I wrote this article for my POS software company’s blog a few days ago. I share it here as I think it is relevant to any business owner keen to drive support form local shoppers.
If Australian jobs matter to you and your family…
There is plenty of talk from politicians, in the media and on social media about the need to create local jobs, in Australia, for Australians, about the need to provide opportunities for job growth.
Too often, the talk is the end of it, the talk is only talk.
The best way to create jobs is to buy locally. However, buying locally applies to all of us, including us in business. We need to buy locally as much as possible.
While I am not an economist, I think I am right in saying that the more of our money that we spend entirely pithing Australia, the more the Australian economy benefits and the more local jobs that will be created.
This is why in the retaIl shops I own we preference Australian made. Now, by Australian made we do not mean the products that limp over a line that says a percentage of the product has to be from Australia. No, we want the whole thing made here if at all possible as it is this that adds real value to our economy.
In our own business where we develop POS software, our biggest competitors are overseas companies that spend huge sums promoting through search engines and social media. We don’t spend dollars advertising on those platforms. Our investment is in our people, our software designers and developers, our help desk team, our admin people, Australians who will spend their pay check in the local economy with that spend helping the types off businesses we sell to.
To us, this is what shop local looks like. It is about understanding your place in the economy and knowing that your buying decisions can make a difference to other local businesses and hopping that those in control off those other local businesses support more local businesses.
The ripple effect of shopping and sourcing locally can be wonderful not only for the individuals benefiting but for the whole local economy.
The importance of this is something we leverage in our POS software by providing retailers easy ways to indicate locally sourced products, to help them in their shops and online to shine a light on locally sourced products. We have coded these tools into the software to make it easier for local retailers to monetise locally sourced products.
Shop local to us is much more than a poster or a slogan. It is about active decisions we make that help other local businesses, in the hope that their decisions, too, help other local businesses.
Now, if only politicians went beyond lip service on the shop local front, if only they actively engaged in this in terms of their personal spending and any spending then engage in on behalf of their constituents.
The real power in the shop local discussion is in the dollar. Spend the dollar in your hand locally and you make a powerful, and appreciated, contribution.
I’m sure most retailers would support buying local for obvious reasons.
“It’s my business, I need your support to support my family………”
That’s fair enough, but it needs to go further.
Buying local has limited effect if your locals sell a majority of imported items.
Concerned retailers must, wherever possible, buy and sell local product.
We constantly hear ‘Buy Australian’, but we simply don’t have enough Australian product to buy.
We need to push that harder and somehow get more industry operating here. How do we do that ?
I have no idea how to do it, it’s been pushed and talked about for years and nothing seems to change.
It needs to change, but how…………?
As government and landlord support begin to ease the buy local campaign is more important than ever. There is some wonderful material on the go local first website. Their digital media campaign is fantastic and currently targeting Newsagencies.
This is a good article Mark, points well made. I try and source Australian made products for my newsagency. I wish, though, more suppliers themselves sourced products locally. I am guilty of sharing meme social media posts that cry more me, poor my local business.
I saw a sign today on a BWS store in Holmview that said something about BWS being small and local or something like that. What a load of BS, BWS is a giant bottle shop chain that (along with stablemate Dan Murphy’s) is putting many genuinely small bottle shops out of business.