With the giant commercial appeal of online business, we sometimes get a question about whether or not we should buy local. Naturally, there are going to be arguments that local businesses are going to employ people, keep money in the community, and so on, but we don’t often get a reminder of why, from a consumer perspective, it makes sense to support a local business first. In the past couple of weeks, I’ve had two.
The first was because of a product that did not work. It was a watch, a beautiful watch that I purchased in January of this year, one that has been complimented by several people, a black, silver and red timepiece that looks incredible on my wrist. Purchased at a local jewelry store, the watch was something I was proud to wear. Unfortunately, it stopped actually telling time, one of the primary functions of a watch. I ran over to the store where I purchased it and gave it to the staff, who quickly did what thy could and then shipped it off to the factory when it didn’t fix the problem.
In this case we have an example of the great part of a local business, the service. The experience of buying the watch was top notch, the staff was extremely helpful, and the after sales service was excellent as well. If I buy another watch, and I hope I don’t have to because I really like this one, it’s going to be in that store. You can go on about the more personal touch than an online storefront, but the practical advantage is that I didn’t have to ship anything, I didn’t have to contact the factory, I didn’t have to do anything but bring my watch back to the store and tell them my problem. That is the advantage of local service, there is no headache on my end as I try to get my watch fixed, it’s all their problem, and that’s great for me as a consumer.
The only negative of this entire experience is that my watch has to go to the factory. Since I don’t know what the problem is, I don’t know how viable it would be to have someone at the business in question whose job it is to repair it – and for that matter, I don’t know enough about watch movements to know what fixing it would entail. However, even if it doesn’t apply to this particular product, keeping people who can do a service is always going to a boon to a community. Dropping off a malfunctioning product and having someone local fix it takes significantly less time than having to ship it off somewhere, and supporting local businesses makes it easier to justify having that person who can repair whatever it is that’s not working right. If a business can service what they sell, it makes a great place to buy as well, and honestly a cheaper place to buy, because it takes out a lot of the hassle and cost associated with service when something goes wrong. That said, it’s still a benefit to have the business handle the hassle of dealing with the factory and getting the repairs handled. I do wish they could have fixed it in town, I miss my watch very much, but the service is overall such a positive experience that I’ll recommend that business to anyone looking for some kind of jewelry, and I know they can repair other stuff.
The second reason is because you keep niche businesses around. This realization did not happen in Yorkton, instead it was in Humboldt, where I found a little hole in the wall video game store that had a healthy inventory with a lot of fairly obscure and relatively rare products. It’s niche, not everyone is going to care about the stuff I bought, and the inventory at the store ran the gamut from weird obscure things to mainstream popular games. It also had a little retro arcade and hosted things like game tournaments, some of which had prizes. The entire time in the store I wondered why on earth I couldn’t find this in Yorkton, because if Humboldt can support such a business, a larger city with a giant trading area should be able to pull it off. Instead, if you like games as I do, you have few options, and none that are willing to go for obscure products. There are a lot of niche interests out there, and by all rights Yorkton should be able to support them, and support several examples of the breed. But they’re going to disappear without that support, and Yorkton itself has had many examples of businesses that, by all rights, should work here but failed anyway. It’s frustrating as a consumer to have to go online to find something that seems like I should be able to run out and buy. It’s extra frustrating when it’s a type of business that a much smaller city can somehow manage to get off the ground.
Local business will always want people to buy local, but sometimes as a consumer we need a reminder why we benefit. In short, we win because local businesses bring us stuff other than the product we’re buying. I know that I can’t get everything I want in town, but I want to, and as a result will try to support local as much as I can.
