Why is it Important To Support Local and Small Businesses?

You’re going to hear a lot of small businesses talk about how important it is to support small businesses. We’re one of them. You’ll see signs and bumper stickers and all sorts of advertisement telling you to support small businesses instead of large chains and larger corporations.

When you see these signs, your instinct is probably to feel like these businesses are only advertising this in order to generate more money for themselves. After all, usually you see these signs on the walls of small, local businesses that are hoping you’ll come inside and spend money. The people that own and manage these businesses profit when you do so, which in turn gives them incentive to want you to shop local. 

But there are actually many genuine, non-selfish, critically important reasons to consider supporting local and small businesses, and to make an effort to ensure that you’re seeking out these businesses whenever possible.

The Ways Big Business Support Hurts Both Locals and the Customer Experience 

Money is meant to be fluid. It never stays in one place. Your $1 is meant to become someone else’s $1 indefinitely. Over time, a portion of that money will end up in a savings account or to pay down a debt, but in general, the goal of money is for it never to be in one place for very long. The more it travels hands, the more wealth the people it touches has.

We don’t often think about what happens to our money after we spend it. But when we buy things from large corporations, the money doesn’t continue to get passed around like n the example above. It doesn’t flow from person to person, increasing each person’s ability to purchase other items. 

Instead, what typically happens is that for every $1 you spend, a small portion of it gets given back to the people that work for the company, and all the rest get sent out of state – often to shareholders who put that money into static, less liquid places – like the bank, or stock markets. It is then either stored, or distributed to other ultra wealthy individuals to fund the development of other large, national corporations.

• Nothing comes back to benefit your community.
• No one locally becomes much wealthier.
• Jobs that could be created here are created elsewhere. 

Also, though not directly related, there is also no incentive for these businesses to create or do things any better. You’ve probably noticed how poor the customer service is for large corporations. If you walked into a local coffee shop and were treated poorly, you would probably walk out and never walk in again. But large corporations typically have the branding, funding, and size to overcome this, so they can afford to provide poor customer service without worrying about losing market share.

We see this in the wallet world. There are several name brand designers who respond to popularity by raising prices and making their products more exclusive. If you loved a designer wallet or bag a few years ago, you can bet that that same product is at least 30% more expensive now, because buying from large national brands typically harms the consumer rather than help them. 

How Supporting Small Businesses Helps the Entire Community

Now, when we shop small and shop local, we see very different effects. Let’s first start with shopping local. When we shop at local small businesses, we see:

• Money that is delivered only to people that are a part of the local community.
• Money that is then distributed to other locals, who will hopefully shop local and distribute to other locals, and so on, increasing everyone’s wealth and purchase power. 
• Money that prevents issues like vacant buildings, which can reduce property values.

No matter how much you trust or like local governments, they are also able to receive substantially more funding when money continually changes hands, and that funding also comes right back into the community in the form of local services, local infrastructure, local jobs, and more, continuing the “buy local” cycle and helping everyone generate more wealth.

Shopping small businesses can help as well. Even if the business isn’t local, supporting small businesses helps create more new innovations and styles. It helps force larger businesses to find ways to better serve their customers in terms of price and value. It props up the entire economy in so many measurable ways, they have to write entire books about it. 

So, yes, it’s true that we’re a small business hoping you buy from other small businesses. But even if you choose not to buy a wallet from us (and trust us, our wallets are some of the highest quality you will ever see), know that there are so many measurable benefits to shopping small businesses and buying local, and everyone should make every effort they can to do so whenever possible.