By GREGORY ZELLER //
With dual purpose, Long Island’s official destination-marketing organization has launched a new online store – at once an effort to promote the region as whole and plug its local businesses.
Discover Long Island’s new digital retail platform owes as much to COVID-19 as old sayings about multiple birds and singular stones. Multitasking is great, but more importantly, the pandemic pushed shoppers online and put the squeeze on mom-and-pop operations in traditional brick-and-mortar settings – bad news all around for Long Island’s tourism industry and thousands of local retailers.
The new online store rides to the rescue by embracing the cultural shift to virtual shopping, according to Discover Long Island President and CEO Kristen Reynolds, while inflating an emergency flotation device for craft entrepreneurs drowning in an empty sea.
“The pandemic didn’t just change how people shop, but the past two years have also altered why people shop,” Reynolds noted. “People are shopping with intention.”
Kristen Reynolds: State your intentions.
Among their primary intentions, she added, is promoting some much-needed positivity – a true challenge in an era when feeling good is a rare commodity.
“[People] like to wear brands that they have a positive association with,” Reynolds said. “Brand ambassadorship has proven to be crucial in the success of all businesses.”
This is a notion the new Discover Long Island digital platform takes to heart. The Hauppauge-based tourism office has offered branded retail for years – primarily through in-person events – but with global e-commerce revenues racing past $26 trillion since the onset of COVID-19, it has thrown open the doors of Shop.DiscoverLongIsland.com and invited in an eclectic collection of regional retailers.
It’s hardly come one, come all – “We put a tremendous amount of thought into our designs, the quality and collaborations,” Reynolds noted – but the breadth of creative retailers stocking the new platform eclipses anything Discover Long Island has attempted before.
Among the participating retailers are North Babylon-based Gage Sunglasses, which graces the digital store with an exclusive release of shades with “BeLONG on Long Island” printed on the frames, and Montauk-based Hamptons Handpoured, which offers its line of sea salt-, honey- and citron-infused candles.
Other brands you likely know – including Sayville-based beachwear company Island Strong and Port Washington-based customer-apparel maker Spectrum Design, a nonprofit foundation employing individuals on the autism spectrum – also make the scene.
Strong suit: Beach-apparel maker Island Strong is trying on the new Discover Long Island platform.
Gage Sunglasses owner Joseph Englemann called Discover Long Island “the leader in raising awareness for Long Island, all its beauty and attractions,” and said collaborating on the new webstore was “a no-brainer.”
“I felt our values aligned perfectly and a partnership would go hand-in-hand,” Englemann said in a statement. “As a local Long Island company ourselves, we always try to promote our home within our messaging, imagery and overall branding.”
And that’s the rub of the new online store, according to Nikki Theissen, Discover Long Island’s vice president of partner and visitor relations: to support the individual brands and promote a larger pro-Island message, all wrapped up in “an inspirational and seamless shopping experience.”
“We have already seen an increase in sales since launching this new online store,” Theissen added. “We are confident that the beautiful imagery, quality products and the ability to showcase local, small and diverse businesses in our destination benefits not only our brand, but uplifts the entire community.”
