Restaurants

 Roughly 100,000 restaurants closing in the US, either long term or permanently. As far as I know, the only ones to close permanently in Carbondale were S&B's Burger Joint and Denny's. If you want to keep your preferred local restaurants open, order expensive items or order often and leave a good tip.

Shop Local

 I was on Talk of the Town a couple of weeks ago and the importance of shopping local came up. If you shop local and by local I mean at a locally owned store, not a chain store, your money stays in Carbondale longer. If you buy online, unless you are buying from the online outlet of a local store, your money leaves the community immediately, if you buy from a chain store, it circulates in the community about 2-5 times before leaving. If you buy from a locally owned store, of which granted there are not too many of in Carbondale these days, save restaurants, the money you spend circulates 5-12 times within Carbondale before leaving, helping generate local jobs.

Clothing

With the closure of JC Penny's and Macy's , the clothing options for older professional adults have dropped dramatically in the Carbondale area. Kohl's is not about the only place to go, if you do not want to shop online, that is. The remaining stores in University Mall all target shoppers 16 to 30 or so and do not offer things such as suits , ties and button down shirts, meaning the city will see even more shopping take place online and with that, a further decline in sales tax revenue.

Five Reasons to Shop Local

That is a question brick and mortar stores have to face every year and none more so than during the holidays. Granted, the overwhelming number of purchases are still made in brick and mortar stores  (roughly 90% of retail sales are still made in brick and mortar stores, though this number is projected to increase by 14% by 2021). Given that many customers are motivated by price and stuff really is cheaper generally online and, unfortunately, most of our customers are not autistic enough to willingly spend more at their Friendly Local Game Store, just to keep us in business. We need to give them reasons to spend money at the brick and mortar store, rather than online. So here are 5 good reasons to shop locally:

1. Immediacy—when the customer buys a product at a brick and mortar store, they get to use it immediately. When the exception of digital media and PDFs, everything else purchased online takes time to reach them, anywhere from a day to a month or better.  I was just checking out a Kickstarter produced by a local publisher and backers will not receive the game until next March. Even modeling miniatures with a 3D printer takes several hours to complete

2. Finding New Stuff—Despite the vast amount of products available for sale online, in general customers don’t find new product online. They are 3 times more likely to find a new product that delights them in a physical store than in an online one (and don’t worry a lot about showrooming. According to Harris,  70% of customers webroom while only 45% of them showroom).

3. Reinvestment —More of their money stays in the local community when a customer shops at a local store. If a customer spends $100 at a local store, 68% stays in the local community  while if they shop at a chain store, only 45% stays in the community to generate jobs and, of course, if they buy online, none stays in the local community . In addition,  there is a multiplier effect when that money is spent in the community, meaning that money circulates to other business such as office supply stores, janitorial services etc. . In a smaller community like here in Carbondale or London Kentucky, the multiplier effect is only around 1 or 2 times before the money leaves the community but in a more metropolitan area such as Seattle, St. Louis or Chicago, you are looking at a multiplier of 7 to 10 times. And, of course, the sales taxes go back into such things as sidewalks, police, fire safety, sewers ect.

4.  Stronger Communities—Research shows that the more local businesses a community has, residents have stronger civic ties and are more likely to participate in civic affairs. Economic concentration among businesses leads to a monolithic   local power structure and civic apathy. A larger number of locally owned  businesses is positively correlated with participation in local elections and civic activism, helping to counter the decline in civic engagement in the US over the past several decades.

5. More Jobs—Local businesses create more jobs for local people. Maybe it indicates inefficiency, but local retailers create twice as many jobs as Amazon does for the same amount of revenue. Spending money at the FLGS helps maintain jobs, both there and in the large community.

You and I and every other game (and comic) shop owner know this. The trick is 

Shop Local

Sat in on a presentation by Foodworks today and was reminded once again that shopping local puts back into the community. Paying sales taxes on local purchases is how we fund such services as the police and fire department, street repair, sewage and water and other local governmental functions. also, when you buy from a local business, 40 to 67% percent of what you spend stays in the local community.

A Fine Reason to Shop at Bookworm

From the press release sent out today:

 Customers at Bookworm, a locally owned new- and used-book store in Carbondale’s Eastgate Shopping Center, can now see a portion of their purchase go to support Keep Carbondale Beautiful, it was announced on Sunday.  If a customer references KCB when they make a purchase, one percent of the total will be donated to KCB.  The idea developed when they were asked to play the same game as some giant retailers.

The Executive Director at Keep Carbondale Beautiful had seen the offers:  get your supporters to sign up at one of the corporate retailers where they already do business, and a portion of their purchases would be directed to the not-for-profit.  A certain online store offers to send 0.5% of a purchase price to a customer’s preferred charity. 

There was only one problem.  “I just couldn’t in good conscience encourage people to go online and send more money out of the area, especially when we have our own stores that provide the identical service.”  So she pitched the idea to Bookworm owners Carl and Kelly Rexroad, who even offered to double the percentage.  "As local business owners, we believe in helping community causes. Sarah's idea is another great way for us to give back to the people and organizations who continue to shop locally."

Keep Carbondale Beautiful has been a voice in the “buy local” movement for several years, in sync with Keep America Beautiful’s call “to build and sustain vibrant communities.”  Heyer added, “Bookworm has been very helpful with our Read for the Environment program, which brings books into elementary school classrooms.  I send them a list of books, and they call when they are ready.  I rely on them and am thrilled to formalize our relationship in this way.”

We're Number 2

The Carbondale (and other local) Chamber of Commerce's "Shop Southern Illinois" promotion took second place in the national Chamber Innovation Award Competition:

Shop Southern Illinois, a cooperative effort of 17 area chambers of commerce, placed second in the third annual national Chamber Innovation Award Competition, a program which celebrates and shares inventive ideas from chambers across the nation. Nearly 100 entries were received from Chamber organizations in the United States and Canada. Awards were announced Wednesday at the annual conference of the Association of Chamber of Commerce Executives held in Savannah, Ga.

            

Shop Southern Illinois featured a website where area residents could learn some of the reasons why it is important for Southern Illinoisans to shop locally and where they could take an online pledge to do most of their own holiday shopping in the region. By making the pledge, participants were entered in weekly drawings to win prizes which were donated by businesses.

A full marketing plan supported the program. Local and regional media ran promotions as public service announcements free of charge. The campaign included television and radio commercials featuring Southern Illinois University Men's Basketball Head Coach Barry Hinson, who urged area residents: "Don't cross the river and don't go online. Do your holiday shopping right here, where we all win."

Southern Illinois Chambers cooperating for the effort included Benton/West City, Carbondale, Carmi, Carterville, Chester, DuQuoin, Hamilton County, Herrin, Jefferson County, Marion, Metropolis, Murphysboro, Nashville, Pinckneyville, Saline County, Union County, and West Frankfort.

"It's very exciting to have our Shop Southern Illinois program recognized on a national scale," said Les O'Dell, executive director of the Carbondale Chamber of Commerce. "The effort is the ultimate in regional cooperation -- 17 chambers and businesses all over the region all working together with one goal: making area residents mindful of the importance of supporting our own communities and region."

Area Chamber leaders plan to continue the two-year-old program in 2016 and are pledging to use the $500 cash prize from the competition as prize money for this year's Shop Southern Illinois campaign.

The contest was sponsored by Minnesota-based ChamberMaster, a company that provides membership database software to Chambers of Commerce.

Chamber Shop Local Program

The Chamber of Commerce's Shop Local and Win contest starts today:

Eat Local and Win

Somewhat similar to their Christmas Shop Local program, the Carbondale Chamber of Commerce has launched an Eat Local and Win contest. Pick up a punch card, spend $7 or more at one of the local restaurants and get a punch on your card. 5 punches get you entered into a drawing for $250 in gift cards and you can enter multiple times.

The big problem I see with the program is the restaurants not informing their staff about the program and customers not getting punches on their cards. I know that several times, with the Christmas promotion, I would make a purchase at a participating store and would have to ask for a punch on my card. In at least one case, the clerk didn't know what I was talking about, so I did not bother pushing it. Making sure everyone at the business knows about the program and can talk it up with customers is the key to a promotion like this succeeding.