Commerce

One of the real positive wins that has come out of this pandemic has been the ability to order local farmer's market produce, baked goods etc. online weekly.  We actually order from 2 different markets as the variety is quite different.  And depending on the market, you can choose a time for pick up.  It has provided opportunity to buy from producers that we would have not met otherwise.  

I don't know if it has been worthwhile for the farms to participate.  Just found out that dates have been extended through the winter into next spring for our local market so the hope is yes to the platform thriving and not just keeping heads above water until the world starts to normalize.

Like many others, we have also noticed that sports equipment, outdoor leisure supplies have been harder to come by and in the case of used bicycles, selling for far higher than they would have been last year.  We were too late with sourcing a couple of muskoka chair ottomans and another campfire grill.  

Now that I've gone down the rabbit hole that is Amazon, I can see just why they are so successful.  There are just some items that I cannot buy at the usual places.  After not being able to find directly, will now go through them.  

One thing hasn't changed though -- Still really like the online ordering for curbside pick up option.  There are stores that are a pain to shop at, at the best of times.  So being able to have all the searching done on our behalf has worked out really well for a couple of not enthusiastic shoppers.