Archive News from Digital Main Street

For the past three years, Susan Lee-Macdonald has been making homemade treats for her dog Dumpling out of her kitchen in Toronto. When the pandemic hit and she began spending more time around the house, she started sharing Dumpling’s treats with other furry friends in the neighborhood.

It’s hard to believe it has been 5 years already, but it’s even harder to imagine that is has only been 5 years. It seems like time slows down when you are driven by a mission and a passion, and that’s exactly what Digital Main Street is and has been for so many over the last 5 years. What started in 2014 as the founding team of John Kiru, Chris Rickett, Nirvana Champion and others has transformed into hundreds of team members across the province and country, tens of thousands of businesses having been supported, and a fundamental mission driven by a mutual desire and passion to help our small business community grow through the adoption of digital tools and technologies (a stance that has only been greatly accelerated over the last 18 months).

In this guide we draw on expert analysis and insight into how restaurants are pivoting to meet the challenges and seize the opportunities of the food service industry's future.

All businesses have felt the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic. In particular, retail-oriented main street businesses have suffered, with stores closed and in-person commerce halted. In order to survive, many of these businesses have had to pivot their operations from brick and mortar locations to the digital marketplace.

To better understand how Canadians are adapting to this new world, and as we look towards economic recovery, Intuit QuickBooks Canada conducted a study among over 2,000 Canadians to get a sense of the state of entrepreneurship in Canada.