Indigenous brands will welcome PaYPal’s partnership with Welcome to Country, which showcases businesses that support Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities.
Australia’s first Indigenous-led not-for-profit marketplace launched in 2019, originally as an online platform for indigenous experience providers.
However, when Covid hit, Welcome to Country CEO, Jason Eades and his team rapidly reinvented their not-for-profit to include a digital marketplace for Indigenous products that could be purchased online.
“So many of the experiences we showcase give tourists the chance to buy Indigenous products to take home with them,” Eades Explains.
“When it seemed like customers weren’t going to be able to reach those businesses, we decided to help bring their products to the customers.”
This decision has paid dividends, with the store offering more than a thousand products from hundreds of businesses across homewares, fashion, art, books, beauty, giftware and more.
“The success of the Welcome to Country shop exceeded our wildest expectations and every purchase directly benefits Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander artists and communities.
“We source items from artists, art centres and manufacturers that have licence agreements with artists and pay fair royalties.”
PayPal Australia’s partnership with Welcome to Country will help raise awareness, attract new customers and support Indigenous businesses and communities.
“We’re excited to be working with PayPal as they’ve been a significant part of our success so far. As soon as we added PayPal as a payment option, we saw a 23 per cent month-on-month increase in sales and today 46 per cent of all sales are from customers who choose to pay with PayPal.”
To celebrate the partnership PayPal has launched the Welcome to Country social media competition to coincide with the lead up to NAIDOC Week. Three winners will be announced each week until the competition ends on 13 July.
