The pandemic has caused great economic upheaval for everyone. One of the hardest-hit sectors was small businesses. Whereas a chain restaurant can close a few locations and survive, a small restaurant only has one location to depend on for their livelihood. These small businesses are often the backbone of their local community and a wonderful place to feel at home and receive good quality products at reasonable prices.
Thus, it will take community support to help these businesses stay afloat and survive this pandemic. Large chain stores may have lower prices, but their mass-produced products will not have the unique quality that one can get from a local vintage store. Your local cafe is more likely to remember your coffee order and adjust to your requests, whereas a chain cafe would have corporate policies against changing recipes.
Local businesses help to keep the spirit of the community alive. They bring innovation and opportunities to the community and encourage entrepreneurship among the locals. They also bring a love of community to their business plan that supports their fellow business owners and guarantees dedicated customer service. These reasons and more make it important to find out how you can help your local businesses to thrive during these hard times.
Choose Local Restaurants
When you are looking for takeout or delivery, choose a local restaurant over a chain fast food place. They are more likely to need your money and will likely have healthier food options.
Local Gifts
Many people are ordering gifts, toys, and clothes online to send to their friends and family or for themselves. Seek out these items and clothing from local stores instead of using websites that cater to the world and focus on sourcing cheap items from overseas. By spending on local stores, you help to stimulate your local economy and spread the word that they are still open for business so other people will be inspired to support them as well.
The local toy store is likely to have toys that are just as nice and of better quality than a cheap toy from a website. Local clothing boutiques will be able to offer clothes that are of good material. They will also be more likely to provide free hemming and size correction, which is a service you cannot usually get from an online seller. Local flower shops can deliver fresh flowers as gifts and will likely be better received by your loved one than a generic gift from an online store.
Share Posts
Take the time to follow local businesses online and share their posts to your own social media accounts. This helps keep them relevant in people’s minds and will help them connect to their community better.
Local businesses you can support in this way are hair salons, spas, childcare providers, and nail technicians. This is because these are the services that are likely to be closed due to social distancing and quarantining regulations.
Share menus and promotions from your local restaurants and cafes. This will give people options for when they want to order food and help them to support a local business. These businesses will benefit from additional views of their posts and will be able to sell more goods because of it.
Adjust to the New Normal
Many local businesses will have had to adjust to the new normal by changing the way they offer their services or by having new opening and closing times. Some places now need you to make an appointment rather than stop by or limit the number of people in the store at one time. You can help them out a great deal by adjusting to these limitations they are forced to obey. These limitations are likely to have been implemented in the local laundromat, dry cleaners, and hardware stores.
Some businesses may have also changed what they offer in terms of services and products to try to open more income streams. For example, your local bookstore could now be offering printing and lamination services, and the cleaners could be offering disinfection services for homes and offices. Support them by spreading the news and try to purchase their new services whenever you can.
Helping Out
Helping a local business does not require you to make any great change to your lifestyle. It is simply about adjusting your perspective so that you prioritize your local businesses over chain franchises and big box stores.
It doesn’t even have to be businesses with physical spaces. You can help out a local tutor by hiring them to teach your kids. A yoga instructor or personal trainer might offer great rates to conduct classes online. A local nutritionist would appreciate your business, and you can gain many benefits from learning how to eat better without sacrificing taste and satisfaction. In many ways, you will find that you are more satisfied with the way you’re spending your money because you are doing something good to help your community.