Support Small, Shop Local.

Recognition for supporting small businesses and buying local has been growing as the need of the hour. As consumers, we have so much power to develop and support our local community – economically and socially. The “Make In India “campaign by Prime Minister Modi has urged Indians to Go Local & Buy Indian Products! The Covid-19 pandemic has spread across the world, and in an attempt to curb it, nations have imposed lockdowns for travel and import & export of numerous goods and resources to an enormous scale. Now more than ever, we need to support our local businesses and our country to become a self-reliant economy. 

As Michael Shuman (The author of Going Local-Creating self-reliant communities in a global age) stated,

“Going local does not mean walling off the outside world. It means nurturing locally owned businesses that use local resources sustainably, employ local workers at decent wages, and serve local consumers. It means becoming more self-sufficient and less dependent on imports. Control moves from the boardrooms of distant corporations and back into the community where it belongs.” (Shuman 2000)

 

When you support small local businesses, you support a small dream and their brand, created from a passion rooted in their home culture, skills, and interests. For instance, when you shop at the local farmer’s market, you support the market and the local farmers who work hard to support their families. These farmers provide us with fresh produce compared to the global agribusiness giants. The latter is starting to dominate the food production sector, leaving hundreds of farmers in debt with a lack of livelihood. 

Small local businesses keep a community thriving, alive and add to the locality’s unique character, unlike global business corporations that are less personal and cater to a broad customer pool. Always innovating and reinventing the brand or the service is more comfortable and more adaptable for a small local brand than a global brand. They are better tailored to local consumer needs. Relationships with their customers are more intimate, treasured, long-standing, and responsive. For a local business, you are a valued individual, not a consumer statistic. 

Doing business locally and spending on small local businesses as a consumer plays a vital role in supporting and growing the local communities. Money spent locally, which is then re-spent locally, leads to this recirculation pattern, stimulating the local economy. Creating local jobs, partnering with local suppliers and vendors, using local resources, and lower production costs are parts of the machinery that drive the economy.

Buying local is also one of the best ways to decrease your carbon footprint. The benefit of local purchases for resources by small businesses requires less transportation in the overall production chain, reducing the number of packaging materials used during transport and, therefore, less waste. Less fuel consumption and emissions are a few of the numerous ways they help reduce the environmental impact.

Glocalization’s idea has roots that appeared first in the late 1980s in Japanese economists’ article in Harvard Business Review as a preeminent business strategy in Japan. The word in Japanese is Dochakuka meaning global localization. (From Globalization to Glocalization: An Indian Perspective. Kirti (2019). 

It’s how Starbucks has introduced drinks like Chai Tea Latte, McDonald’s has numerous vegetarian options like McAloo Tikki suitable for Indians, and how Nokia offers dust-resistant keypad phones to those in rural areas. Even global companies recognize the value of local businesses and implement regional aspects of a community in their brand as a part of their business strategy. The understanding that different communities and cultures have diverse requirements gives small local businesses a definite edge over global corporations.

The lure of global brands over local ones has been prevalent for various reasons, which may be greater confidence in the quality, a particular public image, socially fit in among the current trends, brand fanaticism, appeasing advertising, marketing strategies, and so on. Consumer loyalty bias in India towards a foreign brand has always taken precedence in their decision making. But with the rise of campaigns like Vocal About Local, driving India towards an independent nation, and the emergence of relying on local brands due to the Covid-19 pandemic, the consumer perception is moving towards a trusted positive change in support of small local businesses. The saying is true – When you go local, you grow local!