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| It's not mispelled, It looks like Old English to me. Please remember Cuddles is doing his best. |
When I first started planning the development of The Original Shop Local Delmarva app, I was faced with an initial, but crucial, decision. How should I get locally owned and operated businesses listed? Now that sounds like a very straightforward question, but the answer carries serious implications about what sort of website or company you are dealing with.
Let's take Yelp as an example. Like most online business directories, Yelp scrapes the Internet for businesses, lists them, and then provides a link for the business to "claim" their listing. Until the business finds out that they are listed on Yelp, they rack up reviews unbeknownst to the owners. Any negative reviews go unanswered, which could cost the business new customers.
If you search "Locally owned and operated businesses in [your town], [your state]", you might end up on the site www.chamberofcommerce.com. It might look official to you, but it is not. They, too, scrape the Internet for business listings without the owner's permission. You are expected to know your listing is over there getting reviews, some of which might be negative. Users might believe they are on an official Chamber of Commerce website, but they are not.
And then you have legitimate Chamber of Commerce websites that list local businesses, but their listings include every business that pays their dues to the Chamber. Users have no clue which businesses are truly locally owned and operated as opposed to any business (franchise or nationally owned) with a physical presence in the town the Chamber is located. My Chamber of Commerce, for example, listed a business headquartered in Texas. I'm willing to bet a sizable portion of residents think of it as a locally owned and operated business, but it is not.
My developers gave me the option of scraping the Internet to load the SLD directory. I rejected their suggestion. My philosophy was, and still is, based on a simple idea. Your business listing is yours and you should have complete control over where, when, and how it should be used.
I didn't develop The Original Shop Local Delmarva to make money other than what is needed to run the app. I set out to level the playing field for the Mom and Pops so that they can effectively compete against the franchises and national corporations. (There is a caveat in what I just said about franchises, but I'll cover that in a future article. If you are a franchise owner, please feel free to contact me.)
I reckon with what I just said above, either I have much longer range of views for SLD (I do) or I'm getting tired of typing (I am). But you, the business owner, and you, the user, share the SLD driver's seat. I'm just the navigator. Bots roaming the Internet best stay in the marked crosswalks.
With that said, please allow me to address some of the sign-up concerns I have heard and the workarounds you can use to get listed without feeling like you might be compromising your privacy concerns or feeling overwhelmed by the technical requirements.
- What's with this W9 requirement?
The W9 helps me confirm that your business is both real and locally operated. In reality, the W9 only lists your company (verifying you're not sixteen-year-old Sally selling hair ribbons out of her bedroom) and business address (your headquarters aren't outside of Delmarva). In other words, your W9 doesn't share important information that might be a privacy invasion. The W9 simply states the information that is already public information and is used regularly in business-to-business transactions. It is one of a few tools I use to ensure the integrity of the directory. The tools aren't perfect, but all are a matter of public information. Some of those same tools are used by those scraping websites I mentioned. - What if I simply don't want to send you my W9?
Don't send it. Contact me instead. You can email me at support@shoplocaldelmarva.com or call me at 410-463-4196. (If I don't answer, please text me. Some day I might figure out how to set up my voicemail.)
It's not too hard to convince me you are locally owned and operated. Once I'm convinced, I'll send you a properly formatted form to substitute in the W9 field.
Here's a thought for you. You want to get listed, but how do you know I am a locally owned and operated directory? You don't until you talk to me. - What if I'm a home-based business and want to conceal some private information like a home phone number or address?
The address and phone number fields are not cross referenced by the app. You will want to make sure your town, state, and zip code are accurate to ensure your potential customers at least know the general area your business is located. Your phone number can be real or masked. If, for some reason, you don't want anyone to know your phone number, you can enter 555-555-5555 and you're good to go. My developers, however, assure me that they followed proper protocols to protect your information from bots that roam the web looking for phone numbers and emails. While an incomplete street address might go unnoticed, a masked phone number or email address may raise some eyebrows among your potential customers. - Where is my information stored?
Any information you share with SLD is stored in the cloud until you delete your listing. The only people who have access to your information is my development team and me. For example, if you submit your W9, it is stored in the cloud that only my developers have access to. The app then emails me a copy so I can review it. I review the copy and then delete it. None of your information is shared or sold to anyone.
Oh, and once my developers send me a contract completion form to sign (it's in the works), even they won't have access to the cloud and your information anymore. - I'm busy and don't have the time to figure out the technical aspects of listing my business. What do I do?
Simply email me (support@shoplocaldelmarva.org) with a description of the problem you are having. Together, we'll get you listed.
While our Congress hasn't exactly caught up with the Digital Age, I strive to operate in the digital world under the strictest of privacy considerations that I think should be, not what is. My guiding principle is you have a right to be left alone. My app relies on third party entities, and I try to make sure the third parties follow the same principle.
