Look For It Locally

Welcome to Look For It Locally (LFIL), an online database designed to connect Portland, Oregon shoppers with locally owned stores.  On LFIL you can search by store name, by address or by item.  For example, if you type "bamboo towels" into the search box you will receive a list of locally owned stores that sell bamboo towels.

LFIL is designed to be a community project.  The more information people contribute the more useful the website will be.  Please send information about: unlisted locally owned stores, closed or relocated stores, additional details about a listed store, and typos or any other corrections. When sending information about an unlisted store, please provide as much detail as you can about its inventory.

The Items Wanted page contains a list of items that people would like to buy locally, but they don't know where to find them.  Please click on the link for more information. 

At this time service focused businesses (e.g. salons, window installation, etc) and restaurants are not included on the website.  If there is enough interest I will explore the possibility of adding them in the future.  Currently only Portland stores are listed.  Listings may be expanded in the future to include stores in the Portland Metro area.  

LFIL is the outgrowth of my own unsuccessful search, using multiple search engines, to find locally sold bamboo towels.  It seemed reasonable to expect that somewhere in Portland a locally owned store (or stores) sold bamboo towels, but there was no way to access that information.  So I decided to create a website that would provide this information.

Because I am not a programmer or a web designer and I created LFIL in my spare time I hope to improve this first version of the website in the future.  However, before expending additional money and time, I want the site to get some use.  Your suggestions for improvements will be greatly appreciated; however, please understand I may be unable to incorporate them quickly. 

Without assistance from Wren Schultz and WK Design this site might never have been launched.  WK Design’s low hourly rates made it possible to hire them to work on some of the problems I could not solve on my own.  Wren provided support for other areas of the site.

Thank you in advance to everyone who contributes to the website and helps support locally owned stores.