Why Supporting Local Matters

Do you ever wonder why people say "support local?"

"Support local" gets said a lot but I'm not sure the impact is fully understood so I thought I'd break it down here. 

When you choose to make a purchase from a local business, that business owner does a literal happy dance. Why? She has spent countless hours, evenings, weekends, all nighters, creating a business that has a unique product or service offering for you to enjoy. She's spent a lot of time away from family and friends to build her dream business even if she was told along the way that this wouldn't work. This business owner has spent a lot of her money, maybe all her savings, taken a loan or found investors to fund the business, because it's virtually impossible to start a business without having to spend a lot of it first. Starting and building a business is very risky and there is no roadmap on how to do it. Your purchase validates all the risks and hours were worth it. Your purchase confirms the tears and fears were worth the gamble. So thank you. We appreciate your purchase more than you know. And if you don't have the means to purchase, a referral, a positive review or a share on social media is just as good.

Now let's get into tangibles. Economically, choosing to purchase from a local business matters. How? By purchasing from a local business you are giving money to someone from your local community. Who then has the opportunity to support another business owner in the community who then can support another business owner in the community and so on. The flow of money is circular and is meant to do just that, flow. I'll highlight this with an example of how we've been able to support local businesses as a result of our local community supporting our business. 

Example: You've purchased a few bars of soap and bath bombs from SOAK Bath Co as holiday gifts for your family. I, Candace, at SOAK Bath Co, need to upgrade the electrical capacity in our facility because we need to bring in new equipment for our growing brand. I'm able to hire my neighbour a few doors down who is an electrician, we're able to help support his family and his business. The electrician comes to upgrade the wiring and purchases pizza from our next door business neighbour to have dinner with the kids on Friday night movie night. Your purchase helped to support 3 local businesses just like that.

Here's another cool thing that happens. Our growing company needs help keeping up with production as more members of the community support our business. We then need to hire people from the community to help with production of the product line. As I write this, we currently employ eight local women within a 20 kilometre radius of Niverville. These are eight lives that are impacted because of the purchase you decided to make locally.

This is a very small, but real example of how your purchase can impact others in the town you live in.  The more people spend money in their local community the more they are able to support those around them whether they realize it or not.