Small Business Saturday is November 30! Make sure to support your community by shopping small.
Keep reading for 10 reasons why you should be supporting your local small business.
1. Local Character and Success
Make your city stand out! Small businesses add to the character and success of the community you’re in. Not only is it an economic advantage for the town, but you foster a happy and unique experience for you, your friends and family and tourists!
2. Keeping Money in Local Economy
In comparison to larger chain stores, local businesses generally recycle money back into the local economy. Likewise, when local residents shop at the small businesses within their community, their tax dollars stay within the local economy. All of these aspects help with the economic development within your city.
3. Local Decision Making
By shopping locally, you also ensure that important decisions about your community are made by those who live in the community and will feel the effects of those decisions.
4. Local Jobs
This might seem obvious, but these small businesses create jobs within the local community! Sometimes these jobs even provide better wages and benefits that large retailers. Rather than commuting, these employees can work locally and in a full circle kind of way, provides opportunities for these workers to shop at other local small businesses.
5. Entrepreneurship
It’s always important to support the ideas and dreams of others. Entrepreneurship does this by fueling 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. When you support a local small business, you’re also supporting their dreams and entrepreneurial spirit.
6. Community Well-Being
Local small businesses foster a stronger sense of community along with better economic and social relationships. With this comes better relationships with customers and other patrons as well as other business owners. Which is awesome, because community events and local causes are supported more wholeheartedly.
7. Public Benefits
Local stores in town centers usually require less infrastructure and make more efficient use of public services in comparison to big box stores and strip shopping malls.
8. Environmental Impact
Downtown areas or smaller pedestrian areas that hold these businesses also have an environmental impact. Small businesses clustered together usually reduce automobile use and traffic congestion, which results in better air quality and less urban sprawl. These places also encourage walking, cycling or other types of transit.
9. Product Diversity
Not all businesses are the same, but some of your local businesses have one-of-a-kind locally made products. Ethnic products, crafting products, handmade products, etc. These businesses stock their stores based on their own choices and interests. You never know what cool product you might pick up or try in one of these stores. This also brings other customers to your community for these unique products, boosting the economy.
10. Competition
These small businesses need to stand out to survive. In a world with big box stores, these little establishments stand out and they can do that by having good constant customers. Help them beat the competition by shopping at your local small business!
So there you have it! We’re still some time away from November 24th, but mark those calendars and support those businesses!
Remember, when you support a small business, you’re supporting a dream.
