I don’t promote the shop local message from my local small business shops. You know the message I mean – the signs saying what small businesses mean, how it keeps people in work locally and similar.
I understand the messages and how they make local small business retailers feel good when they pitch them. However, I suspect the messages are not cutting through – nowhere near as much as small business retailer want.
We are not entitled to demand people shop with us because of our size, our location or who employ. Regardless of the role we play in the local community and for the local economy. We are not entitled.
Yet too often the signs are put out, posters put up and posts published on social media with an air of entitlement.
It would be terrific for people to support local small businesses. The benefits for the local community are obvious and plentiful. But does telling people to support make any difference, like really make a difference? I don’t think it does. In fact, I think with so many of these messages out there people have become blind to them, making the marketing wasted.
People get the intent. They get that small business matters. But they are time poor like us and choose what works best for them in the limited time they have available.
The best thing we can do is show the value of our businesses to our local community. We can do this in many small practical ways, hoping some of them are noticed enough for people to talk about and thereby become word of mouth local marketing that helps our businesses.
We can demonstrate local community support by things we publish on social media, things that support and serve the local community. we can provide practice help to loved local groups.
These actions I think are more important than a poster in the shop or out the front telling people why they should support local small business.
Garnering local support is best achieved by the local support we demonstrate. It is the whole actions speak louder than words message. If we are acting local then our message its more likely to be heard.
I’m not against people putting the support local small business posters up. The objective of this post is to encourage thinking abut whether it really makes a difference.
We have many traditional customers not attuned to social media. The posters still have relevance but agree the support local concept does need to evolve to capture time poor customers. If newsXpress are running branded TV campaigns, is it right that newsXpress outlets display these Posters? Woolies and Coles would get a cynical response. Isn’t the shop local about supporting independence?
Colin this blog is me writing about anything I want to write about. It predates my involvement in newsXpress by years. It reflects my opinions. Please don’t keep connecting dots that are not there.
newsXpress businesses are locally owned. The owners have control to display the posters they think best position their businesses.
Colin, except for a small number of corporate stores, newsxpress stores are indepentantly owned by locals. We trade under the newsXpress banner for the benefits provided by an excellent group buying opportunities and promotional opportunities such as TVC’s. Unbranded businesses will find it tougher to opperate as time passes but being in a group does not mean we are not independantly owned.
I don’t like the ‘Shop Local’ signs because they often sound like a plea for help. I do like supporting small business as it is an appeal to a basic tenet of a market economy: many players with easy entry and easy exit. There’s is nothing intrinsically wrong with big business until it gains so much influence within an industry that it distorts the market.
Mark,
I am not connecting dots. Your blogs are frequently about newsXpress stores. Sometimes you explicitly promote newsXpress, other times the inference is there. I have no issue with any of this. Your blog is invaluable and the insights from you owning newsXpress particularly so. But I don’t see that you have a right to say which blog topics have direct or explicit links to newsXpress. I would not have mentioned newsXpress had your opening comment not been about same.
Brendan,
My point was to question what “support local” means. As independents group and work together and develop relationships, operate linked web sites, adopt a common brand, fund TVC’s … are they still “shop local”. Yes I think newsXpress stores can still be considered shop local, but as the brand is established, customers may think otherwise.
Not frequently Colin. Less than 5% of he 17,411 posts and even then if newsXpress is mentioned it is usually because it’s the brand I trade under now. Trawl back over time and you can see me write about being a Newspower store.
The post does not mention newsXpress. You do.