THE LAURA SULTAN®Digital transparency — mentoring, training and policy
Toronto · in person · Centre for Social Innovation
Upcoming workshops for online sellers
A two-part public workshop series on digital transparency in e-commerce, for independent sellers, makers and small business owners who sell through Amazon, Etsy and other marketplaces. The sessions connect, but each stands on its own.
E-commerce workshops at the Centre for Social Innovation, Toronto
Both sessions run 5:30–6:30pm at CSI Spadina, 192 Spadina Ave. Registration is through CSI’s event pages.
Session one
Demystifying Digital Transparency in E-commerce
· CSI, 192 Spadina Ave, Toronto
How marketplace decisions actually get made, using real cases from a Toronto business that has spent years on both sides of that process. What large platforms disclose versus what they don’t, and what sellers can reasonably ask for.
Ranking, visibility, catalogue control and account standing, in plain terms
A business Amazon filmed as a success story in 2022, and what one algorithm change did in 2023
What you can request, document and escalate — and where the real limits are
This session has taken place.
Session two
Resilience for Small Business in a Digital Landscape
· CSI, 192 Spadina Ave, Toronto
Reducing dependency on any single platform, building sales channels you own, and finding growth outside the algorithm. Shaped in part by the questions raised in October.
Dependency audit: where revenue comes from, and what happens if one channel disappears
Owned channels — email, direct storefront, community — at realistic small scale
Creative export into the U.S. and U.K. as a small Canadian business
Markets, wholesale and offline revenue as deliberate strategy, not fallback
Where Canadian marketplace policy is going, and how small sellers can be heard