toronto. DMS is also supported by a group of strategic business partners, including Google, Mastercard, Shopify, Meta, Intuit QuickBooks, Square, Lightspeed, Ebay and Canada Post.
Continued investment from the Province of Ontario, through the Ministry of Economic Development, Job Creation and Trade (MEDJCT) has allowed the ongoing expansion the Digital Main Street Platform in order to support more businesses going digital across Ontario.
