The Benefits to Buying Local

The Benefits to Buying Local

(Written and shared by Tasha Mitchell) - A great anylization of why it's important to patronize local businesses you probably haven't realized.

This past November, I had the chance to participate in an event that supports my entire community.  Small Business Saturday, which happens every November on the Saturday after Thanksgiving, is a federally recognized day in which several cities and states around the nation encourage consumers to shop at their local businesses instead of big chain stores. This year was the first time that I participated in the event and I learned quite a bit about the local businesses in my community and the benefits they provided to our neighborhoods and our cities as a whole. Below is a list of five things that I learned while out shopping that day and things that have kept me supporting my local businesses.

1. Local Businesses share community goals.
​First of all let’s just take a look at the word community.  According to Webster’s Dictionary, “Community” is a feeling of fellowship with others, as a result of sharing common attitudes, interests, and goals.  A local business is not just a business.  A local business is part of a community and that means they share similar attitudes and goals that we each share.  They want the same things that other community members want; vibrant, healthy and economically stable neighborhoods and people that support each other.  This is one of the major benefits that local businesses provide.  They share our goals.  One goal in particular, is giving people the opportunity to work in the communities where they live.  They do this by providing jobs.  Over 50% of the working population (120 million individuals) works in a small business.  On top of that, small businesses have generated over 65% of the net new jobs since 1995 (Forbes.com).  Local businesses are and have been putting people to work for decades. As we support them, we support ourselves, knowing that the profit they make is going back into the hands of people in our own neighborhoods.  It’s a beautiful economic cycle of supporting each other.  In essence it is this type of sharing that creates and builds a community.

2. Local Businesses support other local businesses.
Continuing on with that theme of cyclical support, I learned that local businesses don’t just take care of themselves, they take care of each other.  While out shopping on Small Business Saturday, I met a woman who ran her own events planning company.  She too, was celebrating local business and purchasing some materials for an upcoming awards dinner that she was planning.  We chatted a bit about the day and I found out later that not only was she purchasing materials from a local business, but she had also hired a local D.J and caterer.  Knowing that most big chain stores purchase much of their supplies and products from manufacturers who are not only out of the state, but out of the country, it felt good thinking that by supporting one local business, I was helping several others in my neighborhood.

3. Local Businesses support the community.
In addition to supporting other small businesses, local business owners also support and serve the members and families in the community where they do business.  I can’t begin to tell you how many of those local shops and restaurants I walked into that day, who displayed large posters with a picture of the local high school band and appreciation signatures from the band directors and students.  Local businesses often donate both their time and their money to non-profits in their own communities.  That means that part of the money that you spend making purchases from a local business will go back into organizations in your community who are doing good things for the community.  Whether that be supporting local schools, small soup kitchens or the local little league baseball team.  In fact, because most local business owners live in the neighborhoods where they do business, you may even see them coaching their kids’ little league teams.  That’s something you just do see at a local level when it comes to big chain stores.  How many times have you seen a big chain’s business name on the back of a little league football shirt? The answer is, not often.  So by supporting local business, you are supporting the non-profits that they help also.

4. More revenue from local businesses cycles back through the local economy
Supporting other local businesses and non-profits are just part of the way the local economy is supported by small business owners.  Just the fact that most local business owners live in their community, ensures that more money per dollar ends up back in the local economy.  Those same business owners go out to dinner with their families and buy groceries at the local supermarket.  Those same local business owners also need gas for their cars, or haircuts. According to a recent study 45 percent of revenue from small businesses stays in the community, compared with 14 percent of revenue from chain stores. So when you support a local business you can applaud yourself for keeping your local economy healthy.

5. They know your name/Customer Service
And I don’t just mean they ask for your name when you walk in, put your name on a cup and forget about you the minute you walk out.  Local business owners get to know their customers, not only on a first name basis, but other things about them.  Because they are invested in the community, they spend time with their customers outside of the business.  They run into them at the grocery store, or out at the park with their kids.  This puts them in a very helpful position when finding you the exact product or service that you want or need.  They know your individual need, and you are not just a dollar sign in their cash register.  This allows them to provide an invaluable level of customer service.  Every product is nearly personalized just for you.  They know what you have bought in the past, and what you might need in the future.  This makes them and extremely valuable source of advice when you need to learn about a new product.  Many times, because of the personal relationships they have with their consumers, they will even allow you to try a product or service, before you buy it.
On the end of that Small Business Saturday, this past November I learned the true value of local businesses in our communities.  I met a number of owners who actually work in their own stores and truly care about each customer that walks through the doors. They looked like me, and they knew my city and my neighborhoods.  They had goals to not only raise revenue, but to raise the local economy, to help raise the children growing up around them and help raise all of those who helped them. The definition of community that I read about could not ring any truer than it did that day visiting those local businesses.  Every place that I walked into, I felt that feeling of fellowship, that feeling of support and the goal that together we made our community better.  I hope more consumers decide to continue that support not only on one Saturday of the year, but all throughout.