The age of online

14 April 2020

The image above was taken on 23 March, two days before the country moved into Level 4 lockdown. We had been inundated with new signups from Dunedin businesses with online stores and were working hard to get all the listings up to share with our readers ASAP. We were taking social distancing seriously and had already been isolating at home for several days. Yes, there were a lot of screens!

We’re now almost three weeks into lockdown and we have added 30 more local online stores and businesses to our site, with more coming in each day.

We have also experienced a surge in traffic from Dunedinites looking to support businesses in the city, while shopping from home.

We set up a new category for those businesses that are open for trading and offering home delivery during lockdown. In that first fortnight of lockdown we had more than 10,000 unique visitors to the site. That's a significant proportion of Dunedin's population! These people are looking for home delivery of essential supplies and they want to support local businesses.

The most clicked-on listings are food businesses, but the category includes local traders selling beer, infant car seats and those offering online yoga classes, or online consultations in naturopathy or Feng Shui.

Our online shopping directory has existed since 2013 but has really “come into its own now”. Welcome to the Age of Online!

We created Dunedin Online because we wanted to showcase online traders in the city - people running cool businesses, selling online and, for many, going under the radar. In the current environment people are really appreciating how online ordering can help them to stay safe by staying home and businesses are discovering the value of online too. We have no doubt that new-found appreciation won’t be going away, for either side.

We hope the service helps to connect people at home with Dunedin businesses so they can support them in this difficult time while also avoiding going out in public unnecessarily.

The stores and businesses that are open for trading and are delivering during lockdown can be found in our open during lockdown category.

Emily Cooper