As we face the second lock down, #supportlocal started trending but like any other mantras and hashtags, despite the actual importance of the term, real understanding of it tends to become less important. As one of the locally based small businesses, I am writing this note to remind myself of significance of local businesses.
1. ‘Support locals’ is about personal trust and goodwill. In difficult times, we think of the people around us who we know work hard and are nice to us and want to support them to reward the effort. Meanwhile, local businesses try hard to reciprocate the trust and goodwill. Current situation highlights importance of daily effort and the trust which such effort brings. And of course it makes local businesses feel even more responsible for delivering the value for the trust.
2. So if it’s about personal trust, it’s important that we know the people behind the businesses, which reveals that ‘support locals’ is about supporting local small entrepreneurial businesses.
3. As a conclusion, we realize that, current desperate situation reveals that personal contact and trust are important in our life and small businesses are contributing a lot in this respect. Small businesses are adding to sense of connection/community while taking responsibility for delivering the value as customer reactions have direct and immediate impact on them. Imagine a faceless online shopping. We search extensively for the cheapest price, not seeing the face of people exploited to deliver the goods cheaply while the seller send you the lowest quality craps. When we shop at local stores and see the people face to face, such acts of irresponsibility happen less often. This way, while shopping local may cost us more monetarily, we gain more value in terms of trust and uniqueness. And such experience may well influence the way we consume. Like, rather than buying something cheap and trendy every week, if you choose something special with assistance of someone you trust, you will be satisfied with such item for a much longer period of time. At the end of the day, personal connection is priceless in consuming experience. I believe the current situation is truly challenging us to think about how what we really should value in general instead of thinking about temporary remedy for the situation. And before I end, I would like to mention one exception or variation and it is ‘online local’. I have quite a few customers who live far away and I have never met yet took a chance with and now trusts me. I consider these customers and friends locals, too. And in a way, I value their trust even more as they give me a chance even without seeing me work or meeting in person. #supportlocal is about personal trust, responsibility and appreciation of uniqueness. With this thoughts, I would like to join the trend mindfully and try my utmost to bring difference.
