City of Bolzano launches first marketplace – eCommerce magazine

At the beginning of Corona pandemic shopware AG has launched numerous campaigns in Germany to support retailers in this time of crisis. A facet of the extensive aid program, which was developed by Shopware and a network of e-commerce experts was launched, the platform was deployed Downtown for cities and towns. With Bolzano in South Tyrol, a first city has now launched a digital marketplace with the help of Downtown, where customers shop locally online can.

Shopping locally online: Projekt Downtown makes it possible

Various shops, restaurants and service providers in the historic old town of Bolzano have been merging under the name BZHEARTBEAT for several years. During the Corona lockdown This group of retailers participated in a webinar series on e-commerce from the Shopware partner agency teamblau. Here, the retailers should be equipped with the necessary online skills to be able to weather the times of crisis well. In this context, teamblau presented the Downtown project to the participants, who were enthusiastic and so on Marketplace project started.

First attempts at e-commerce

The advantages of the retailers were obvious: “Downtown offers a very simple and low-threshold way to present your own business online and to offer products, vouchers or services online. Especially for shops without their own online shop, this is the perfect way to try e-commerce for the first time. Thanks to the simple option of entering the data via the clear input mask, practically anyone without technical knowledge can manage their own shop on BZHERATBEAT, in other words downtown, ”says Arnold Malfertheiner, Managing Director of teamblau.

In the beginning, almost 60 retailers and companies from all over the city will go online with Downtown. Some with products and vouchers, some only with showcase products, some only with a business profile and direct link to their own existing online shop – Downtown offers every retailer the right presence. However, the platform should not only be short-term help in the crisis, but should also become a permanent mainstay of retailers.

Shopping locally online will continue to play a role in the future

It is planned to expand the basic market place BZHEARTBEAT into a fully-fledged market place by 2022. For this purpose, the individual dealers and companies will be equipped with their own Shopware instance in the medium term and will therefore be able to act significantly more extensively. BZHEARTBEAT Bolzano’s answer to Amazon’s growing influence. The new API approach from Shopware 6 is very helpful for teamblau in the implementation.

Also read: Trading in Crisis: How Local Marketplaces Can Help Providers