To Urge Local Shopping, America Celebrates 15th Annual 'Small Business Saturday' (sba.gov) 29
The New York Post writes that "After the COVID-19 pandemic upended mom-and-pops around the city and resulted in thousands shuttering for good, it is important — now more than ever — to shop local."
America's Small Business Administration issued their own statement urging shoppers to "champion small businesses nationwide and #ShopSmall on Saturday, linking to a site mapping small businesses in your area. (And there's also a directory listing online small businesses.) Small Business Saturday was founded by American Express in 2010 and officially cosponsored by the U.S. Small Business Administration since 2011. It is an important part of small businesses' busiest shopping season.
- In 2023, the reported projected spending in the U.S. from those who shopped at small businesses on Small Business Saturday was around $17 billion
- Since 2010, the total reported U.S. spending at small businesses during the annual Small Business Saturday is an estimated $201 billion
"Let's keep the Shop Small tradition going," urges the American Express web site — encouraging shoppers to also use the #ShopSmall hashtag on social media.
America's Small Business Administration issued their own statement urging shoppers to "champion small businesses nationwide and #ShopSmall on Saturday, linking to a site mapping small businesses in your area. (And there's also a directory listing online small businesses.) Small Business Saturday was founded by American Express in 2010 and officially cosponsored by the U.S. Small Business Administration since 2011. It is an important part of small businesses' busiest shopping season.
- In 2023, the reported projected spending in the U.S. from those who shopped at small businesses on Small Business Saturday was around $17 billion
- Since 2010, the total reported U.S. spending at small businesses during the annual Small Business Saturday is an estimated $201 billion
"Let's keep the Shop Small tradition going," urges the American Express web site — encouraging shoppers to also use the #ShopSmall hashtag on social media.
Re: (Score:2)
Exactly. And small businesses can feel even greedier than the big ones, with less service and worse prices.
Re: (Score:1)
Because there's a widely believed myth that "local shopping" is better for some nebulous reason.
In reality, small local businesses are less productive, worse for the environment, and if everyone shops local, at best, it's zero-sum.
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*Citation needed
Re: (Score:1)
*Citation needed
Sure. Here ya go: Productivity by enterprise size [oecd-ilibrary.org]
Bigger companies produce more per employee and pay higher wages.
Re:Businesses (Score:4, Interesting)
What does "productivity" have to do with a local business? I'd rather buy some coffee beans from a local roaster instead of Starbucks. Plus it's nice to see downtown storefronts occupied by someone selling homemade soaps instead of payday loans or cell phone stores.
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What does "productivity" have to do with a local business?
Why'd you ask for a citation if you don't care about it?
I'd rather buy some coffee beans from a local roaster instead of Starbucks.
That's nice, but the employees would earn more working for a bigger company, and the local roaster would be more profitable selling to a broader customer base.
Plus it's nice to see downtown storefronts occupied by someone selling homemade soaps instead of payday loans or cell phone stores.
That's nice but irrelevant. But the payday loan joint is just as much a local business as the soap shop.
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The issue tends to be that people need certain basic stuff for day-to-day life, and there is immense financial pressure on that at the moment so while homemade soap may be better quality or better for the environment, it's a luxury that many cannot afford on a regular basis when there is a cheaper and almost as good alternative.
It's just another symptom of society moving towards people barely scraping by, living pay cheque to pay cheque, along with a falling birth rate and many other social problems.
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It's just another symptom of society moving towards people barely scraping by, living pay cheque to pay cheque
When were fewer people living paycheck to paycheck?
Please provide a specific date.
An objective measurement, such as hours worked to buy a week's groceries, has steadily improved for a century.
Are some people struggling? Sure. Is the problem getting worse? No.
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Housing has never been more expensive, and even if some basic goods got cheaper it's not enough to offset the massive cost of keeping a roof over your head now.
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Housing has never been more expensive
Housing is expensive in large urban areas but much less so in other areas.
Housing in those urban areas is expensive because of voter-supported restrictions on zoning and permitting that prohibit most new construction, not because of national macroeconomic policies.
Since the 1960s, the average new house in America has doubled in size, while the average household has declined from five people to three. So housing costs more in part because people are choosing to buy a lot more house.
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That measures productivity by "USD per employed person," not by numbers of widgets sold or whatever.
In terms of "shop local," a more appropriate measure of productivity might be annual tax revenue per acre, where a big-box store ($8,350 per acre) produces less than a shopping mall ($22,000), a low-rise mixed-use building ($70,000-90,000), mid-rise mixed-use ($550,000-800,000) or 17-story mixed use ($1.01 million) [archive.org].
Re: (Score:2)
That measures productivity by "USD per employed person
No, it is "USD per hour worked", not per employee.
a more appropriate measure of productivity might be annual tax revenue per acre
That might be an interesting metric, but it is not "productivity".
Productivity = value produced per time unit of labor
a big-box store ($8,350 per acre) produces less than a shopping mall ($22,000), a low-rise mixed-use building ($70,000-90,000), mid-rise mixed-use ($550,000-800,000) or 17-story mixed use ($1.01 million) [archive.org].
So, if we shop local, 17-story skyscrapers will replace suburban sprawl?
Re: (Score:2)
Are you trolling? Your link specifically says it doesn't use hours worked, and the graphs say "Thousands of USD per employed person, 2011".
That's only one way to measure productivity. [wikipedia.org]
The way you skipped over the 3 shorter building types mentioned in my link tells me you are definitely trolling!
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Firm size matters for productivity. Larger firms are on average more productive than smaller ones, particularly in the manufacturing sector
The shop locally idea has very little to do with manufacturing.
But their basic point that larger businesses are more profitable is no doubt true. The more profitable a business, the larger it grows. And unproductive, unprofitable businesses are likely to stay small. So when you compare the two populations, its likely the population of small businesses will include all the failures while the large businesses will include mostly successful businesses. But you are confusing cause and effect.
Re:Businesses (Score:4, Interesting)
In reality, small local businesses are less productive, worse for the environment, and if everyone shops local, at best, it's zero-sum
That isn't really true. Many small businesses provide unique products and levels of service that aren't scaled to industrial levels. That doesn't make them "less productive". Locally produced products almost always have a lower environmental footprint oompared to products mass-produced in China or Mexico. Or the United States for that matter. Shopping locally helps sustain diverse choices in the world by sustaining the market for diverse products.
Its true, you can get food more efficiently if its mass produced in factories and you choose from the very limited set of options that are optimized for the manufacturing process. But life is not about efficiency. And its not just food where industrial processes limit the choices offered. You can find all sorts of choices on Amazon, but they are almost all identical with the only difference the seller or the packaging. While I am sure there are unique products on Amazon, try finding them.
Re: (Score:2)
How dare you tell me where to buy my $5 lattes and avocado toast!
policies (Score:5, Insightful)
>"After the COVID-19 pandemic upended mom-and-pops around the city and resulted in thousands shuttering for good"
No, the COVID-19 pandemic didn't do that. The POLICIES that were enacted did that. Now you may go ahead and mod this down to oblivion.
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All that did was accelerate the demise of a business that was already circling the drain.
I don't think that is really true. All you have to do is go to any major city's downtown and see that a lot of previously thriving businesses are no longer there. Certainly businesses owned by people with deep pockets were more likely to survive. But there were plenty of small previously profitable businesses that didn't.
Re: (Score:2)
go to any major city's downtown and see that a lot of previously thriving businesses are no longer there.
How do you know they were thriving?
It isn't easy to judge the health of a business by walking past and looking in the window.
Re: (Score:3)
>"After the COVID-19 pandemic upended mom-and-pops around the city and resulted in thousands shuttering for good"
No, the COVID-19 pandemic didn't do that. The POLICIES that were enacted did that.
No, not at all. In fact you can find examples of failure of small stores globally even among countries that didn't have lockdowns or similar policies. COVID-19 on a global and policy detached way upended the economics we built businesses on. Cost of shipping skyrocketed, fuel skyrocketed, inflation put pressure on shops, rents increased. The decline of mom-and-pop shops happened in places hard hit by COVID, and in places which had barely any cases at all.
Now you may go ahead and mod this down to oblivion.
What is it with this new trend of abrasive people pre
Re: (Score:2)
>"COVID-19 on a global and policy detached way upended the economics we built businesses on. Cost of shipping skyrocketed, fuel skyrocketed, inflation put pressure on shops, rents increased."
And all of those were probably mostly due to shutdowns, inciting fear/panic, mandates, artificial restrictions, etc... not just because some of their employees were sick. And inflation was also mostly the outcome of policies.
>"What is it with this new trend of abrasive people pretending to play the victim"
LOL,
Shopping Locally (Score:2)
I would love to shop locally more, but there are obstacles that local companies refuse (or are unable) to address:
1) I don't want to drive around town and browse, as I have better things to do with my increasingly limited time and money. Most local companies STILL haven't grasped this Internet shopping thingy. They act like it's still 1994 instead of 2004.
2) I have no idea if local stores have anything I want, because of point #1.
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Amex Irony (Score:2)