Hoolio & Goober in Kenora offers fashion-forward clothing and accessories to keep you looking stylish and on-trend, created by Canadian designers. For owner Montana Lomnnicki, the business is a revival of the original that her uncle and her mother ran back in the ’70s and ’80s. Montana relaunched the name and the concept to bring back those halcyon days of rocking summers and sidewalk shopping.
The pandemic, of course, put a damper on all that. Montana realized she needed to substantially boost her online presence, to remain top of mind with consumers even during lockdown periods, and to drive sales through a new channel – e-commerce.
Montana turned to Digital Main Street (DMS) for the grant funding and professional support to develop a new e-commerce website, invest in a new integrated point of sale (POS) system, boost her search engine optimization (SEO) to increase web traffic, and more actively promote the business through social media platforms such as Facebook.
“DMS has given me the financial freedom to open online shopping for my boutique,” Montana said. “This has been especially important during COVID. Due to all the lockdowns and restrictions, a large portion of our sales are now coming from online. With my new website, I can now display more of my product to the consumer on a better platform. For that I am very thankful!”
The Digital Main Street program has been further extended through funding from FedDev Ontario and the Ontario Ministry for Economic Development, Job Creation and Trade (MEDJCT). The new round of funding includes $42.5 million from the Government of Canada’s Regional Relief and Recovery Fund, a national recovery initiative delivered by Canada’s regional development agencies. With $7.45 million from Ontario, this combined federal and provincial project will strengthen Ontario’s economic capacity for innovation, entrepreneurship and collaboration, and will promote the development of a strong and diversified Ontario economy. For more information, please visit digitalmainstreet.ca/ontariogrants
