China News Service, January 20. According to the Canadian "Ming Pao" report, since the outbreak, business in Toronto's Chinatown has plummeted.
Under the state of lockdown, traditional physical store sales are facing greater difficulties.
Toronto's Chinatown Business Promotion Area (BIA) hired 2 college students to help shops expand e-commerce.
Repxin, chairman of the business promotion zone, said that since the epidemic, business in Chinatown has decreased. “All businesses have declined, especially restaurants. There is no prospect of recovery at this time.”
He said that their investigation found that many stores in Chinatown have difficulties in turning to e-commerce. Many stores are unable to build their own web pages, and there are also difficulties in establishing a basic business profile on some Internet platforms.
Zheng is one of the two college students hired by the Business Promotion Zone.
She is a fourth-year student at the University of Toronto.
She said that when she first took over the job, she was surprised by the situation of the shops in Chinatown. “Half of them did not establish business files online.”
In addition, some of the shop owners in Chinatown have poor English, which also leads to obstacles to the operation of their English websites.
Student Zheng said that their job is to take digital photos of the shops first, upload basic information of the shops, including photos, to the Internet to facilitate the browsing of potential customers. At the same time, she also helps shop owners use the e-commerce platform.
The Ontario government of Canada has set up a grant program to help small businesses, and stores willing to go to e-commerce can get a grant of $2500.