Shop Local: December's Sustainable Living Tip

Shop local to keep dollars circulating in your community. According to the Institute for Local Self-Reliance, every dollar spent at a locally owned business creates more than three times as much local economic activity as a dollar spent at a national chain store.

Facts About Locally Owned Businesses

1. According to a 2006 study, only 14% of the revenue taken in by a typical big box store in midcoast Maine remains in the Maine economy. 86% leaves Maine.
2. In contrast, locally owned businesses spend 45% of their revenue in Maine.
3. Compared to national chains, local retailers purchase a much larger share of the goods and services needed to run their stores from other local businesses.
4. Locally owned businesses are more likely to advertise in local newspapers than national chains.
5. One study has found that small businesses give more than twice as much per employee to charitable causes as do large companies.
6. Locally owned businesses create and support more jobs in the communities they serve than do national chains.
7. The idea that national chains, by bringing shoppers to town, boost sales at surrounding retail stores is a myth. Data analysis shows that Maine communities that gained a Wal*Mart supercenter in the 1990s experienced a decline in retail "pull factor."
8. Studies show that national chains put smaller local stores out of business, resulting in job losses that exceed the jobs available at the national chain stores.
9. National chains have much higher employee turnover rates than locally owned businesses.
10. Locally owned businesses fill downtown retail spaces too small for national chains.
11. National chain stores typically build "big-box" new buildings to suit their needs, leaving existing retail space vacant as smaller locally owned stores are forced to close.
12. A typical big box store requires 1,000 parking spaces and generates 10,000 car trips every day. Even smaller-scale chains, like Walgreen's and Borders, favor locations and store designs that foster driving and discourage walking and public transit.
13. A recent analysis in Barnstable, Massachusetts, found that big box stores require nearly $800 more in public services per 1,000 square feet than Main Street businesses.
14. The two main factors behind the higher costs were greater expenditures for road maintenance (due to a much greater volume of car trips per 1,000 square feet) and greater demand for police services (compared to small businesses, big box stores generate a much larger volume of police calls for crimes like shoplifting and check fraud, as well as parking lot accidents).
15. Small manufacturers with innovative products are more likely to obtain shelf space in small locally owned retail stores.
16. Two national chains control nearly 45 percent of the hardware and building supply market in the United States.
17. Two national chains currently capture half of all bookstore sales in the United States.
18. Maine residents today log three times as many road miles for shopping and errands as they did a generation ago.
19. A national study by Cornell University found that counties where small businesses dominated economic activity had greater income equality, more owner-occupied homes, lower levels of worker disability, higher educational outcomes, lower crime rates, a larger independent middle class and higher rates of civic engagement, as measured by voter turnout and membership in community organizations.
20. Small-scale, locally owned stores help to sustain vibrant, compact, walkable town centers—which in turn play an essential role in limiting sprawl and automobile use, and reducing related problems like habitat loss and air and water pollution.