Blossom Plants and Goods creates curated experiences online and in real life
“You're always trying to bring that in-person feeling to the online space,” she says. She knew she wanted to do the same with her store creating consistency across the in-store and online experiences.
Marley Lauro knew her concept for Blossom Plants and Goods – a lifestyle boutique selling a curated collection of plants, gifts, and home decor in Orillia – was unique. But she also knew her success was going to hinge on making the store a destination. “I'm on a side street so I have to work a little bit harder to make sure that I get people down here,” says Lauro.
Doing so would require investing in her digital presence to capture the curated essence of the store and get it on the radar of a steady flow of visitors bound for cottage country and curious locals that tend to stick close to main street. Before opening the shop, Lauro had built a career in the public library system cataloguing inventory and assets. She also ran social media accounts for the libraries she worked with. “You're always trying to bring that in-person feeling to the online space,” she says. She knew she wanted to do the same with her store creating consistency across the in-store and online experiences.
However, Lauro also recognized creating a high-quality digital presence would require an investment at a time she was just getting the store off the ground. Luckily, within a few months of opening the shop in July 2022, Lauro found out about Digital Main Street, 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. Lauro received a $2,500 Digital Transformation Grant and digital training.
She used the ShopHERE powered by Google program to finish her website. “It gave me that final push and confidence I needed to actually publish the website because I’d never used Shopify before.”
With the funding from Digital Main Street, Lauro invested in a new camera to take high-quality photos of products for her social media and online store. “I was also able to partner with a videographer to take some videos of the store that I wanted to publish on social media,” she says. “Those videos especially got so much traction and really helped with my social media presence.”
Lauro also earmarked a portion of the funding to put towards her yearly Canva graphic design software subscription. “It’s something I use almost daily in my business to make sure everything is on brand,” says the business owner. “Those little extra pushes (have helped) level up the social media.”
Going forward, Lauro plans to take some online courses to continue building on her digital presence. “I'm doing a monthly content day where, one Monday a month, I'm shooting as much content as possible and scheduling that,” she says. The goal is to push the website and online sales in the slower, off-season times. “Being in a tourist town, summer is definitely the busy season at the store.”
Look no further for delightful decor and plants for your own cottage to home! Visit Blossom Plants and Goods.
To learn more about the Digital Transformation Grant, and how it can help your business visit 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.
