We are celebrating Small Business Saturday at Treehouse Gift & Home with 3 Specials! Save 30% OFF Vera Bradley, 20% OFF Christmas Florals: picks, wreaths, & garlands, & 60% OFF Fall!
So what does shopping locally really do for our community? Fun Fact First: A 2004 Civic Economics study found that $68 of every $100 spent at an independent community business stayed in the local economy, compared to $43 of every $100 spent at a chain store.
I will give you the 10 reasons to always shop locally according to the Institute for Local Self-Reliance, www.HometownAdvantage.org:
10. Jobs & Wages: Locally owned businesses create more jobs locally and, in some sectors provide better wages and benefits than chain stores do.
9. Keeping Dollars in the Local Community: Compared to chain stores, locally owned businesses recycle a much larger share of their revenue back into the local economy, enriching the community as a whole.
8. Local Decision Making: Local ownership ensures that important decisions are made locally by people who live in the community and who will feel the impacts of those decisions.
7. Entrepreneurship fuels America's economic innovation and prosperity, and serves as a key means for families to move out of low-wage jobs and into the middle class.
6. Environmental Sustainability: Local stores help to sustain vibrant compact, walk-able town centers, which in turn are essential to reducing sprawl, automobile use, habitat loss, and air and water pollution.
5. Product Diversity: A multitude of small businesses each selecting products based, not on a national sales plan, but on their own interests and the needs of their local customers, guarantees a much broader range of product choices.
4. Community Well-Being: Locally owned businesses build strong communities by sustaining vibrant town centers, linking neighbors in a web of economic and social relationships, and contributing to local causes.
3. Local Character & Prosperity: In an increasingly homogenized world, communities that preserve their one-of-a-kind businesses & distinctive character have an economic advantage.
2. Competition: A marketplace of tens of thousands of small businesses is the best way to ensure innovation and low prices over the long-term.
1. Public Benefits and Costs: Local stores in town centers require comparatively little infrastructure and make more efficient use of public services relative to big box stores and strip shopping malls.
So this Saturday, you will have more reasons than ever to shop locally. You may even find it's contagious!
