By Joni Renick
Provo has joined forces with both the state and Novell to produce a new Web site featuring local businesses and organizations.
Mayor Lewis Billings said Provo is the first city in the state to produce a site connected with the state site.
The new site is called www.finditinprovo.com. Billings said the city decided to launch the site because more and more people are shopping online.
'We''re excited about the future of e-commerce,' Billings said.
Also, since many Provo businesses are not online, the city is losing sales to outside vendors.
In addition, the city does not get tax revenue from these outside online sources. Therefore, city government wants to attract shoppers to Provo in order to build the tax base.
Mike Mower, Director of Community and Government Relations for the city said if the city can build revenue through sales, taxes would not have to be raised to fund city operations.
'Keep taxes low and services high by shopping here in Provo,' Mower said.
He added that this site would be instrumental in stimulating shopping and jobs in the community.
Brent McCormick from Novell said according to an outside study, 13.3 billion dollars could be lost by states to e-commerce in the coming years.
All of this comes from individual city revenues that fund all essential city services, McCormick said.
He said right now the Web site is home to more than 5,000 businesses, plus all city offices.
The statewide Web site, www.finditinutah.com, lists more than 120,000 businesses and organizations.
McCormick said any business or organization, including home businesses, can apply to be listed on the site.
The site also contains links to BYU Web sites.
Once at the site, users can search by name or category to find the business of their choice.
Registered businesses can list not only their contact information, but can post coupons and promotional information on the site.
McCormick said since the site is new, right now most of the additional content has not appeared on the site.
He encouraged users to keep checking back as businesses add more and more information and promotions.
Mower said billboard campaign advertising the new site would debut this Wednesday.
Mower encouraged the use of this site both by Provo residents and those in surrounding communities. He said users would find the site to be very fast and user friendly.