Coimbra launches Marketplace to modernize and promote downtown digital commerce

The Marketplace @Baixa Coimbra, a new digital platform created to promote, enhance and boost local commerce in the city’s historic area, was officially presented today, June 27, in the Salão Nobre of the Paços do Concelho. The event was attended by the mayor of Coimbra, José Manuel Silva, the vice-president Francisco Veiga and the councillor responsible for Trade and Industry, Miguel Fonseca. The platform was presented by the Neighborhood Manager, Rosa Gonçalves.

The Marketplace @Baixa Coimbra provides a collective online platform where the traders of Baixa can present their products and services, reinforcing the visibility and competitiveness of traditional commerce through innovative digital tools. The platform also aims to facilitate consumer access to a diverse, authentic and local offer, promoting the sector’s digital transition.

“This project is part of a long process that represents a profound transformation of Coimbra’s Baixa,” said the mayor of the city, José Manuel Silva, considering that “this platform allows Baixa to reach millions of people and that these people gain a curiosity to visit it”. There is a “positive spiral movement happening in the Baixa”, added the mayor, stressing the importance of the project for the modernization of local commerce, for the economic cohesion of the historic center and the creation of new opportunities for traders. “Baixa is in an accelerated process of transformation into the Baixa of the 21st century, with new experiences, new responses, where the digital world could not be missing,” he concluded.

The project @Baixa Coimbra is the result of a joint application by the City Council of Coimbra, the Agency for the Promotion of Downtown Coimbra (APBC) and CoimbraMaisFuturo, under the “Digital Business Neighbourhoods” funding line of the Recovery and Resilience Plan (PRR).

Integrated in the revitalization strategy of the historic center, the Marketplace ambition is to strengthen the identity and economic and cultural value of the Baixa, while bringing merchants and consumers together in a more attractive, simple and inclusive digital environment.

Photo credits: Coimbra City Council | João Paulo Silvano

Coimbra launches Marketplace to modernize and promote downtown digital commerce – coimbra.pt