The Stroud constituency has some lovely towns with lots of brilliant shops and suppliers. Most of these are small independent businesses, rooted in our communities, owned and staffed by people who live locally.
Local businesses sing the praises of their loyal local customers and bend over backwards to deliver great service and amazing products at really good prices. They know that loyalty can never be taken for granted.
But the big chains, and especially the multinationals, are desperate to lure customers away from local independents. This week we will all hear a lot about Black Friday and the so-called bargains on offer. A couple of years ago, Which, the consumer magazine, looked at how genuine Black Friday bargains really were. 86% of the ‘deals’ had been the same price or cheaper in the previous 6 months. Bluntly, it’s a con.
When you buy something in a local independent, up to 50% of what you spend stays in the local economy and is re-spent locally. When you buy from a chain, that figure drops to nearer 15%.
Between now and Christmas, the sales of most small retailers and suppliers will equal between 1/3 and 1/2 of their annual turnover (and profits).
So over the next four weeks we have the opportunity to make a massive difference to our local economy – by shopping locally, we help keep far more money circulating locally. It literally enriches all of us.
Stroud District Council is currently working on a strategy for what is known as ‘Community Wealth Building’. This is an approach to infrastructure and planning that aims to create wealth and prosperity locally, for everyone, through emphasising the importance of local in procurement and employment decisions, management of land and assets, finance and ownership. It’s the ‘shop local’ ethos on a much larger scale.
There are other benefits as well. Shopping locally helps ground us in our communities. We engage with other people, with those who work in the shops, with all their experience, advice and goodwill – and often other customers! It reduces our carbon footprint, and, actually, it’s almost always cheaper – because we tend to buy what we actually need, rather than what the big retailers want to sell us.
Where we spend our money matters. Spend it locally and help us all this Christmas.