Brady layne beauty is one business featured on Shop YXH (Shop YXH)

By Tiffany Goodwein

Local businesses see an uptick in interest since launch of Shop YXH

Jan 22, 2021 | 5:42 PM

MEDICINE HAT, AB- Business owner Janelle Lesmeister is hard at work at her family’s business Sewline Upholstery and her newest venture Burk and CO.

Her family’s upholstery business has been in the community for 30 years, and she has always tried to appeal the family’s business to the younger demographic. So when the pandemic hit Lesmeister turned to Shop YXH, a website that links her business with other local businesses in the city.

“It’s been pretty beneficial for us a lot of customers have seen our furniture pieces on there and they have been inspired to do pieces that they have at home as well as seeing fabric that kind of interests them,” she said.

Shop YXH is a new initiative that was launched in partnership with Apex Alberta, the Medicine Hat Chamber of Commerce, and Invest Medicine Hat. It was funded through a $225,000 grant provided by the rural opportunities fund

WHAT'S ON

Here is what's on this weekend in Medicine Hat: Dec. 12-14

Dec 12, 2025

WHAT'S ON

Here is what's on this weekend in Medicine Hat: December 5-7

Dec 05, 2025

WHAT'S ON

Top five things to do at the Medicine Hat Public Library in December

Nov 30, 2025

“COVID-19 has certainly changed the way that businesses and everyday people have to operate and we noticed it especially affected the businesses. The businesses were really struggling, some were required to shut down and with that, they were very restricted in what and how they can sell. So we just thought this would be a wonderful way to bring everyone together build that online community of local businesses and make it easy for people to shop and source local,” Kelli Ireland, Marketing Specialist for Invest Medicine Hat said.

Another business that is featured on the website is Brady Layne Beauty, a new beauty business that carries its own line of beauty products from false lashes to makeup brushes to magic liners.

“It was just an idea that I had and I wasn’t seeing it out there. I offer makeup lessons as one of my services and all the makeup brushes I would use in my service my clients would ask me, ‘where did you get this,? They wanted the exact same products that I was using in the lessons so that they could recreate the look themselves, but all of the brushes that I used from different brands, different stores, they were from all over the place. So I came up with this idea one day that I would create my own brush set with everything that you need,” Brady Pyle founder of Brady Layne Beauty said.

Her business launched about one year ago, and when she heard about Shop YXH on Instagram she quickly jumped at the opportunity to get on board.

“I thought that it was such a wonderful idea, so I sent an email and they got back to me right away, and it was so easy to set up,” Pyle said.

Pyle moved from the Edmonton area to Medicine Hat, which added more challenges for the start-up business owner on top of the pandemic.

“I knew that I would be starting my business up from scratch, my clientele anyway. My products they were safe because I do have an online store and I ship all across Canada,” she said.

Layne said the website Shop YXH has allowed her to expand her local presence in the city and since her products have been on the website, she has seen an uptick in local business.

“It’s been amazing the support that I feel from the amount of products that people buy, and the reviews I get back from them are amazing and how much people want to support local in Medicine Hat is really refreshing,” she said.

The website Shop YXH is designed and powered by Calgary-based company Local Shops.

“ They reached out to us. We started looking into our own marketplace, but that would not allow us to facilitate or get our businesses up as quickly as we did for the holidays. We still would be building it if it was up to us to build that technology and the software behind it,” Ireland said.

Since launching in December the number of businesses and web traffic has grown.

“When we first launched on Dec 7, we had 36 businesses loaded, which if I remember correctly is about 3000 products. We are up to about 90 local businesses on the SHOP YXH marketplace and within the first 21 days we had over 12,000 unique visitors to the website,” Ireland said.

The initiative is also expected to expand even further in the coming months to further help small businesses in the city.

“ The great thing about Local Shops powering the back end is they have the technology and skill force to continuously upgrade the website. So we have a dedicated engineer at Paypal who is now creating a single transaction cart, so that when the consumer goes to buy, they can buy from multiple stores, and checkout through a single transaction,” Ireland said.

Plans are also in the works to integrate other website platforms like Woocommerce and Wix so that businesses using these sites can better connect to ShopYXH.