Life is hard. Money is constantly tight, no matter how much you make, and the things we want for ourselves, our spouses and our children seem to grow further and further out of site. Constantly on the search for the best “deal” in town, the majority of us have become, what we would refer to ourselves as, ‘Savvy Shoppers.”
Hardly any of us purchase something the first time we see it. Whether it’s a car, a shirt, some khaki pants or a toy for our children. While the convenience of an easy buy seems justified, many of us are likely to pull out of iPhones in the middle of Toys R Us and check amazon to see if we can purchase the product for a lesser amount. While this “internet” driving shopping habit has, perhaps, saved families hundreds of dollars per year, the sad part is that it is starting to damage our local economies. Let’s look at a current scenario for a second and see how buying a product in person, at a store in your community spawns economic prosperity. Take that Toy your kids want. Let’s just say it was Christmas time and your kids wanted a Drone. Not a crazy expensive one, but one that you could easily buy in person without blinking an eye. Let’s say it cost $39.99 (unrealistic, I know, but for the sake of the argument follow along). You swipe your credit card for a total somewhere around $43.98 (tax included), give the nice young person at Toys R Us (or even better, your local independent toy store) a smile and you are on your way. You drive the 6 miles home to your garage, park your car and place the gift in the closet where your kids can’t find it. Now, let’s imagine when you arrived at Toys R Us, you saw the price and immediately hit up your Amazon Prime app on your phone. You see that the same Drone for sale through an Amazon approved retailer for $36.99 with free shipping and tax free. Instead of buying the drone for a total of $43.98, you decide to buy it through the app, leaving the store empty handed and the employees of the establishment none the wiser. You feel like you ‘Won” by not falling victim to the retail monster and got what you wanted for less coin. Congrats dude. Congrats. Now, obviously, a single transaction over the course of a year is not going to make or break the economic success of your community, but what if you begin to completely negate the act of shopping at your local stores, and in turn, begin to buy all of your necessities and “gear” online? While you may see savings of a couple hundred dollars over the course of a year, you may also begin to see some negative aspects as well. First off, the money you would have spent at a local store is now no longer going there. Which means, that store now has $19.99 less profit to help pay their employees. For some stores, that could be nearly 2.5 hours of labor wages paid to a deserving young person trying to save up to pay for college, a first car or a special gift to surprise their significant other with. Even worse, it could have been salary wages that would help pay for a single mother to buy diapers for her child, a retired person help supplement their Social Security check in order to pay for High Blood Pressure medication, or simply, your friend trying to make a living managing the local Toys R Us. Let’s take it a step further. If you completely stop shopping at local businesses, not only are you not spending your money at local establishments, but you “may” not be paying local taxes which help keep our roads safe, help pay for new football jerseys for our local public school sports team, and worse, keep funding out of our school system all together. (yes, I am aware that some store like Amazon still charge sales tax on certain items.) While each of us may save a little bit of money each month by shopping entirely online, the people being hurt are those directly in our communities who depend on us to frequent local establishments for the items and services we need. While I am an advocate for small, locally owned and operated businesses, I understand the value that large companies and stores, such as Wal Mart have on our local economies. Hundreds of thousands (perhaps millions) of dollars are spent each week at stores such as Wal Mart and Publix, thus, dumping a LOT of tax money into our local economies. They provide salaries to local workers and they provide fundraising materials to groups when needed. While I may not love corporate structures shutting down small businesses in my own community, I see their value. If 10,000 people would have decided to buy the drone in person, instead of through an Online retailer, each person would have spent only $6.99 more; roughly the cost of a fast food breakfast or a “fancy” Starbucks drink. If we are honest with ourselves, we would agree that we probably wouldn’t even notice that extra money being gone. However, if 10,000 people bought the drone in person, that would be a total profit (most retail items are marked up 100%) of nearly $200,000 being pushed into our local economy, and nearly $40,000 in tax dollars being raised. That means not only are we able to provide wages to local employees, but we are also able to provide better funding for our schools, better roads for our drivers, and better security through salaries for police, fire and EMT workers. While I fully understand that companies like Amazon do A LOT for their local economies, and the people that are involved in their system, we need to understand that it’s not the only answer. Perhaps saving $100 on a new TV for your teenager’s room is a justified purchase through Amazon. They do pay the workers at the credit card companies, they pay the people who make and distribute the boxes, and they pay their own employees. Plenty of money gets put into the national economy, and that’s a great thing. However, if we can buy ONE less item per month online and try to buy it locally, we might see our local economic issues slowly disappear.
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Adam P. PfaffCurrent Musings. Incessant Ramblings. Enjoy. Archives
December 2018
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