- Reading time: 3 mins
- Topics:
- Holiday Marketing
It’s hard to believe that Thanksgiving is this week! Thanksgiving can be the most stressful holiday for many people. There’s a lot of preparation, travel, and anxiety surrounding this traditional American family holiday, plus the ensuing mad dash for holiday bargains before the turkey has even been properly digested. Gift shopping for everyone on our lists, planning the next holiday meal, decking the halls (and trees,) all the while trying to keep up with our daily lives. It’s exhausting!
One way to escape the stress of the season is to make your shopping experience more enjoyable. Why not skip all the crazy, middle of the night, mad sales at those big box stores, and replace that chaos with the pleasure of shopping at local, small businesses this holiday season? You’ll even have the energy left to savor a nice lunch or coffee out with a few friends and family members! Here are four great reasons to try a new shopping experience this year:
1. Support the local economy. According to MetroFamily Magazine, for every $100 spent at a locally owned business, $73 stays in the local economy. At a non-locally owned business, however, only $43 of the same $100 will stay local. In an age where every dollar counts, why not keep it in the community and support economic growth for the future? Our kids will thank us.
2. Help our environment thrive. In addition to keeping our money local, shopping local this holiday season will help cut back on the almost 50% of US pollution that is caused by industrial waste (according to the Environmental Protection Agency). Your local purchase helps cut down the processing, packaging, and transportation that big box stores demand.
3. Receive product expertise. When you shop local, you can oftentimes get honest, expert advice directly from the shop owners—because they specialize in their products! Go to a big box store and you might receive advice from employees who are trained to sell products, but don’t necessarily have the experience needed to help you make an informed decision.
4. Be original. One of the greatest advantages of shopping local this holiday season is that you are able to experience a greater selection of unique gifts. Handcrafted, one-of-a-kind gifts are often the most meaningful and treasured by their recipients.
Whether you’ve already started, or you have yet to begin your holiday shopping, I hope that you remember to support your neighbors this season by choosing to shop local. In fact, why not give your local shops a visit this Friday and Saturday to take advantage of their sales. I bet you’ll enjoy your experience much more, and get to know many interesting people in your community (AKA: hard working entrepreneurs!)
Happy Thanksgiving from all of us at Pulse Marketing Agency!
