In 2019 residents of the greater Charleston region spent over $800 million on online shopping and retaining professional service firms with no presence in our community. Over $100 million of that was spent on amazon.com alone. Until the pandemic, this exodus of capital from our community was offset by the influx of capital brought by tourism, however, the pandemic clearly showed that without tourism or economy is at risk.



Watching local businesses fold, watching local people lose their jobs, and watching our most vulnerable neighbors endure their highest levels of risk since the financial crash of 2008, caused our Mayor to look for ways to build greater economic resiliency moving forward. The result is OLC-CHS (Our Local Commerce - Charleston), which is an e-commerce platform purposed to bring material amounts of the capital currently leaving our economic ecosystem back to a local community. 



Using a unique ranking system that clearly shows the proportion of money that will remain in our economic ecosystem when products or services are purchased, OLC-CHS provides local businesses with the opportunity to create, or duplicate online shopping stores allowing residents to support the local economy. 



Helping local businesses and the local economy is not the only purpose of OLC-CHS, because it is also designed to help almost vulnerable residents. OLC-CHS invites vulnerable residents of our community to become Ambassadors for the platform. By simply socializing the existence of the platform throughout their personal and professional networks, our most vulnerable neighbors can earn an income that can make a huge difference in their lives.



There is no cost for local businesses to leverage the OLC-CHS platform, however, they do pay a commission of up to 10% on any sale. Out of this commission, OLC-CHS gives 60% to the Ambassador responsible for the sale.