Small businesses like us play an important role in supporting our local communities. We love what we do and that makes our products and services as good as they can be, and we know that’s the same for many of you out there. Buying and consuming locally is investing in your own community, in originality, and in quality.
Local businesses are doing it hard right now with COVID restrictions affecting bottom lines as well as forcing us to operate differently. We need to stand by each other more than ever!
Why is consuming locally the best?
Shopping locally supports your local economy because your money stays in the community. That’s good for you, your business, and your family too. Here are some ways buying locally helps you out:
1. Strengthen your local economy
When a small business is strong there will be flow-on effects in the community. For every dollar spent at a local business, three are returned to the local economy. People are employed locally, more rates and taxes are received, and profits are spent locally. Much more money gets back into the community than if products were bought from larger companies.
2. Reduce environmental impacts
When you consume locally you are helping the environment in a few ways. Your products don’t get shipped, reducing emissions and pollution. Less packaging waste is also produced. Your food will be fresher, but it’s also an investment for the next generations.
3. Personalized customer service
We’ve really lost the personal touch over the last few decades. But as a small business owner, you’re one of the last champions of this better way to relate with customers. Buying locally will help spread this better way to live. Workers at smaller-sized businesses typically feel higher job satisfaction and are more ready to help customers in any way they can.
4. Support creativity and personalization
Large corporations tend to follow trends and do things by numbers. Finding something unique and different is hard. Instead, when you set your sights locally, you’ll be able to find unique products with the integrity and soul that are often so missing from our lives.
There are lots of local producers who put imbue their products with their experience and creativity. Take time to visit a local market sometime and you’ll see how thriving the movement is. So many people are producing quality local products. It’ll make your day.
There might be an increase in price but think of this as an investment in your community, rather than an additional and unnecessary expense. Quality over quantity.
How we support local
At KeyTech we understand the struggles of small-scale businesses because we’ve dealt with them too. We’re always on the lookout for ways to support you – fellow members of our local small business ecosystem.
We do this with the products we buy: The coffees that we drink every morning (and afternoon) are from Red Cup Coffee in Darra, a local business that has various types of coffee as well as coffee machines. Thanks to All Purpose Workwear in Sumner, our uniforms are a customized design. Our office signage looks great thanks to EG.design’s, Caloundra, and quality work.
Introducing Love Local Brisbane
But we want to do more to support our community, as well as our customers, so we’ve launched Love Local, a Linked In group. We hope you’ll join and tell us, and everyone, what services you provide. It’s time we stopped seeing this as self-promotion and started investing in each other.