#supportlocal – start a trend
Why you should Support Local Businesses?
When you support small business owners, it helps to bolster entrepreneurship in others. They see that people actually care about small businesses instead of relying solely on large national retailers. If you have children, it is a great lesson to teach them that they, too, can become entrepreneurs if they want, and if they do a fantastic job, people will support them as well.
As the owner of a small business making teepees, it is so soul destroying when potential customers tell me they can buy a teepee elsewhere for half the price. It saddens me when logic should tell them how impossible it is for that teepee to be made in South Africa, by people who sometimes work two jobs to support their families. I feel like telling these customers to go buy that teepee, that teepee made in China and imported in bulk to kill small businesses like mine.
Local businesses are owned and operated by your neighbours, your fellow South Africans! They care about and are invested in the well-being of your community and its future.
In tough financial times, consumers count their coins and cut back on most luxuries. In such a volatile environment, smaller, local businesses count on your patronage in order to stay afloat; every transaction is precious to them. So when deciding where to spend your hard-earned cash on a gift, consider the benefits of turning to local, independently owned businesses within your community.
There are far-reaching advantages to deciding to “shop local.” By supporting local businesses, you are in turn supporting your local economy; significantly more money stays in a community when purchases are made at locally owned – rather than nationally owned – businesses.
It’s something of a puzzle as to how small local businesses can contribute so much to the economy yet do so under such difficult conditions. Staying afloat with the incredibly high cost of living and trying to compete internationally with our fluctuating currency add great burdens to budding local businesses.
Unique Products
As consumers we are opting for unique, home-grown, personalised products and services. When it comes to the silly season with everyone looking for ‘something special’ for their family and friends, local businesses really know how to step up to the plate. Home-made, unique gifts are incredibly special and a far cry from the mass-produced imported stuff that rolls off the assembly line and almost always assembled in a factory where staff are exploited and working for minimal or no wage.
Customer Service
A small business has less staff. Often staff members are family or treated as us which means that you will get to know the individuals who you’re dealing with as opposed to being lost in the system with an automated voice telling you that your call is valuable to them.
Keeping the Cash
When we shop locally, more of the money spent stays in the community than when we visit chain stores. This means, in turn, that the locals have more to spend on your goods and services if you are a local business. Makes ‘cents’, doesn’t it?
Every small act that we perform in the support of local businesses adds to our community and offers financial security to this incredible group of entrepreneurs.
Choosing to support an independent business is an act of respect; it’s acknowledging the tremendous risk and challenges inherent to starting your own thing. “Keep your money closer, so your community can go further.”
#supportlocal and start a trend
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