Lancs businesses team up for online success

The Blackpool-based company will offer its new extended expertise to local independent businesses including shops, butchers, plumbers, hardware and timber merchants to boost their online sales.

Fulwood-based e-commerce provider EKM will assist local businesses build their online presence which will help them start trading on the internet.

EKM is one of the UK’s highest-ranking e-commerce platforms and has helped many businesses flourish online.

Stephen Howard, co-founder of Offers4Locals.com, said that EKM was a strong, reliable platform which was easy to use and an excellent selling platform.

He said they were attracted to the fact that firms can easily see and process orders, manage stock levels and confidently manage online store for themselves.

He said: “We know that a lot of our members who may already have websites, but few of them do not have an online presence and especially e-commerce sites.

“This is an opportunity for us to help and support those independent small businesses to get online and there’s no better time to sell online than now we are adding another great product offering to our business and we are backed and supported by the UK’s number one online shopping platform.

“Although we started initially to help our members promote their offers and deals, we’ve now taken that a stage further and can now offer all our members an easy way to start selling online – taking the fear out of what might seem like an incredibly daunting task for independent retailers.”

EKM was founded in 2002 by Antony Chesworth as an easy to use way of buying and selling online.