Another COVID-19 Eagle Mountain Casualty

People are not the only casualties of the COVID-19 sudo-pandemic and the impact it has had on the Country and the World. Every year Eagle Mountain holds its ShopFest. The ShopFest for 2020 has come and gone and was held virtually. The city staff has made several attempts to help businesses in Eagle Mountain during the pandemic. Including a virtual main street, that was closed down after a few months due to inactivity. A survey that Eagle Mountain did showed that 20% of the businesses surveyed during the early stages of the pandemic in Eagle Mountain closed their doors. [visualizer id=”18474″] I reached out to the City to see how many vendors they had participate and how much traffic the website had. Aaron Sanborn, Economic Development Director/Senior Project Manager for Eagle Mountain responded and was able to give me some statistics on how ShopFest for 2020 went. They had about 120 vendors apply initially, but of those 120, only 45 completed the process to be admitted into the ShopFest Utah event. The city could not give me any statistics on purchases, “There’s actually no way for us to know the number of products sold. All the City did was organize the means of showcasing the businesses in one location and market the event to drive business to individual Facebook Shops or websites. The information on products sold would be with the businesses themselves. Some businesses were also service-type businesses and did not have product to sell.” Sanborn did tell me that the pages associated with the ShopFest event had around 2,000-2,500 visitors. The city made this announcement, “Shop to support local Utah businesses this weekend from Aug 28–30. ShopFest Utah has been recreated digitally this year thanks to our amazing sponsors. Browse numerous businesses and shop amazing deals.” on Wed, Aug 26. ShopFest opened, but the city gave out the wrong URL initially. Residents ran into errors when trying to access the site at first. The city sent out a correction to the URL 4 hours after the launch. It caused some confusion for residents. One Eagle Mountain resident reported that “Link didn’t work for me.” when they tried to access the site. I reached out to vendors and customers to see how ShopFest went for them. One vendor had this to say, “I was a vendor this year and have been in the past. I had no one reach out through my page. I had no views on my page either. This is usually a huge event for me and I am disappointed.” Another possible vendor stated that she did not participate this year because she “did not want to deal with the shipping and arranging for pick up” of their products. Hopefully next year the COVID-19 pandemic will allow the City to go to the regular format that has been so popular in Eagle Mountain.

Diana B made this comment, “I usually attend it in person. I love browsing up and down the street and getting food from food trucks. I don’t ever go with any idea of what I’m going to buy, I just buy on a whim. I did attend online this year. The shopfest website itself was fine. It got hard to navigate because I had to open all of the different pages for the shops. A couple of them were VIP groups in fb and I had to request access to even look at the product they were selling. It took so long to look at everything. I felt like that because it was online, I couldn’t focus. I’m hoping they will do it again in person next year.

Amy H said this about the new virtual format, “I saw ads and even went to the link and looked at a few. Not liking the online format. I didn’t buy and I usually buy something at the Shopfest. It has to go back to in person. I feel bad for these small businesses but it’s just too hard to buy without being in-person to see product and ask questions through natural conversation.” Below are some of the comments I collected about ShopFest 2020. I think the event came and went with little notice by the Eagle Mountain residents.

• Rebecca W – “I noticed some links didn’t work, but maybe it was just on my phone. I hardly ever get on my computer, so I didn’t check the links there. I’ve been a vendor in the past, but I was not a vendor this time. I prefer it to be in person. Hopefully next year!”
• Scott C – “I’d much rather have a booth and meet in person. Looking forward to next year when we can have it outdoors again (fingers crossed).”
• Jan P – “I went to one vendors site but could not figure out how to see the products.”
• Emma F – “I didn’t even know about it! Sad, I didn’t see any posts regarding it.”
• Melissa B – “As a customer, I personally prefer to browse in person. I don’t enjoy shopping online. I feel like photos and descriptions rarely represent products to my satisfaction.” she continued, “Also, for me, a lot of the motivation to participate in the past is to be able to walk down the street, get outside, and see and visit with friends and neighbors. With it being online, it loses all of that and I am far less likely to participate.”
• Jody H – “Couldn’t really see all their products available online.”
• David C – “I wanted to participate but I missed the deadline. I went to the vendor’s sites and found that they were not working. I could not navigate the links. Of course, I’m an old hippie so it could be user error.”
• Anjanel L – “I found it hard to go to individual shops to see individual items. I’ll be glad when we can do an in-person shop fest again.”
• Amanda H – “Didn’t even know it happened”
• Rebecca J – “Wait…what….there was a shop fest 2020? That’s disappointing that I had zero idea. Not good.”
• Ginger V – “It already happened?”
• Minda B – “I tried as a customer but couldn’t figure it out”
• C Carroll – “Would’ve been much better in person for sure.”
• Melissa W – “I didn’t know how it worked, so I didn’t get a chance to shop.”
• Lindsey C – “The shopping format was kind of frustrating.”

(I did fix some spelling and grammar errors in some of the quotes. They were taken from a FB post that I created) Kim C stated that she, “Meant to look at it but forgot.” I think that is what happened to most of the residents. With ShopFest being outside, and including food, music, and fresh air, it has more of an appeal and more people will remember the date. After all, most of us can do virtual shopping on Amazon and have it delivered to our houses for free. It is nice to be able to support local vendors, but doing it virtually just seems like you are buying from Amazon. The interaction and other aspects are what draw people to the ShopFest.