1. Project description:

The project aims to promote local consumption by connecting rural producers to households and small groceries shops owners in the city of Ambato. For this purpose, an online e-commerce platform is being constructed for rural producers to commercialize their products. In addition, rural producers are being trained through workshops to develop digital skills to manage the e-commerce platform, as well as, to develop other commercialization and management skills. Finally, through our partner CorpoAmbato, we are offering technical assistance to improve the quality of the products.

 

2. Project progress up to now:

During the months of Jun and July, the meetings to plan the workshops and its schedule were held. In addition, we had meetings to see the initial content and structure that the e-commerce platform will have in the future.

In the last week of July and the first two weeks of August three workshops were held: Controlling Costs and Expenses; Smart Investments; Consumers profile. The workshops were planned to be offline, however, due to coronavirus prevention regulations, we decided to offer them through the online meeting platform Zoom. The challenging aspect in this regard was the identification of the participants of the project because we could not visit them one by one. Instead, with our partner CorpoAmbato, we decided to open the registration and CorpoAmbato, with their expertise in the field, is filtering the potential participants to become future members of the platform.

The workshops are a collective effort between Altivos Ambatenos and CorpoAmbato. So far, we have carried out three workshops with more than 40 participants and 1 meeting of technical assistance. The trainers were provided by our partner CorpoAmbato.

The e-commerce platform is being constructed based on basic functionalities for commercialization, additional features will be added once the final participants of the platform are selected to adjust it to their needs.

 

3. Project plan forward

Within the next months, four workshops will be held and continuous technical assistance will be provided to the rural producers in order to improve their products and develop their managerial and digital skills so that they can effectively commercialize their products through the platform.

By the end of August, the final participants of the platform will be selected (those who show improvement and development of the skills required). From September onwards, the online e-commerce platform will be constructed with the information of the selected producers and their products. It is planned to have meetings to provide constant feedback on the use of the platform, in order to make it friendly both for the rural producers and the customers. In September the Shopify subscription will be purchased to maintain the platform operating for a year.

In addition in September and October, it is planned to promote the platform through social networks.

Finally, one of the most challenging issues is the creation of a formal organization formed by rural producers. This requires not only the development of skills but also the development of relations of cooperation, which usually results from constant interaction. However, due to the online meeting and workshops, there is not much space for the rural producers to get to know each other and reach the levels of interaction that direct conversation allows. This might delay the creation of a proper formal organization. Nevertheless, CorpoAmbato will take the lead to facilitate the interaction among the rural producers until a formal organization can be created.