APICA presents Christmas buy-local campaign
---Thematic gift boxes already selling like hotcakes, community responds
Wanting to help residents celebrate the holidays in festive fashion while pledging to keep promoting local businesses, the Aylmer Association of Professionals, Industrials, and Merchants (APICA) has launched a new Christmas campaign. Providing four different sets of thematic boxes, respectively titled Nuit Blanche, Grasses Matinée, Épicurien, and Moment pour soi, each is filled with various products from a selection of more than 20 local enterprises. For a $125 value, the boxes are being sold for $100 a pop on APICA’s website.
According to APICA General Manager Nathalie Rodrigue, the boxes are ideal gift ideas for all kinds of people, from loved ones to employees, and she is encouraging people to take advantage while quantities last. Noting that the boxes are selling very quickly, Rodrigue said APICA intends on re-stocking its inventory with another limited number of boxes in the coming days. “Initially, there were 100 boxes, so 25 of each theme,” Rodrigue told the Bulletin. “We didn’t want to be too ambitious. So we were reasonable … we’re going to put 50 new boxes on sale soon.”
If the campaign becomes as successful as expected, which already seems likely, she added that the boxes may be up for sale year-round. In previous years, APICA celebrated Christmas by raffling off a giant gift basket filled with products from all sorts of local businesses. But due to the pandemic, the association decided that thematic boxes were the best alternative that wouldn’t risk people’s safety. “We wanted to group as many of our members as we could into one campaign and we really wanted to solicit local shopping,” Rodrigue said. “Yes, people may purchase the boxes. But they’ll also see the different businesses there are in Aylmer. Maybe they didn’t know certain enterprises who provided products in the boxes. That’s the idea, giving everyone a helping hand.”
With so many businesses having their services severely restricted by the provincial government’s current maximum emergency (red zone) safety measures, Rodrigue stressed the importance of making one’s next purchase a local one. “I know it’s the same message that’s going around everywhere,” Rodrigue said, “but we need to help our local businesses. They’ve always needed us. But now they need to know more than ever that the community is there for them.”
“We want to continue to have a beautifully animated rue Principale with plenty of great businesses and variety. That starts with encouraging buying local,” she added.
