It’s the Beginning of the Gift Purchasing season for most. All of us know about Black Friday, and while many retailers have shifted their sales to spread out over multiple weeks, the day should still have some significance. This time, in the local space.
Since major retailers such as Amazon, Best Buy and Target have changed how we shop on Black Friday, we thought it would be a good idea to continue to flip the script. Why not buy some of your gifts this year at a local business? We don’t want to take anything away from the giants, but what if we gave some to the little guy?
The big e-commerce giants have made it easy to do your holiday shopping from home, with free 2-day shipping and everything in one place. Especially with the worries of COVID-19 exposure, shopping from home is an attractive option. However, a small shop will also be precautious regarding your safety and you will be giving the biggest gift of all to a local entrepreneur – revenue. In order to stay in business, local companies must get pretty close to the cost of their high-volume competitors. Therefore, it’s often not much different cost-wise to shop with the local chain or mom-and-pop than with the Fortune 100’s.
We aren’t saying there’s anything wrong with big companies. In fact, they often create a large amount of jobs and can even jumpstart some local startups that help provide services to those large businesses. However, we like the idea of people strengthening their local economies as much as possible. Doing so creates a recession-proof market where people support one another, not rely on a big entity like the government or the one big employer in town. It allows business owners to give back to their communities and offer relief when folks are struggling.
503 Motoring is a high-end auto customization shop in Portland, Oregon. They ran an amazing offer this last week: they offered to customers who booked work with them, that they would give 5% of that sale to the local small restaurant or bar of that person’s choice. This is why local business should be supported. They are contributing to other local businesses in the toughest times of our economy.
REI did a really cool movement a few years ago called #OptOutside for Black Friday to encourage people to go hike or do outside activities rather than shop. This year, we think it would be really cool to buy local by turning Black Friday into #LocalFriday. Even a small percentage of your overall gift-giving purchases can be done locally, which will drastically help share some profits and power to small business owners – your neighbors and friends!
