I never understood why it’s looked down upon to purchase goods from online retailers and big department stores, especially if it’s significantly cheaper. Local businesses up charge their goods like crazy to stay afloat, but I’m not a rich man. Why in the world should I pay more from my own pocket to help support your local business?
If you own a bookstore, coffee shop (and sell an $8 cold brew because it’s “organic and home made”), record store, clothing store (selling name brands) and you decide to up charge because you need to stay afloat, I am 100% without shame going to find the best price, and if it’s Amazon, then praise Amazon. Your business can go out of business for all I care. Owning a local business for the sake of having a local business when there are department stores and online retailers selling for nearly half of the price you’re selling, that is an incredibly stupid investment.
Bookstores especially are the absolute worst. I’m not paying 39.99 full cover price of the latest Stephen King book at your local business when Amazon is selling it for 18.99.
there are department stores and online retailers selling for nearly half of the price you’re selling
How do you think they get prices that low? Does it bother you?
Data is a few years old, but wages plays a significant part of overall costs. A shirt made in the UK is going to be way more expensive than one made in Indonesia. But the cost of living in Indonesia is not comparable to that of the UK, and one can argue that the living situation in Indonesia would vastly improve with better wages.
But we want to pay $9.99 for that shirt, not $19.99.
I am all in favour of being frugal and shopping by price, but you are missing some of the value proposition when you talk about local stores.
In theory, what you are getting when you buy from a local store is the entire brick and mortar experience. This includes a knowledgable sales person who can talk to you and answer a bunch of questions and give you perspective, maybe even an expert opinion. You get hands on service for things like wrapping or solving problems or putting stuff on hold. If it’s a bookstore, you get to browse and pull things off the shelf and look through them and touch the books . If it is a clothing store, you get to try things on.
Go ahead and shop online, but at some point, you will run into a wall where having an actual physical experience, with all of the building overhead and staffing, is really what you needed, but it doesn’t exist anymore because everybody bought from Jeff Bezos.
So part of the value proposition is a bit like tax. You invest in your community so that your community doesn’t suck. You get value out of it in that you get to live in a place that sucks less than a place that was sucked dry by Walmart.
You invest in your community so that your community doesn’t suck.
That’s the one.
I absolutely buy from national distributors to save money when I have to but I don’t insult people who don’t nor do I attack small business owners trying to stay afloat by making profit off margin. I think the opposite of your opinion is dumb, but I don’t think yours is any better.
deleted by creator
“Nooo, I didn’t mean [thing I literally just said] I meant [thing I didn’t say]!!”
I genuinely don’t understand what you mean.
Also, I’ve seen almost this exact same post get repeated on this page and others from similarly-aged accounts (yours was created 4 hours ago, as of the time of this comment). If that’s you then dude… move on. You obviously feel very insecure about not being able to shop entirely local and I’m telling you that that’s fine - I do it too - but the argument you keep making about it being stupid is exactly that.
Glad blocking is easy :-) bye bye go troll somewhere else
I have a slightly different but adjacent issue with small businesses in my area, and I’ll give one specific example: There’s a local coffee place near me that has good quality coffee, interesting roasts, etc. that they clearly labor over. Prices are a little more than normal, but that’s fine with me given the product.
What’s beyond frustrating are the hours: Thursday to Saturday from 8 or 9am to 1pm. I can get maybe one coffee a week. I’d love to support you, but I need some hours that you’re actually fucking open.
There’s an amazing bakery near me that’s like that. People have just kind of adapted, and it seems to work well for the business. They start at like 4 in the morning to bake everything they’re going to sell for the day, open at 7, and are pretty much always sold out by 10:30 or 11.
If I recall, I think they do a lot of catering, so the part of the shop that’s open to the public is kind of an afterthought. I’m never able to get there when they have the good stuff, but it’s an amazing treat when someone from the office stops by early in the morning and brings a box of something.
Bookstores especially are the absolute worst. I’m not paying 39.99 full cover price of the latest Stephen King book at your local business when Amazon is selling it for 18.99.
Y u no use library? It’s free. Sure, you might have to wait a while. But again, free. Plus other free stuff. Movies, games, everything.
But, who paid for the library? I guarantee you it’s local residents and local businesses. The Amazons and the Targets and the Walmarts of the world are very, very much involved in avoiding taxes as much as possible, be it the overturned dark store loophole or asking for tax incremental financing districts to force communities to sacrifice their property taxes for the convenience of the Big Box Store, Inc.
Isn’t it funny how the newest local big-box store always causes property taxes to RISE instead of fall? Huh. Weird.
Your local business on Main St. is there for a reason. Let’s take your bookstore. That owner has faced Amazon, the pandemmer, rising utility costs, worker shortages, road construction, tax hikes, and several other things I’m not thinking of. But when the local soccer club needs a $25 gift card donated for a raffle and Amazon tells them to get bent (if they even reply at all) you know that local bookstore owner will still do it.
Why?
It’s pride in the local community. It’s a sense of belonging. It’s knowing that the dollars you just spent in that bookstore are going right back into your community one way or another. Amazon ain’t gonna build you a new playground if the old one is destroyed in a tornado (hell, they don’t even protect their own employees during a tornado!). Amazon ain’t gonna close shop for a week or weekend and pitch in on the build. Amazon isn’t going to build a customer relationship with you. Hell, even Amazon’s customer service agents are OOPS…ALL BOTS these days.
So yeah, the book you want costs extra, and you’re broke. In that case, get what you can for cheaper where you can get it. There is nothing wrong with that in my opinion. Hell, go one step further and look for used. Why buy new at all?
But I know if I go to Pete at the local bookstore, he’ll be putting that money right back into the local economy.
I never understood why it’s looked down upon to purchase goods from online retailers and big department stores
Who do you think is ‘looking down’ on you for it and why do you care?
Supporting local businesses by paying more is incredibly stupid
“You can’t look down on me if I look down on you first!” lol.
Try just doing what you want and not worrying about whatever delusional force of judgement is watching you.
I agree. Should I upvote or downvote now?
Nobody really knows how this community works, so feel free to do whatever you want
You upvote based on whether it ranks as a good example of an unpopular opinion, not whether you agree or not
Personally, I rarely even have the option to buy the things I want in a local business. They simply don’t have it. My local book store isn’t going to have obscure, expensive, foreign language books on specialty subjects. I also have good, expensive taste in plenty of other areas that stores don’t cater to. I pretty much NEED to buy at an online specialty retailer.
And yes, if they do have it, price certainly is a factor. I don’t mind spending say, 10-20 euros more to have an expensive item in hand that afternoon rather than wait a week. But I’m not going to pay more just to ‘support local business’.
If a store is doing poorly, usually they are to blame. If you don’t sell the products people want at a price they deem reasonable, well, why even exist?
Is it weird that I read your reply in Frasier’s voice?
It is not. Nor am I offended by it, as it is a good show :D
I actually work in radio as well, and certainly share a few traits with that character, both good and bad.
The question is do you want that business to remain around? I buy things from the local hardware store because they have weird things in stock that I can get in 15 minutes if I need it. I want that business to stay around so I will pay a little extra even if I don’t need today’s thing now. As a kid I remember cheering when WalMart came in and ran several local business out of town - the ones that combined high prices with worse customer service (worse customer service than WalMart!) I say good riddance to.
This whole equation is very complicated. Price is not always king, even for a cheapskate like myself.
Sometimes I buy a few smaller things from my neighborhood hardware store because it saves me time over going to the big box store. Time is money too. 30 minutes to save $1 is not worth it. If I need a lot of stuff, I will only buy from a big box store and save a lot over my local hardware store. If the project is big enough I may even price shop between the big box stores. The vast majority of my dollars go to the retailer with the lower markup.
But. Once I bought a hacksaw at Walmart. I try pretty hard not to buy stuff from Walmart but when it is Sunday night at 8pm and I want my toilet to work on Monday morning, there are not many choices at all for where to buy a hacksaw. So wally world won because of their hours.
But in general, I agree. Paying a lot more just to buy local is not sustainable for most people.
