Shift Your Shopping: Choose local independent businesses this season

Tough Traveler has been designing and manufacturing luggage, backpacks, baby carriers from their Capital Region facility since 1970. Their American-made products have been featured on The Today Show, Early Show, Parents’ Magazine, Child Magazine,Outside Magazine, Backpacker and Good Housekeeping, and many have been developed in direct dialogue with their customers. “We’re continually taking a look at our products, and evaluating what’s working,” she says. When customers ask for pockets, handles, even new uses–like converting a child carrier into a dog carrier–Gold and her employees listen, and the result is a whole slate of products tailored to customer needs. That’s what you get when you choose local businesses like Tough Traveler, and that’s why Local First of the Capital Region is encouraging customers to put their holiday dollars into this and other local businesses.

Tough Traveler is a member of Local First of the Capital Region, a grassroots organization that is participating in the “Shift Your Shopping” campaign this holiday season, an unprecedented national campaign that encourages residents to take job creation and economic concerns into their own hands by shifting their shopping to local and independent businesses.

“There’s more to shopping locally than just feeling good and going to the farmer’s market. If we want real economic recovery, we need to keep our dollars local whenever we can,” says Melanie Beam, President of Capital District Local First and Director of Business Development for WSG-Web Services Group in Saratoga Springs. “We hope to encourage more holiday shoppers to consider where the dollars they spend actually go, and make the choice to keep their money with their local, independent retailers.”

Americans spend about $700 between Nov. 1 and Dec. 31, according to the National Retail Federation. Numerous studies show that if those dollars are shifted to locally owned, independent businesses, they’ll generate 2-3 times as much economic activity in local communities than if that money had been spent at a national chain.

“Studies have shown that spending at local independent retailers generates 3.7 times more direct local economic benefits than spending at chains,” says Michael Malin, Member of Capital District Local First and Director of Marketing for Mr. Subb in Cohoes.

Locally-owned businesses spend more money in the local area, including using more local goods and services such as banking, printing, advertising, legal services, furnishings and more. Through this “multiplier effect,” the added taxes collected from local expenditures provide support for local schools,
parks, law enforcement and more.

And that’s not the only impact. When customers choose eco-conscious businesses, they also help keep their communities green. Vikki Casey-Ahmed, owner of Sonrise Diaper Service in Guilderland, another member of Local First of the Capital Region, washes and delivers about 500 cloth diapers each week, helping families across the region make the healthy choice and keeping more than a ton of garbage out of the landfill each week, an impressive accomplishment that makes a difference to all of us.