City of Amsterdam to launch its own online retail platform for local retailers

By

Shomara Roosblad

Published
Feb 2, 2018

The city of Amsterdam will be launching an online retail platform for local retailers and entrepreneurs. The website is scheduled to go live in May 2018.

The city argues that the arrival of online shopping has made it more difficult for retailers to achieve sufficient turnover. With the online retail platform, the municipality aims to help retailers to offer their products and services online. Citizens of Amsterdam will then be able to see what is on offer at local establishments and how these can be obtained, via delivery or pick-up.

The following topics are crucial for the initiative: promoting the purchase power of the citizens of Amsterdam; monitoring a diverse Amsterdam-based retail offer; supporting retailers in the digital transformation era and facilitating this; and ensuring benefits to both on- and offline shopping.

On the website, retailers will be able to operate their own web pages as well as offer deals, manage their social channels and chat with costumers. They will have the opportunity to access the website at all times via an intranet network.

Consumers will be able to search by neighborhood, shopping street or destination such as Centrum, 9 Straatjes or Beethovenstraat. From there, they can access a digital shopping street, click on a storefront and eventually entrance a store digitally. From there, consumers will be able to choose a product or service they would like to purchase.

Retailers who are interested in participating can sign up online. A Retail Content Support Team will assist the retailer to offer their product or service on the platform.

For the development of the online Amsterdam retail platform, the municipality is partnering with CityAdvisors and Greenhouse Innovation.