The Walton’s don’t need your business, your neighbor does.

Almost everything I've gotten recently has come from all the wonderful little shops near me. I even just got home from buying a couple bottles of mead from a local brewer. It's so much more fun to get gifts for friends and family from these kinds of shops.

For me it's a double edged sword. I like to shop small local business. I have a small outdoor supply store in town that I have purchased bait and fishing gear from for a number of years. They also have outdoor clothing, rain gear boots, shoes etc. Problem I have is I want to support the small business guy but everything in his store is Chinese crap.

I will go online and find if I can purchase a item I'm interested in that is made in America. Then I'll see if I can purchase it locally. Most times I cannot I have to order online.
It's not a pleasant choice. Support the local small business guy while continuing to buy Chinese crap or buy American made online and support those manufacturing jobs.

I'm with lastman, buy American-made takes precedence over buying locally if local shop sells Chinese goods. If local shop has made-in UK, Germany, Japan, Thailand, I will consider it as a second choice, but not at all if a product I want that they sell is made in China.

Good point y’all.
Avoid made in China at all cost.
Edited the post title.

Some random person making a go at running a business isn't cause for me to spend my money there. They will have to beat out other businesses on some combination of selection, service, and price. Plenty of businesses can do it, as I frequently buy from eBay sellers, Etsy makers, and Mom and Pop restaurants. But simply being a small business doesn't count for much in my book.

To be honest, the fact that Jeff Bezos has more money than God doesn't bother me. I'd shake his hand and thank him for saving me countless thousands of dollars in lower prices, countless hundreds of hours saved not having to drive to a store, hundreds of days saved not waiting for slow ass shipping. Not to mention a couple hundred thousand jobs created in warehouses, delivery, and other thousands of small businesses made possible by having a marketplace to sell their wares.

I support an efficient marketplace. I don't cling to some nostalgic notion that a small business is somehow more deserving than shareholders of a publicly traded company.

New York is proposing a new 3 dollar tax on every package delivered. After running local businesses out this may be the future

Oklahoma City has a store named American Made Products. They only sell made in America products. NO chineseium crap, nothing from anyplace other than the USA.

It's a small store, Dad & Daughter.

It's refreshing to walk in and see what they have.

I've been buying from them and referring others to their store.

American Made Products USA Store
.

I will pay double or more for USA made instead of China made. In fact I won’t buy China made unless I have no choice. I also happily support local business over corporations. I rarely shop based on price and if I have to shop around much before I buy something then I probably can’t afford it.

In some ways I’m like the opposite of most Americans. I take more pride in things that I paid more for. If I can buy something without worrying about price, then quite honestly it makes me feel more financially secure about myself. Sure for a car or something big like that I’ll shop around for a good deal but for typical consumer goods I prefer to buy without regard to price. The whole experience has become more important to me than merely the accumulation of things.

We avoid "made in China" as much as possible. We definitely read labels on everything now. Shopping small businesses is one thing, and we do that as well. That said, surprisingly, Walmart has a ton of made in the USA stuff now. I'm not sure if it is a new policy, but look around, lots of unexpected things from baking sheets to craft supplies and a ton more are US made. Target on the other hand has turned into everything comparable is made in PRC. My wife has been totally surprised at the amount of made in the USA stuff in Walmart.

My new Moccamaster in from Netherlands-------NOT CHINA.

As much as I would like to buy locally and buy American I keep finding reasons not too.

I was looking at a Vortex rangefinder. Sure I can buy it from the large box store. Ordering from Vortex directly is going to be 3-4 month back order. I ended up getting a higher end Sig Kilo from a box store for for almost $50 less.

I ordered dirt from the family owned garden center. What do they do, screw me over on delivery and I lost half a day of daylight.

Want to order some special beard condition from a local company and have to pay more in shipping than the price of the product.

I try to get a repair part from the local hardware store. Closed due to reduced hours for Covid, so Home Depot got my money.

It gets harder and harder. Two swipes of my phone and amazon will send it to my house in 2 days or less.

I had hoped that the support sig forum businesses thread had gotten more traction, and an edited, living 1st post with weblinks to sigforum buinesses, but that didn't come to fruition.

Message and email with Jeff Yarchin and get your pet toys and such for Christmas. He was great!

Dave Truong, nuf said.

I'm sure there must be others.

The biggest problem I have and have had long before online shopping was a thing is that local business rarely if ever caters to me. I have very specific needs/wants as a consumer across the board and I am not the “consumer grade” consumer generally and therefore even before online shopping was a thing I had to seek out my products elsewhere.

Now I understand local businesses technically cannot cater to me because I am not a lowest price/lowest common denominator shopper so there are way way less of me.

Local restaurants I am all over but local products are generally a no go for me.

I did recently buy a bunch of lumber for several projects and I went with the local guys instead of Lowes Depot.

America manufacturing has been so decimated over the years that the guys out there that are manufacturing things are small start up companies who don't have a wide distribution network and and rarely have a brick and mortar store. Not to mention the American made product is considerably more expensive in most cases. Also American made is one thing. But American products made with American sourced materials is harder if not impossible to find.

The small business guy I mentioned does not have the cash outlay to purchase inventory from these U.S. manufacturers because with their added markup for any profit to be made the product is going to be too expensive for his clients taste and he will sit on that inventory. Far too many people shop by price and the conveinence of Amazon shipping. There rarely is anything I have ordered from Amazon that I have to have in two days and actually Amazon is not delivering much in two days anymore.

It's going to take a generation or more of people and a lot of them willing to seek out and purchase American made products and pay the extra cost for it to start to turn this around. I have been diligently trying to do my part for sometime now.

quote:

Originally posted by bigeinkcmo:
I know it's in our best financial interest to save money and not eat out as much, shop at the cheapest place...but if I stop supporting the places that invested to help make my community special, then all I'll have is Amazon and their ilk.

You hit the nail on the head. We all have the right to use the market to our advantage and get good prices. However, we also all have the responsibility to support and be good members of our community. To me it doesn’t matter how much stuff I accumulate, or even how much wealth I accumulate if I don’t have a viable, healthy community. I guess to me it’s more important to support community and my fellow countrymen now and for the future than to merely accumulate the most stuff or the most wealth simply because I saved money. Especially if that accumulation of stuff due to cut throat pricing hurts my community.

A lot of catalogs have stopped describing made in china, and are now just saying "imported"

quote:

Originally posted by Lt CHEG:

quote:

Originally posted by bigeinkcmo:
I know it's in our best financial interest to save money and not eat out as much, shop at the cheapest place...but if I stop supporting the places that invested to help make my community special, then all I'll have is Amazon and their ilk.

You hit the nail on the head. We all have the right to use the market to our advantage and get good prices. However, we also all have the responsibility to support and be good members of our community. To me it doesn’t matter how much stuff I accumulate, or even how much wealth I accumulate if I don’t have a viable, healthy community. I guess to me it’s more important to support community and my fellow countrymen now and for the future than to merely accumulate the most stuff or the most wealth simply because I saved money. Especially if that accumulation of stuff due to cut throat pricing hurts my community.

Right, but your community isn't improved by having a collection of businesses that, objectively, suck. Service, Selection, Price. A local business needs to compete on some combination of those three things, otherwise you don't have a vibrant business place... you have a tourist trap.

quote:

Originally posted by bigeinkcmo:

quote:

Originally posted by Aeteocles:

Right, but your community isn't improved by having a collection of businesses that, objectively, suck. Service, Selection, Price. A local business needs to compete on some combination of those three things, otherwise you don't have a vibrant business place... you have a tourist trap.

Just because a business is more expensive doesn't mean it sucks. Maybe the service is more personalized. The product support better. I buy my dog and cat food at a small shop that provides an exceptional experience and offers much higher quality products than the big retailers.

The problem is that many businesses aren't being allowed to compete...I'm not sure what you don't understand. I doubt if 800-LAWYERS was allowed to practice down the street, but you were not, that you'd be singing this tune. That's exactly what is happening.

For example, In-N-Out opened recently here and had a 14hr line that wrapped around the Aurora mall twice, and caused severe disruptions. But my local place in business for 50 years can't seat six people in a building designed for 200! That's a problem.

Service. Selection. Price. I mentioned it. Some combination of the three. So yes, a restaurant that has great service for a few bucks more is fine. A specialized bicycle shop that has hard to get parts in stock, also great.

But a local business that neither delivers on service, selection, or price? Why support it? Why keep a crappy business floating simply because it is local? Let it wither up and die, so that someone else with an entrepreneurial spirit can fill in the spot.

By the way, In n Out is a family owned restaurant. Where I am, it's also a local restaurant. If your 50 year in business doesn't have a line of people trying to buy food, that's their problem. In n Out has a line wrapped around the block twice, *everywhere* because they deliver on Service, Selection, and Price every single day. They're under the same restrictions as everyone else, they're setting food for pickup and drive through just like anyone else.

Sure the pandemic has been unfair to a lot of businesses that simply can't pivot. Nobody wants to go to a virtual music fest, and I'm not taking a $300 prie fixe dinner to go. But that's beyond the scope of "shop local." That's more along the lines of "fuck the stupid COVID rules."

Here's a good example. I have like a dozen gun stores nearby. All but 2 pretty much suck. They overcharge for everything, including stuff like knives and flashlights. Their selection and inventory sucks, and the gun counter people are supper aggressive, and often wrong to boot. My money goes to Midway when I need parts, KnivesShipFree or Knife Center when I want knives, flashlights from battery junction, Riflegear.com (still local) for guns, etc. I will certainly shed more tears if Midway goes under than if my local shitty gunshop went under. There is no benefit in supporting a shitty business *solely* because it is local.

When 75% of the businesses I try to shop with wont ship to an APO because they don't trust the USPS to deliver (U.S. Postal Service) or some other lame ass excuse, I'll buy what my family and I need from Amazon.

It's a good heart warming story but more often than not these little places I try and support have no interest in supporting me. I'll buy from whoever is offering the product I want at the cheapest price with the best reviews. If the big store offers me the service I need, guess where my money is going.

I DO try and support craftsmen (craftswomen?). Those that take pride in their craft or trade. But simple retail establishments? More often than not they don't care about going even slightly above and beyond for my business.