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New Castle County to help train small businesses in e-commerce

Delaware Public Media

The New Castle County Office of Economic Development is helping small businesses with a new e-commerce training program.

The new program will help small business owners by providing information about the e-commerce industry and online marketing strategies.

The county is using some of its funds from the American Rescue Plan Act to help small businesses in the county with less than 25 full-time employees.

There will be two workshops for the businesses to learn more about e-commerce.

Director of Economic Development for New Castle County, Charuni Patibanda explains how the workshops will work.

"On the one hand we're helping to educate the business owners on what they may need and what they would actually want and we're all so on the other hand vetting the vendors so that the interaction between the businesses and the vendors is more streamlined, more efficient and more cost-effective," said Patibanda

The county office of Economic Development is partnering with the county chamber of commerce’s Emerging Enterprise Center to host two upcoming workshops, on Wednesday from 9 a.m. to noon.

The second one is on June 28, from 5 p.m. to 8 p.m., and both will be at the New Castle County Chamber of Commerce.

Patibanda says this will help businesses that are new to e-commerce.

"So these are companies, maybe it's a bookstore, maybe it's a small retail store,” said Patibanda. “They weren't initially contemplating having an e-commerce platform and they may not even know how e-commerce can benefit their business but they're wanting to learn more. So that's what these educational workshops are for."

Workshop participants will be considered for a small business e-commerce development grant, also from the county’s ARPA funds.

Joe brings over 20 years of experience in news and radio to Delaware Public Media and the All Things Considered host position. He joined DPM in November 2019 as a reporter and fill-in ATC host after six years as a reporter and anchor at commercial radio stations in New Castle and Sussex Counties.