Getting Started

SupportReedsburg.com is a place for locals to support local. You can peruse the homepage for highlighted vendors (all of our local businesses, organizations, freelancers and makers that have set up a vendor profile), listings (what our vendors have to offer), community-wide events, current specials, and more. Or you can simply perform a search for what you're looking for in town. As we continue to grow our directory, search results will expand with a ton of options to choose from. The more you know about what our local vendors offer, the more you can support them.

Please be patient as we add new vendors: the website was launched on May 15, 2024.

Why Support Local?

Supporting local is more than just a purchase – it's an investment in your community's heart and soul. When you choose to shop local, you're directly contributing to the livelihoods of your neighbors, friends, and family. You're helping to create jobs, stimulate innovation, and preserve the unique character of our town. By supporting local businesses, you're also:

Keeping money within our community, rather than sending it to distant corporations
Encouraging entrepreneurship and creativity
Preserving the local charm and personality that makes our town special
Helping to fund local initiatives and events that bring us together

Every time you shop local, you're casting a vote for the kind of community you want to live in – one that's vibrant, diverse, and full of life. So, let's come together to build a thriving local economy and make our town an amazing place to live, work, and play!

Create a Free Personal Account

Creating an account is easy. Just go to the top of the website and click "Sign In." There will be an option to register for a new account there. All you need to do update your contact name, add a nickname, and optionally add a profile image. Nobody else can look at your profile; logged-in members only see your nickname and picture on reviews, comments, and discussion forum posts, and vendors see your contact name only when you contact them.

With an account, you can do a number of things that non-members can't:

Rate and review listings
Comment on news and events
Browse and participate in our discussion forum
Follow the vendors you like and only see their listings on your feed; also get notified when they post new listings
Favorite the listings you like so you can easily find them later
Earn virtual credits for being active on the site, which you can use in our virtual store
Gain access to our "Help Me Find It" feature (which allows you to ask our volunteers for help finding something in Reedsburg)

Create Free Vendor Profiles

If you have a business, run an organization, or are a freelancer or maker, you can create a free vendor profile to show it off. To get started with your vendor profile, take the following steps.

Initial Setup:

You must first have a free personal account created (see above) - log in if you haven't already
At the top of your personal account Settings page, click on the "Create New Vendor" link
Complete the short survey about what you do
From your vendor account menu, you will now see several other options to configure; it is recommended to start with the following:
- All About Me
- Hours of Operation
- Automatic Replies
That's it! Your vendor page is live and searchable on the site — you can change the status of your page to "Draft" at any time from your vendor account settings page, which will hide your profile and all of your listings

Add Listings:

Listings are what people will be generally searching for, so it's good to have your offerings show up in their search results. Listings can be General Products, Food & Beverage, Real Estate, Automotive, Services, Jobs, Volunteer Opportunities, Donation Requests and Vendor Merchandise — With Vendor Logo. You can either add items as individual listings or group multiple items together in a single listing. For example, if you have a bakery, you can make one listing for wedding cakes and another listing for birthday cakes, or just make one listing for all cakes. It's entirely up to you. All we ask is that you combine items if the only differences are sizes and/or colors. Here's how to add a listing:

Prepare by taking one or more photos (for extra attention) and writing a description
Log into your vendor profile if you haven't already
Click on the "+ Add Listing" button (on desktop) or "+" button (on mobile) located at the top-right of the website
Complete the form
That's it! Once you hit save, your listing will be live and searchable on the site

Extras:

There are a ton of other things you can do as a vendor as well.

Add an announcement to your vendor page
Submit a press release (which will be added to the website's News feed - upon approval)
Add your specials (which gets you extra attention on our Current Specials page)
Add member-exclusive coupons that members can buy in our virtual store
Add events (which show up in our Event Calendar)
Generate certificates that you can print, sign, and sell to your clients

Have Questions?

Check out our Frequently Asked Questions section, or contact us at any time! 🙂