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Why To Buy Local |
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Unique gifts, festive holiday decorations, charming historic storefronts, and friendly business owners all make shopping locally in downtown Wausau’s River District a fun holiday experience. Spending your dollars at an independently owned business is more than just fun; it also has a positive impact on our community. Local businesses are the backbone of our community; they boost our local economy, create jobs, and make significant contributions to our community and its preservation.
Small Businesses Boost the Local Economy
Small businesses boost our local economy because they tend to purchase products and services from other locally owned businesses. An excellent example of this is visible at Campbell Haines Menswear, Wausau’s newest locally owned men’s clothing store on Third Street. The owners hired Adrenalign Marketing, a firm located just one block from their storefront, to brand and market the their new business venture. Be they marketing, printing, or accounting services, across the District, our small businesses employ local agencies to meet many of their business needs.
National research demonstrates that when money is spent at a small local business a higher percentage of these dollars will remain in the community than from a purchase made at a national retailer. One study performed by Civic Economics in 2009, examined 15 locally owned businesses in New Orleans along with an average SuperTarget store and found that 16 percent of the money spent at the SuperTarget remained local, while the local retailers returned 32 percent of their revenue back into the New Orleans economy.1 Translate these percentages to your own spending habits and it becomes easy to see that the purchasing power of your locally spent dollars makes an impact on our local economy!
Small Businesses Create Jobs
Chances are good you have a family member, neighbor, or acquaintance that is employed by a small business in our downtown community. This means your local purchases support their ongoing employment, the growth of our small businesses, and the potential for job growth in our community. Now more so than ever, small businesses and entrepreneurs are being valued for their ability to create jobs. According to a recent Brookings Policy Brief, “Small businesses have been among the most powerful generators of new jobs historically, suggesting the value of a stronger focus on supporting small businesses… and encouraging entrepreneurship.”2 With over 250 small businesses, downtown Wausau’s River District supports thousands of employees and provides a vibrant economic foundation for job growth to occur.
Small Businesses Support Our Community
When you shop locally, your purchases also support the people and places that sustain our community. Small business owners are generous givers to non-profit organizations that meet our local needs – from athletics to the arts. These same small businesses occupy space in our historic buildings. Without their rents, property owners would be hard pressed to preserve the buildings and their architecture in a manner that sustains the charming, one-of-a-kind sense of place you associate only with the City of Wausau. This investment sustains property values, which supports higher rents, and ultimately draws in high quality tenants – the businesses you love.
This year, when you shop in the River District not only will you find the unique gift your loved-one will cherish, you will also find satisfaction in supporting a locally owned businesses and our community.
For a listing of holiday happenings and events in downtown Wausau’s River District, click here.
Foot Notes:
1. Houstan, D. Thinking Outside the Box: A Report on Independent Merchants and the Local Economy. (Civic Economics, Texas, Sept. 2009).
2. Baily, M., Dynan, K., Elliott, D. The Future of Small Business Entrepreneurship: Jobs Generator for the U.S. Economy. (Brookings Policy Brief, Washington D.C.: June, 2010). 1
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