Have you seen those beautiful Shop Local posters in store windows lately? Our fabulous Pop-up Shop Project co-ordinators, Tina and Gay, put together the campaign to celebrate our local businesses and remind you to show them some love this September. Details are up on our website. We’ve also started collecting pics of local September features and specials on Pinterest (excuse the orientation–we’ll figure out how to rotate those suckers soon).
Tina explains what it’s all about and gives some reasons why shopping local is important:
If you’re an avid follower of this blog then chances are you already support the local businesses. But did you know research shows that a dollar spent at a locally owned store is usually spent 6 to 15 before it leaves the community? By contrast, a dollar spent at a national chain store results in 80% of that dollar leaving the neighbourhood immediately (cited from Northwest Earth Institute for Sustainable Living.) It’s gotta feel good to know that your hard-earned money is staying within the community several times over when you shop locally!
Throughout the month of September, keep your eyes open for the Shop Local posters throughout the ‘hood. These posters will highlight new products, services, and maybe even a deal or two from the local businesses. And here’s what you can do: spread the word! Snap a photo of a poster and post it on your preferred social media site (but don’t forget to include the name of the store it’s from!) Word of mouth really is the best way to share all the great things our neighbourhood has to offer.
And if you needed more reasons to shop locally, read on for 10 benefits of shopping locally.
1. JOB AND WAGES
Locally owned businesses create jobs in the neighbourhood and, in some sectors, provide better wages and benefits than chains do.
2. COMPETITION
A marketplace of many small businesses is the best way to ensure innovation and low prices over the long term.
3. PRODUCT DIVERSITY
A multitude of neighbourhood-based small businesses, each selecting products based on their knowledge of the needs of their local customers, not on the decision of some distant executive and a national sales plan, guarantees a much broader range of product choices.
4. PROTECT LOCAL CHARACTER AND PROSPERITY
Danforth East offers an eclectic mix of shops — some with a long tradition in the area, some brand new. By choosing to support locally owned businesses, you help maintain our diversity and distinctive
flavour.
5. KEEPING DOLLARS IN THE LOCAL ECONOMY
Dollars spent in locally owned businesses have three times the impact on your community as dollars spent at national chains. When shopping locally, you simultaneously create jobs, fund more city services through property tax, invest in neighbourhood improvement and promote community development.
6. COMMUNITY WELL-BEING
Locally owned businesses build strong neighbourhoods by sustaining communities, linking neighbours, and by contributing more to local causes.
7. LOCAL DECISION MAKING
When the businesses in an area are locally owned, the important decisions are made locally, by people who live in the community and who will feel the impacts of those decisions.
8. PUBLIC BENEFITS AND COSTS
Local stores along main streets require comparatively little infrastructure and make more efficient use of public services relative to big-box stores and strip malls.
9. ENTREPRENEURSHIP
Entrepreneurship fuels North America’s economic innovation and prosperity, and serves as a key means for families to move out of lowwage jobs and into the middle class.
10. ENVIRONMENTAL SUSTAINABILITY
Local stores help to sustain vibrant, compact, walkable neighbourhoods, which in turn are essential to reducing sprawl, automobile use, habitat loss, and air and water pollution.
Adapted and reprinted with permission of Stacy Mitchell, The Institute for Local Self-Reliance and StayLocal.org.
Speaking of building vibrant communities, make sure you save the date for the evening of September 17. We’ve got an inspiring speaker you won’t want to miss. More details in DECA Diaries to come soon…
