Your Neighborhood Businesses Need Your Support
I made a conscious attempt this year to do all my Christmas shopping at locally-owned small businesses, and I encourage you to consider giving at least a portion of your own holiday spending budget to the people who have invested their own money and their dreams in your neighborhoods and communities.
Some time I intend to write about my own frustrating experiences as the owner of a used bookstore in Minneapolis, but for now suffice it to say that times have never been tougher for small businesses. As I've made the rounds of locally-owned shops in recent weeks I've heard the same tales of woe everywhere I've gone. With increasing competition from behemoths on all sides, the little guys in your community are waging a losing battle against extinction. There are wonderful locally-owned businesses in virtually every neighborhood of the Twin Cities, from restaurants to record stores to gift shops to movie theaters, and your patronage is necessary to their continued survival. Think about how many businesses there are in your regular orbit that you've never even bothered to investigate. I'm as guilty as anyone else on this count; there are countless small businesses within a mile of my home that I've driven by hundreds of times and virtually never noticed. A lot of these places are owned by interesting, passionate characters who care about the things they sell and the communities they do business in.
I ventured into one such place over the weekend, a little gift shop a few blocks from my house that I'd never even realized was there. The shop was filled with wonderful stuff (but not a single customer), and the proprietor was a genial but beleaguered man who was trying to come to grips with his annual holiday frustration. He told me a story about a guy who had come in earlier and spent an hour combing over the inventory; the guy had eventually purchased $700 worth of merchandise, and the store's proprietor was understandably thrilled.
"It's nice to see someone who really appreciates what I'm doing," he told the guy.
"Actually," the guy said, "I'm a trend buyer for Target, and I'm going to take this stuff to a meeting tomorrow. This is exactly the kind of stuff we're always looking for."
As he told me this story the man literally threw up his arms. "What are you going to do?" he asked. "I've been doing this for five years, and I've worked hard to find a unique mix of things that reflect my tastes, but every year it just gets harder and harder to keep my head above water. I go out of my way to buy merchandise that is American made, and then these places like Target come along and they'll have this stuff knocked off by sweat shops in Asia and then sell it for half of what I'm selling it for. I keep thinking that the worm's going to turn, and people are going to wake up to how homogenized everything is getting to be. You have to believe that these huge companies can't keep expanding like they've been doing. They can't possibly keep all these places open indefinitely --certainly you can't survive with a superstore in every neighborhood. That can't go on. Can it?"
I certainly don't have the answer to that question, but it all depends on the people in these neighborhoods and communities. Check out your local businesses. Get to know the people who own them. Spend some money. Buy someone you know a gift certificate. Make somebody's day. Stop being such an oblivious dick.
10:05:40 AM 
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