1. You are usually buying something that is made with love or otherwise had a lot of genuine work and care put into it.

When you buy locally, whether it is from a local farmer or an artist, or any other local small business owner, you can pretty much guarantee that they put their passion into their product. 

The farmer is going to carefully tend to their crops and animals, and do what is best for them and for their customers to ensure high-quality products they want to offer. And this takes a lot of time, energy, resources, and dedication. When you don’t have a huge, immediately identifiable brand image big companies do, you have to really prove your worth to your customers, otherwise, your business will not be viable. 

The same goes for artists. They put their time and their love into the art they create or the things they craft and make. And unless someone has a good niche market for commissions, they are likely making their art beforehand, with little to no idea as to how viable their creation will be to potential buyers. They then have to invest money into buying prints of their art and other variations of it to offer people to buy. Even the people who do make commissions had to prove their ability before people were willing to ask them for a piece and pay a deposit, expecting they’re going to get what they’ve described to the artist. And, if you see them vending at an event, odds are that they have to pay a decent chunk of money to set up shop. Meaning they have to make MORE than what the booth cost them in order to make a profit – which part of which will go back into buying stock to sell. 

So, instead of buying a print at a place like Target or Walmart of a generic design, see if there’s a local artist or even a friend that makes art, that you could help out by paying for a commissioned piece or other art pieces they’ve already made and are selling. Even buying art and handmade goods from people on Etsy is great, regardless of the fact it is an online store. 

And, the same notions go for any other local, small business, whether it’s a restaurant, small supply store, convenient market, and anything else in between. The business owners are individual people or families who are taking a gamble with their money, in hopes of making a living for themselves. And business costs are expensive, especially when it comes to licensing costs, supply costs, leasing space for the business, paying employees, and more. It’s expensive to be a business owner. Which is why small businesses have to go above and beyond to be viable and serve their local communities. 

So you should see where you can help support those businesses that help support your overall community and your local economy. 

2. You’re contributing to job growth and community development. 

As mentioned above, most small businesses, with the exception of those run from someone’s home or from someone who otherwise does all the work themselves, have to hire people. If they’re not making money, employment costs are one of the first things they will have to look at to cut costs from, whether it’s cutting wages, hours, or even entire positions. 

When you look at the world of business in our country, the majority of the profits are made by huge, national or multinational companies. But they make a relatively small chunk of the overall business market. There are way more small businesses out there. According to the U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA) Office of Advocacy, small businesses have generated 64% of net new jobs over the past 15 years, [3].

And when people are supporting the business, and keeping it prosperous, the business can grow and thrive. This means more jobs are available to people, and therefore more money is going back into the economy through the wages paid to those employees. And, when the business is making money, the owner has more room to offer better incentives and benefits to their employees, like health insurance or paid days off and more. 

And the quality of the jobs is usually better, at least in terms of treatment to employees. Small business owners tend to be understanding of life happening, in comparison to the way many corporations seem to be run. While these companies expect a lot out of their employees, especially in terms of schedule availability and how much they can put on the workload, small businesses are usually more flexible and balanced with those factors. Not always, but more often than what you’d experience with a larger employer.

This is usually a result of the work environment that tends to be apparent in these various situations. Of course, this isn’t always the case, and the situations always have the potential to be switched. But when you hear stories of associates who’ve worked at places like Amazon or Walmart, compared to those of people who know and directly work under the store owner, you can see the difference in the quality of the work environment and the relationship between employer and employee. 

And, on top of the benefit of providing employment to your community, small businesses also grow the communities around them in the form of philanthropy and altruism. That is, small businesses have a high rate of contributing to charity and non-profit organizations, both in the form of monetary and physical donations, as well as volunteer work. 

So if you want to grow your local economy while also promoting community solidarity, shop at locally owned small businesses!