Readers, meet Katy Brown Solsky. You’ve probably heard her name around town. She founded the Concord Arts Market and now she’s writing a column for us, “Concord Got Cool.”
With elections just around the corner, we’re all full to our eyeballs with political ads and choices that pide us along lines that many of us aren’t totally comfortable with. The key word here is choice: We all have the power to make our own choices, and thankfully there are some that don’t involve sorting through piles of lesser evils.
Choosing to support local business is a totally nonpartisan choice that we can all make to bolster the economic health of our community.
We are lucky to have many locally-owned businesses offering goods and services, doing their best to survive these tough economic times. When I recently assisted a customer at work with a purchase, she told me she had driven up from Derry and was delighted with the selection of shops, and the “cute” buildings she found downtown. It’s not just downtown that has really caught my eye in the past five years that I’ve lived here. Other locally-owned treasures exist outside of the immediate Main Street area.
Sometimes, in conversation, I hear people say they would shop at local businesses more often if it cost less. Sometimes, this comment is followed by, “I bought it online instead.” It’s true, sometimes buying online is the way to go for those hard-to-find items that may not be available off-the-rack in Concord. Consider the fact that online, you pay for shipping. And you send your money out of state, maybe even out of the country. Why does this matter? Because giving your dollars wings come with its own price, especially in these difficult economic times.
A variety of studies indicate that local businesses have a greater positive economic impact on the health of the local economy. The Andersonville study, for example, (bit.ly/akuxiJ) demonstrated that spending $100 at a chain store produces $43 in additional local economic activity. The same amount spent at a local business produced $68 for the local economy.
Translation: Spending locally makes your dollars sticky and keeps them in local hands longer!
Sorry to abuse you, readers, with statistics, but when you multiply that number by the many purchases made at local businesses (and the many more that could be made) the power of the dollar comes into sharp focus. This kind of knowledge puts power in the hands of each of us. It’s a power that’s separate from the agenda of any political platform. And it’s not just an election season thrill: It’s timeless, guilt-free, and doesn’t involve family arguments about politics.
