localmart: why, what, and a visualization

why & what

For the first couple months of the year, I was working on an idea called localmart.

The motivation behind of localmart is this:

1. Lots of people today order things from Amazon that they could get in their neighborhood.
2. That means that money is being extracted from local neighborhoods into global corporations.
3. So what if we were able to provide the Amazon.com experience, but all the goods are sourced from local stores so that your money gets reinvested into your neighborhood?

So in short, localmart is a service where you order local goods from local stores, and it gets delivered within a day or two.

visualization

I've had a visualization in mind to explain localmart to folks, so here's a quick version.

Cash is flowing out to corporations, but with more local orders, cash stays in the neighborhood and makes the neighborhood healthier.