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QUINCY, ILL. -- Many people shop online and it can be a big way for companies to do business.

Now, there are five businesses in the Historic Quincy Business District selling their products online through a centralized e-commerce website.

The executive director of the Historic Quincy Business District is excited about the new website. It's called Shop Downtown Quincy and it can be compared to sites like Amazon.

"I think this is a good use of what our organization can be. Providing a great service and making things like this, not just cost effective but really giving our businesses the tools to succeed and that's what continues to make our downtown and downtowns across the country successful.," Travis Brown, executive director of the Historic Quincy Business District, said.

The planning for this launch began several months ago as a discussion.

Meetings with local downtown business owners, the HQBD Board of Directors and the Great River Economic Development Foundation led to what is on the web today.

For Sara Platt who owns The Sweet Apricot Shop, she feels its a great tool not just for her but for many of the businesses in the downtown area.

"And it seems like a sensible next step to be able to get the products on line. I like it especially because there are other downtown shops on there, so that's really good for me and somebody can do downtown shopping on line," Platt said.

Brown said the HQBD will be the central point for web browsing and will be the pass through for the financial transactions. He also said it's up to each business to ship their merchandise. He expects more businesses to be on the site within the next few weeks.

Brown added that his office has already gotten a call from the Main Street program in Delaware asking how the site was designed and what they did to get the website up and running.