What's the big deal with Brantford?

Sidequest Loot has made it a priority out of the gate to treat the Brantford community with a few extra perks.  Our free-over-$25 delivery in town, our support for local causes and our attempts to find local suppliers first for the things to keep our business going.  There is a lot of pride in the good parts of the community, hope to see or help improvement in the not-so-good and to provide buyers/sellers in the community to have just a few extra options available to them.  Geography is a tremendous factor, obviously.  It's also always nice to have a pleasant chat about something OTHER than the item that we are delivering.  There is so much good and frankly, normal about this town.  We love our OHL team just as much as we loved our CHL team and as much as we would have loved a team that was the first North American KHL team.  I don't think you get that in a "big town"

Having spent a large portion of my life here, I can reasonably let you know that we are all full of nostalgia for the "store that isn't there anymore".  My personal pain involves The Brant Hobby Depot, Jamie's Choice Books, The-goddamn-Ponderosa!  We can all name at least a few amongst our personal favourites that are long since departed.

Our stock is far more than what we have reflected in many of our postings but we have found an early sweet spot for games of all types.  There just are not many options to find a great selection without heading out of town.  And the selection that is there? Higher prices or not-in-stock.  If I am speaking purely about Dungeons & Dragons as an example, our own hoard (hardee-harr-harr) exceeds the amount of what you might find around town - again, not to boast about our own stock, it's small (but growing)!

We hope to provide an alternative.  We are not likely to open a brick-and-mortar store, at least in the conventional sense.  We envision a workshop where we can design, test and build new products.  Something that can cross-function as a convenient pick-up spot and with a small boutique.  Opening a traditional store front strikes me as arrogantly pronouncing that I am smarter than all the ones who tried this strategy before.  We would rather arrogantly pronounce that every last one of them was wrong and that a different approach is required.  I don't know, name the top ten retailers that come to mind and then ask yourself when was the last time you walked into an Amazon store?  What is Netflix if not Blockbuster Video without the store?  The trend seems to be to browse a live store, see what you like in person and then go home and order it off Amazon.  We don't feel like being Amazon's showroom.

We see ourselves as modern-day Vikings.  We will raid (only a metaphor!) the Burlingtons, Oakvilles, KWs for their good stuff and then make it accessible for Brantford folk for a fairer price than they might expect.  The hard part is not the acquisition or selling of these things, it is building that trust in a business on every deal - especially when the business concept is not entirely conventional.  

It makes sense to us, so we're going to give it a try.

And that is why we try so hard to support others.  We're not going to ignore the fact that social media is also built on these connections - we just like to believe that it will allow us to find more Sidequesters to support.  We share posts.  We invite guest bloggers.  We will collaborate in ways that only make sense to the group of collaborators.  And those are the types of companions that are the most fun, aren't they?

We would love to share your Sidequest Story! If you have started a business or side hustle, if you're thinking of doing it or if you have no idea whatsoever of what you want to do, we would love to share your story.  We find that when the buyer knows you better, they are more likely to buy.  We don't mind if you mix in some advertisement, sales pitch (ugh!) or simply supportive thoughts for other Sidequesters going through the same thing.

Email: mysidequest@sidequester.ca and let us know what you want to do!  There is no charge for posting but we will give a final editorial review and might provide some suggestions.  You will be provided with a final draft before we publish.  All submissions will become the property of Sidequest Loot but will not be used without your consent.  We like to provide an author name but can limit this to first name or name of your business, if you wish.