So this is a question that often appears and is asked. Why would you want to shop local? Since Covid-19 we have unfortunately seen so many businesses having to either close their doors or change how they conduct their business. For a lot of people it meant having to give up their business premises and begin to either share a space with another local business or some businesses have had to pack up and move back into a home office to continue their business.
Why shop local?
There are so many reasons to shop locally regardless of the time of year or occasion. Whilst every penny does count in today’s world, and sometimes it can appear to be better to go to a bigger store to purchase a mass made product cheaply, sometimes that is not always the best.
One of the biggest reasons to shop locally is to help your community and the economy within.
How is this possible you ask. Well it has been validated through research that if you spend £10 in a local shop that business owner puts £50 back into the local economy by also going to various shops/restaurants/attractions within the local area, meaning that the money circulates your local community rather than going into a national brand.
This helps build up the local businesses around you, earning them more profit which eventually transpires into opening up more jobs locally too, giving your friends, family and children of the community a chance at employment.
How can I shop local?
Prior to the pandemic, and how busy our every day life was, it became the norm to shop online, and so the figures of how much spent online year on year were increasing. Since the reduction of restrictions it was announced that online figures were down as people were getting back into their high street for shopping, however shopping local doesn’t constrain you to just having to shop in person, most businesses are online and you can still shop locally from the comfort of your own home.
A lot of local communities have a local website where you can see the local shops, in Sidcup we have Sidcup Partners where our local businesses are listed. You can use the website to see what shops the local community has and their website information for you to be able to visit.
So shopping local can be done in person or online, but the shopping local is the important part, making sure you are visiting your local boutiques, and shops whether online or in person, showing support for the people and businesses in the community.
Other ways of shopping local could be visiting a farmers market or garden centre. Independent garden centres often have areas within that have little pop-ups or sections where they sell local products from other businesses, it’s a great place to be able to have a nose around and find those amazing local products.
We have seen the #shoplocal campaign that began in the midst of the pandemic getting people to get back to their community and this appears to still be the ongoing trend. So when you need to pop out for a gift, or just even a grocery shop, think about all those shops locally that you can utilise, those community shops, florists, hairdressers etc where they are run by people in your community.
