St Helens Borough Council - Provision of Digital Platform (Welcome Back Fund Project)

St Helens Council ("The Council) urgently need a well-established online marketplace with a digital place-based platform offering single click ordering, bookings and delivery across multiple businesses and business types.

The activity is funded through the Welcome Back Fund, a fund from the European Regional Development Fund, and should contribute to attracting residents back into the town centres

The Council needs to support shopping locally and in normal circumstances this would be by encouraging people into the town centre. In the months during Covid restrictions there was an emphasis to move to an online model of a 'virtual' high street where customers can browse, book, and buy with a with built in click and collect to drive footfall and spend by encouraging high street and town centre visits. Some business with sufficient capacity developed their own platforms and solutions however many have been left behind during the 'stay at home' restrictions. The solution will enable people to host online events and activity bookings such as reading clubs, fitness sessions etc to support communities and businesses to stay connected in a hybrid as well as encouraging confidence to re-join live events and shopping.

The Digital Place will need to support businesses, self-employed people, market traders, hospitality and retail businesses to trade during these unprecedented times with single click checkout and home delivery and to make our quality local independent businesses in our local high streets and markets, more resilient than ever. The platform will need to complement existing digital programmes such as MaybeTech (social media training linked to place sentiments) and link into city-region projects such as the Peepl Network.

As per ERDF contractual requirements the entire implementation must be

completed and invoiced ahead of the 31st March 2022 deadline