The 3/50 Project: Buy Local

March 17, 2009

In case any of you out there are not piped into G&DA contributor and retail coach Cinda Baxter’s "Retail Speaks" retail community website, I want to make you aware of a groundswell movement that she calls the 3/50 Project. The idea germinated from another blog post by Rieva Lesonsky, which discussed supporting local businesses to strengthen the local community. It’s a simple idea: encourage people to frequent three local brick-and-mortar businesses that they want to remain in the community, and spent an affordable $50 per month doing so. By doing this they are funneling revenue back into local business and back into the community via taxes and salaries.

This point of stressing "buying local" and supporting local small independent businesses is one of the key points brought out during the Roundtable Discussion that I moderated at the World Market Center Las Vegas last month. (the transcript of which will soon be posted on GiftsandDec.com). Edward Vanegas of Suburban Hill remarked that he stresses "buying local" in all of his store’s marketing outreach to keep dollars in the community: "There are about eight stores in our little retail village and a couple of restaurants, but we’ve started campaigning and really stressing in our newspaper ads and flyers or email blogs, about the sales tax that we are collecting going into our local neighborhood…buying local. The money that is going to big box retailers appears to be going outside of that state. We’re concentrating on local stuff. And if you keep the two or three people working in that store, who will go to the grocery store and shop for groceries and will go next Friday to the local restaurant, we all begin to prosper off of that."

If we all want protect our businesses and keep them prospering into the future, the onus is on all of us as consumers and business people to do our part and support our small independent retail businesses – not just gift retailers, but the dry cleaner, the restaurant, the bakery, the green grocer, etc. If we support them, they in turn will support our efforts. It should be a win-win situation.

Posted by Caroline Kennedy on March 17, 2009 | Comments (4)

April 6, 2012

In response to: The 3/50 Project: Buy Local
Jostin commented:

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April 4, 2012

In response to: The 3/50 Project: Buy Local
Carlos commented:

Pleasing you should think of smtoeihng like that

May 3, 2009

In response to: The 3/50 Project: Buy Local
Caroline Kennedy commented:

No where did I say, "Don't buy online." The whole idea is to encourage individuals to take a look around their own local community and find the small, individually owned and operated businesses that they value and that contribute to the character -- and tax base -- of the community and support their efforts by doing business with them. The 3/50 Project is an idea spreading among retailers to raise the awareness of their customers and get them on board by asking them to support the effort among all the small businesses -- not just the gift retailer. It is a way of supporting the efforts of small business to survive and prosper against the mass homogenization of retail by big boxes and chains. It is the local businesses of friends and neighbors that give a community its individual character. Online business is a reality and I commend you for your efforts. You as a small business support other small businesses. The 3/50 Project is just trying to support entrepreneurial way of life and business.

April 29, 2009

In response to: The 3/50 Project: Buy Local
Local Online Business commented:

I disagree STRONGLY with one of your points! If you buy online nothing comes home! I wholesale to those Brick and Mortar stores that you want those people to support, but I also have to supplement my income, especially in these economic times. I buy my raw materials from local stores to handcraft into a final product to resale to the Brick and Mortar. So this blanket statement is ignorant and misleading to the uneducated public, which apparently goes high up the food chain! Take away my sales and you take away my income in the community, the money I spend at the grocer, the movies, eating out, etc ... Think before you speak!