Make a great impact on our community
By Mike McKenna
There is one easy way we can all support our community: shop local.
Studies have shown that roughly 70 percent of money spent in small businesses stays in the community. That’s money used to pay the salaries of our friends and families. It’s money that gets donated back into the community to support local charities and sports teams.
Walmart doesn’t sponsor local Little League teams. Amazon isn’t donating items for fundraisers. Costco isn’t helping our community members in need.
But Valley Apothecary and Smiles for Kids make sure our local ballplayers have uniforms. Iconoclast Books, Idaho Lumber, Silver Creek Outfitters and countless others donate to help every local cause, from finding animals homes to keeping our river healthy to feeding our neighbors during a pandemic.
Becoming more aware about shopping local is one of the hidden blessings of COVID-19. According to Forbes, 80 percent of consumers now feel more or as connected to their community than they did before the pandemic.
So it’s our job, as business owners and employees, to make sure we appreciate this sense of connection.
People shop local, as studies have shown, because: they want convenience; they want better service than a chain offers; they want to see familiar faces and to be treated like a person, and not just a credit card number.
While over 80 percent of people now do online research before shopping, 91 percent of shoppers say they miss going into stores. More than 60 percent of consumers say they still prefer to shop in person so they can see, feel or try out the items first. But that’s just one of the clear benefits of shopping local. There are also a lot of less obvious ones.
According to studies compiled by Entrepreneur Magazine, shopping local is actually good for us for a variety of reasons.
It makes us healthier because we eat foods that are grown locally, which means we ingest fewer chemicals than mass-produced foods. The farm-to-table movement has really taken off here in southcentral Idaho.
Shopping local allows us to connect with familiar faces, which makes us happier. As the famous song goes, we all want to go “where everybody knows your name.” Supporting others, even by simply buying regularly from their small businesses, also makes us feel better. We are also saddened when local businesses close. We actually mourn the loss of longtime non-chain restaurants and stores, and the loss of character they bring to our community.
We appreciate the personal connection of knowing who made our items. We appreciate seeing the personal investment put into what we purchase.
When you add it all together, it’s pretty easy to see that shopping local is one of the best investments we can make for our community and ourselves.
There’s an old saying that you can’t buy happiness, but you can by local, and it’s kind of the same thing. On behalf of every Chamber member, thank you for shopping local!