{"id":4605,"date":"2018-03-20T23:15:17","date_gmt":"2018-03-20T23:15:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/events.sustainablebrands.com\/conferences\/sb18vancouver\/?p=4605"},"modified":"2018-04-15T23:34:29","modified_gmt":"2018-04-15T23:34:29","slug":"giving-small-businesses-the-world-while-keeping-jobs-close-to-home","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/events.sustainablebrands.com\/conferences\/sb18vancouver\/giving-small-businesses-the-world-while-keeping-jobs-close-to-home\/","title":{"rendered":"Giving Small Businesses the World&#8211;While Keeping Jobs Close to Home"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>&quot;It means more jobs. People can live where they work. People can enjoy their community&#8211;and also make money&#8211;while being part of a global community and economy that&#8217;s never been possible before.&quot; That&#8217;s how Grace Kontur, founder of Kontur Wood Works, describes the impact of complementing the brick-and-mortar businesses she owns with her father and brother with selling on eBay.<br \/>\n  \u00a0<\/p>\n<style>.iframe-container { position:relative; margin-bottom: 30px; padding-bottom:56.25%; padding-top:25px; height:0; max-width:100%; } .iframe-container iframe { position:absolute; top:0; left:0; width:100%; height:100%; border:none; }<\/style>\n<div class=\"iframe-container\"><iframe src=\"https:\/\/player.vimeo.com\/video\/259002939\" webkitallowfullscreen=\"\" mozallowfullscreen=\"\" allowfullscreen=\"\" id=\"player0\"><\/iframe><\/div>\n<p>\n  Grace&#8217;s family business is one of more than a hundred small businesses participating in an economic development pilot we call Retail Revival. It&#8217;s an initiative that aims to harness the power of technology and eBay&#8217;s global marketplace to support and grow local business communities.<br \/>\n  \u00a0<br \/>\n  Through <a href=\"http:\/\/www.ebay.com\/akron\">Retail Revival<\/a>, we are working with the city of Akron and other partners to identify promising local retail businesses and onboard them to eBay, providing store set-up support and ongoing training. The Akron pilot is our first in the U.S., but it builds on similar&#8211;and highly successful&#8211;programs we&#8217;ve executed in communities in Europe.<br \/>\n  \u00a0<br \/>\n  Selling online isn&#8217;t new. eBay has been making it happen for more than two decades. Today millions of active sellers and 170M+ active buyers transact on eBay. Technology makes it possible for people from anywhere in the world to connect with people from everywhere. This people-to-people connection is the secret sauce.\u00a0 <br \/>\n  \u00a0<br \/>\n  As eBay President and CEO Devin Wenig says it, &quot;We have a humanistic vision of what technology can do. It isn&#8217;t about the drones and the robots. It&#8217;s about people. It&#8217;s about small businesses. It&#8217;s about using technology to make people competitive and vibrant and to put life into communities, and not take it out.&quot;<br \/>\n  \u00a0<br \/>\n  And that brings us back to Akron. A city known for its rich manufacturing history, particularly in rubber tires, has a burgeoning entrepreneurial community and strong downtown revitalization plan. Retail Revival aims to strengthen both, keeping people living, working and playing in Akron, while bringing Akron&#8217;s offerings&#8211;like Grace&#8217;s custom wood furnishings&#8211;to the world.<br \/>\n  \u00a0<br \/>\n  I hope you&#8217;ll join me at <a href=\"https:\/\/events.sustainablebrands.com\/conferences\/sb18vancouver\/\">SB&#8217;18 Vancouver<\/a> where I&#8217;ll be sharing more about how these already great local businesses are becoming even better local + global businesses\u2014and in the process, redesigning a good life for themselves and for the people in their community.<\/p>\n<p><\/p>\n<p>  <img src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/events.sustainablebrands.com\/conferences\/sb18vancouver\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/02\/Chris_Librie-1.jpg\" style=\"width:200px;\" \/><\/p>\n<p>By <a href=\"https:\/\/events.sustainablebrands.com\/conferences\/sb18vancouver\/speaker\/chris-librie\/\">Chris Librie<\/a>, Head of Global Impact and Giving, <strong>eBay<\/strong><br \/>\n  March 20, 2018<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&quot;It means more jobs. People can live where they work. People can enjoy their community&#8211;and also make money&#8211;while being part of a global community and economy that&#8217;s never been possible before.&quot; That&#8217;s how Grace Kontur, founder of Kontur Wood Works, describes the impact of complementing the brick-and-mortar businesses she owns [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":4611,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":""},"categories":[81],"tags":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i1.wp.com\/events.sustainablebrands.com\/conferences\/sb18vancouver\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/03\/sb18van-blog-ebay-akron.jpg?fit=1200%2C630&ssl=1","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p9tnpw-1ch","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/events.sustainablebrands.com\/conferences\/sb18vancouver\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4605"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/events.sustainablebrands.com\/conferences\/sb18vancouver\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/events.sustainablebrands.com\/conferences\/sb18vancouver\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/events.sustainablebrands.com\/conferences\/sb18vancouver\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/events.sustainablebrands.com\/conferences\/sb18vancouver\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4605"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/events.sustainablebrands.com\/conferences\/sb18vancouver\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4605\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8201,"href":"https:\/\/events.sustainablebrands.com\/conferences\/sb18vancouver\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4605\/revisions\/8201"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/events.sustainablebrands.com\/conferences\/sb18vancouver\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4611"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/events.sustainablebrands.com\/conferences\/sb18vancouver\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4605"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/events.sustainablebrands.com\/conferences\/sb18vancouver\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4605"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/events.sustainablebrands.com\/conferences\/sb18vancouver\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4605"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}