Ottawa-based delivery app making it less costly for local businesses

A new delivery app based in Ottawa is making it easier and less costly to support local business during the challenging times of the pandemic.

“When we launched Getit Local, we saw a big need in the market to help restaurants,” said Ben Lacroix, the company’s CEO.

Getit Local was developed in the capital to help restaurants make more profits on delivery.

The application charges companies a flat fee for service, rather than taking a cut per order. 

A local solution that many restaurants are opting to use, including Art House Cafe on Somerset Street West, which is relying entirely on take-out and delivery for business. 

"Our doors have only been open for this current lockdown for a week and a bit," said Julie Smithers, general manager of the Art House Cafe.

Smithers said the cafe has tried other options, but working with a different well-known app didn’t work.

“We had a really bad time with DoorDash and it’s been really important to us to have a delivery service of some sort,” Smithers said.

That experience actually led to more losses.

“It was more than 30 per cent per order and we had to mark up our prices in order to make any bit of a profit,” she said.

The cafe has decided to join other local restaurants by teaming up with Getit Local to provide a delivery app for customers, which won’t force them to raise their prices.

“It becomes much more accessible for the folks, we don’t have to do any mark ups or anything,” said Smithers.