For 30 years The Lee County Shopper has been serving more than 400,000 local residents in posting classifieds and advertisements, and after today, the countywide publication will be available online at: leecountyshopper.com.

The Shopper is published every Wednesday and connects local businesses, buyers and sellers. The new Web site will be a place where residents can place advertisements 24 hours a day from their home or office computers to run in the printed Shopper or to appear online on the Web site, view thousands of other advertisements from the huge database and find local businesses.

“It is an added service for our readers. It allows ads to be read across the country, as well as locally,” said Publisher Jack Glarrow. “It is an addition to the print version which has been in the market for over 30 years.”

Links to The Shopper site will be included in the online versions of each of the Breeze Newspaper publications at: breezenewspapers.com — cape-coral-daily-breeze.com, pineisland-eagle.com, northfortmyersneighbor.com, lehighacrescitizen.com, island-reporter.com, sanibel-captiva-islander.com, captivacurrent.com, fort-myers-beach-observer.com, beach-bulletin.com and gasparillagazette.com.

Customers have the choice of paying only $12.50 to create an advertisement with updated features — allowing as many as five photographs, Google maps, coupons and up to 1,000 words describing the product for sale — or posting a free classified ad for up to three weeks.

Online users can search for goods and services in as small a geographical area as a five-mile radius of their home, or halfway across the country.

“It will be a huge advantage for the people,” said Renee Brown, manager of classified advertising sales.

The advertisements can list anything from real estate and cars for sale, pets, available apartments for rent or garage sales. They also can announce the opening of a new local business or restaurant.

Brown explained that the new site will feature special offers, discounts and coupons from participating local businesses that are only available on: leecountyshopper.com.

Breeze Newspapers is excited about The Shopper expansion.

“More people are shopping online than ever before and this new Web site gives our customers the ability to use both the print product and our new dynamic Web site to buy and sell,” said Advertising Director Peter Jackson.