About Main Street E-Market

Founder Ericka "E" O'Hara is empowering small businesses with tailored online solutions to thrive in a digital world. She founded Main Street E-Market in 2023 as a response to her struggles to meet her goals of shopping more with local small businesses. After resolving to shop small more all year, she quickly realized that this was going to be much more challenging in the rural area she was now living.

Compared to Northern New Jersey where she was born and raised, everything was so spread out that driving to a new small business to see if they had what she was looking for was going to cost an hour almost every time (30 minutes there and back). Many of these small businesses lacked e-commerce or even websites, so going to the business to check if they could meet the need she had was the only way to know for sure, especially because so many of the phone numbers rang off the hook when dialed (presumably because one person was doing everything the business needed and couldn't do it all at the same time). This made shopping in alignment with her values a full-time job, but she already had one of those that was more than full-time (IYKYK). So she decided to make it her actually job to shop with small businesses and to help elevate their brands through digital tools that many hadn't been using up to that point.

"I grew up loving Rocky movies and rooting for the underdog. It only makes sense then to be a small business advocate and generalist dedicated to helping them achieve their biggest dreams."

~E~

Quickly upon starting, she discovered that many of the small businesses were struggling to make sales at Farmer's markets and craft shows in ways that they hadn't previously. One of the first things they did to try to sustain their businesses was cut back on their overhead costs, which totally made sense. So sadly, for many, their own websites had to go. This was even more devastating for those that had hired someone to create their websites and invested a great deal of money into getting them set up.

Add to this group, the businesses that had never been able to afford their own website or the ones that had one during the introductory period but as soon as the initial pricing was done, they ended up with monthly costs that they couldn't justify with how little revenue they were pulling in on their sites. Many of them tried to boost their SEO and took workshops to try to make it worth it. All of them were working overtime to make sure they posted to socials daily to try to make sure people were aware of their website and brand. But the goal line just kept getting pushed back.

Social media and websites have become almost entirely pay-to-play with an expectation that ads spend will be the basis of getting your name in front of customers. For the vast majority of small businesses this just doesn't work. They cannot pay enough on their own to get in front of enough people for the return on their investment to ever be realized.

Does SEO help? Of course it does. But it isn't the whole reason why they weren't getting people to their websites. Does social media still help? Yes, absolutely, but when you are shouting into the void separately along with all of the other 33.3 million small businesses in the US AND the juggernauts of every industry outspending small businesses annual budgets every second with their seemingly limitless marketing budgets and you have yourself what feels like a losing game.

As an advocate for the underdog, E started the Tiny But Mighty Podcast to highlight small business owners and their journeys so they could reach new customers with their stories. This inspired the name for the shared e-commerce page born of the same principles, Tiny But Mighty Online Vendor Marketplace, which now has it's own home on it's own page - very fancy. The shared e-commerce platform is a way to help those without websites to gain access to e-commerce without the steep costs of money and time to set up their own. With no upfront costs, she aims to make it accessible to every small business that needs it. With all of the small businesses driving traffic to the site together, she hopes to avoid going too far into ad spend and organically supporting one another.

Making content around the small business treasures hosted on the Tiny But Mighty Shop is helping E to meet her goals of shopping more with small business too. Now she knows where to find so many incredible things with small businesses that she would have never known about without taking the leap in entrepreneurship. Sharing about these amazing small and micro businesses is the best part of doing this work and helps others to know where to go if they are also wanting to shop small and local more often.

E is also a co-founder of the Greater Hoosic Valley Community Business Alliance in Schaghticoke NY whose aim is to uplift local small businesses by building a collective that supports one another's success. By finding ways to get bulk ordering for multiple businesses that use similar products, connecting new owners with seasoned veterans, hosting workshops to increase knowledge and skills, and highlighting the businesses in a shared social media platform and newsletter together, they hope to reduce costs and increase business for those that partner with them.

Your business is your baby, and it takes a village to raise a child. she hopes to be a part of that village, whatever is needed to make sure that your business gets what it needs and you don't have to risk self harm in order to accomplish it. Whether that is making you a website, writing copy for your posts on socials, redoing your logo to better represent your business, or being an employee for the day to help you to refine your leadership skills and training systems, she is here to help.

Ericka knows that she isn't the right person to work with every small business and that's okay. There are plenty of folks you can work with, many of them with deeper expertise in each area that she offers support. If you are looking for a marketing industry insider, this is the wrong place for you. If you are looking for a generalist that can help you meet your needs in a variety of different ways for a reasonable cost to you, then welcome to the family. Fill out the form below to set up an introductory call to chat about how she might be able to be of service to your small business.

Oh, and don't for get to look local first and shop small y'all!