Orange City Council will give away 1,000 ‘Think Orange Region’, $50 EFTPOS shopping cards to help boost businesses affected by the pandemic.
The $50,000 funding boost builds on the successful ‘Retail Recovery’ program launched in 2020.
Council says the ‘Shop Orange’ card has been rebranded as the ‘Think Orange Region Shopping Card’.
The card is an EFTPOS-based gift card that works like any other gift card or voucher based system – the only difference is the money can only be spent in Orange, Blayney, Molong, Canowindra and surrounding villages, at over 100 participating businesses.
Orange Mayor, Reg Kidd said the initiative comes on the heels of a string of measures aimed at supporting local retailers stay in business.
“Many local businesses are doing it tough at present and while some aspects of that are unavoidable, I’m pleased Council is doing what it can to help support businesses now,” Mayor Kidd said.
“Some of these strategies, like the FutureCity CBD upgrade are about the long term, but that doesn’t mean we can’t also work on some short-term solutions that will be felt in the coming months,” he said.
Orange City Council’s Employment and Economic Development Committee chair, Councillor Tony Mileto said the shopping card campaign had proved successful in the past.
“We found last time that when someone uses one of these cards at a local store, they added some dollars of their own to buy something worth more than fifty dollars,” Cr Mileto said.
“$50,000 is only a fraction of the revenue that’s spent at local stores in a year, but it all helps. It might be the factor that will prompt someone to shop online or make their first visit to a local store after the lockdown.”
Businesses that have an EFTPOS facility can register their business on the Think Orange website and be able to accept Think Orange Shopping Cards.
