By: Catherine Daleo
Reading time est: 10-12 minutes

The holidays are upon us, as is Small Business Saturday (at least at the time this article is being written). 

Why, you might wonder, is shopping locally at small businesses so important? Well when you think of how much money will be spent on Black Friday and for the holiday season, it’s no wonder we gave small businesses their own holiday in the midst of all that too. And when you think about it, Black Friday as it is known today was essentially made by companies that want people to shop en masse to quite literally, get the store’s books from “red to black” and get those end-of-the-year numbers up before the new year and new financial quarters, [1]. 

But, whether it’s for the holidays or the rest of the year, the small businesses in our local areas need the support of their communities to operate and be successful. And it is vitally important that they are! 

Consider for a moment – how often do you immediately think of going to the local Walmart or looking something up on Amazon to buy whenever you need to get something? For most people, it’s second nature. 

Branding and marketing is a powerful force, especially in the corporate world. And these giant companies have the money to effectively do that, to the point where our needs and desires are automatically associated with specific places of fulfillment. 

Even more than that, the way consumerism is today, we live in a world of instant gratification. 

Hungry? Order online and get it delivered. 
Need some specific purchase? You can get it same-day or next-day delivery from Amazon, or get it brought to you by Post Mates. 
Have a question? Just Google it. 
Need a ride? Just get a Lyft or an Uber. 

Whatever we want or need, there is an app, service, or business specifically designed to meet our desires. 

Which absolutely has its advantages and its benefits for society. But at what cost? 

You might have heard the term “Retail Apocalypse”, where we’re seeing business after business shut its doors and file for bankruptcy. Why? Because it’s getting REALLY hard to compete in this market. Especially when people don’t like to go out to shop or don’t want to be tempted to buy extra things. If you’ve seen those memes where someone says something like, “I hate leaving the house. I always end up spending ‘x’ amount of money”. 

Unfortunately, for a lot of us, when we see things, we want to buy them. Especially with there being so many options to match our interests. Like Disney or Pokemon, or some other pop culture interest, or perhaps your favorite animal that previously was more obscure and hard to find on things? (For me it’s owls, which have now been considered to be cute in recent years).

You can find images of that content anywhere, on just about anything you can imagine. And for many of us, when we see something we like, “we just have to have it”! 

And as wonderful as it is to live in this amazing world of having a free market where these things exist, sometimes we need to take a step back and we need to take a good hard look at what it’s doing to us, and our society. 

Consumerism is BIG business. And when people buy things, the economy flourishes. 

However, there is now a huge catch in this general economic ideal – the money we spend on all these things isn’t going back into the economy. Why? Because most of the things we’re buying, we’re buying from massive companies, which are selling generic items that all look the same, on a global scale. And when we give our money to these types of businesses, the majority of that money is instead put into investments and the stock market, executive paychecks or bonuses, or into massive bank accounts to collect interest, rather than recirculating back into the flow of money that is available for people to use. 

Consider walking into a Walmart. When you buy food there, you’re giving money not only to Walmart, you’re usually giving money to huge agribusiness companies. The same goes for just about every other thing you might buy in there, from art to office supplies, electronics, and more. There are very few, if any, small sellers that are able to make it into these large stores. And if they do, they have to compete with cheap products, often also cheaply made. 

Now, contrast this to when you instead buy your food from farmers markets and growers; people who make homemade food products, or locally-owned family restaurants; when you buy art or crafts from an actual artist at a community event or even online from someone’s Etsy store; or, when you buy cosmetics and beauty products from someone who makes their own to sell. 

You’re not giving money to a faceless organization, you’re giving it to actual people in your community. 

Why is this so important? Well, to put it into monetary terms, for every $100 you spend at locally owned businesses, $68 will stay in the community, [2]*. That’s 68 cents for every dollar. 

What does this mean exactly? Well when you spend money at locally owned businesses, you’re not giving money to corporations who just put that money into stocks or executive pay. Instead, you’re giving people to real people and families. Your money goes towards paying for their groceries, their rent, and their bills. Your money helps pay for their kids’ school supplies or their college tuition. Your money helps pay for their car or home repairs. And, your money helps them grow their business, which grows other businesses, and local economies. 

If this isn’t enough to convince you to shop locally, here are three big points to consider. 

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