Anyone Shop Local Anymore?

[lohoho]

Like others have said, there are choices – you can choose where to shop, choose who to support, etc. If supporting local businesses is a true concern – considered how to make shopping local fit your budget. If you don’t want to pay $4 for a cupcake, then don’t buy it. Instead buy some flour and sugar and make one at home. I shop local 98% of the time. I shop at PCC and West Seattle Produce for our groceries and toiletries. And let’s face it – PCC can be pricey. But I save on costs by buying clothes from second hand and local shops like Funky Jane’s or buy my furniture/toys for the kids from estate or garage sales. And by doing this, I’m still supporting small local businesses while reducing waste. Win-Win! There are ways to make shopping local more affordable, you just have to be creative and find them.

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[WSB]

Topic very close to our hearts, and not just because we’re a news organization that gets its revenue primarily from advertising (the traditional business model) sold to local businesses …

One thing that has struck me regarding online buying … consider the costs that aren’t money directly out of your pocket, the environmental/sustainability costs, the plastic packing, the cardboard boxes, the fuel burned to fly the items in and truck them to your door. Also, in a similarly big-picture vein, consider that the transportation challenges of getting off and onto the peninsula mean we have a uniquely vested interest in a strong local retail community.

That doesn’t mean a business has a right to exist just because they’re here and we “need” them – they do have to provide service and value that you find worthwhile – but it’s a factor to consider.

P.S. Shameless plug, tonight is Shop Late Thursday in The Junction, which’ll be happening weekly all summer. If you value the opportunity to do some shopping up till 9 pm … go in and tell the participating merchant/s “thanks”! List of participants here:

http://wsjunction.org/2000/06/shop-late-thursdays-summer-2012/

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[Genesee Hill]

WSB:

I agree with some of what you are saying. I generally shop local. True-Value, almost always. I miss the Electric Train Shop. I rarely leave West Seattle for much of anything, the same for my wife.

However.

If you purchase a new hammer that was made in Ames, Iowa or Shanghai, China, the hammer will have to be shipped to your door, one way or another. I can drive to the hardware store and pick the hammer up, or, UPS, USPS, or FX, can drop the hammer off at my house.

Bottom line. One way or another the hammer will have to be shipped from the hammer factory to my house.

Put another way: Pretend there was only one store in West Seattle. Would it be cheaper and more efficient for the store to deliver to each house, or for every person to drive to the store?

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[JoB]

Genesee Hill…

but at the True Value you can find someone who will help you choose the correct hammer for the job and help you make the decision whether the use you will put it to justifies purchasing the commercial grade.

You won’t get that online.

And… it won’t come in a cardboard box filled with packaging which then has to be reused, recycled or trashed.

and at the same time, you can purchase everything else you need to finish your job…

and… bring it home in one trip…

and… you don’t have to wait for it to arrive to begin your project…

btw.. the hammer purchased locally was delivered in one box filled with hammers and limited packaging… delivered by a truck making delivery of several items.

the one you get in the mail isn’t.

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[freerange]

Yes, but that same delivery truck that went to True Value then went to deliver to multiple other stores. When they deliver something to your house, they are also then going on to deliver to multiple other houses, so they are also combining trips. If you then add in the waste of gas to drive to the store even after the truck delivered it to them, well, then you are not combining trips but adding another single-use trip.

Not saying going the store isn’t without merits or advantages, but there are always two sides….

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[JoB]

freerange..

a single use trip that delivers 50 hammers in limited packaging versus one that delivers one in maximum packaging?

you will never convince me that these two trips are equal..

not to mention the fact that for the most part the same trucks don’t deliver to individuals and stores.

Those that deliver to stores are delivering either to one store only or to multiple stores with larger more efficiently packed orders.

as for that single use trip to go purchase a hammer?

i don’t know how it works in your house, but in mine that trip would be bundled with the grocery, the post office and maybe the office supply store with a stop by the local plant nursery … and wouldn’t be likely to be a single purchase expedition…

on top of that.. if i stopped in the junction true value store i would be likely to take advantage of the fact that i was parked and spend some time in the junction too which would likely benefit other merchants.

the built in assumption that purchasers leave their homes and go to a single store for a single item seems flawed to me… especially with current gas prices.

today i will go to pick up someone to help me, stop at St Vincent De Paul to pick up food packaged unsuitably for individuals for Nickelsville, stop by one or all of three SODO groceries to fill out the food bank pickup so meals can be made of them and to allow the person who helps me to do his weekly grocery shopping, drop him off, drop the food off at Nickeslville and go home… all in a single family car that half of the time will contain only one passenger and two dogs.

bundling like that is pretty much a typical shopping trip for me..

and for most of the people i know who are the primary shoppers in their households.

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[Genesee Hill]

JoB:

Back in the good ol’ fifties, the milkman delivered to most houses in my neck of the ‘hood. I think that was a fairly efficient way of distributing dairy products, as opposed to everyone driving to the store.

Certainly, most households back then only had ONE CAR in the family.

And, yes, I am being somewhat facetious when I say “good ‘ol fifties”.

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[kootchman]

That UPS truck is probably saving 50 individual trips. Keeping traffic congestion to a minimum. Say.. borrow your neighbors hammer… that’s a fuel saver. My house is a veritable tool rental without the rental. I remember four of us at a bbq… we had plunge routers… each for a “a” major project, and they still sell em by the hundreds.. Why would a whole block of neighbors each own a lawnmower for the little median strip in front of the house? Learn to share…. and return what you borrow.

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[singularname]

contemporary design store … cupcakes … cool poofy chairs … Who needs it? Furniture on the cheap at the thrift store or Fremont Market. Furniture on the pricey at Chartreuse or a cabinet maker I know who likes to scratch his head when I bring him an idea. So … local or reused. Cupcakes? No way, Jose! (I don’t get the cupcake hoopla anyway. But heck, if you’re cavorting with a 6-year-old, there’s a time and a place. :->) But yeah, I’m lookin’ at about 30 movie DVDs from where I type, so we all got our bugs. I’m in the market for a fridge–Wiesmann’s(sp??) can get me one exactly like I want for a price, but with Home Depot I’d be compromising on like four things I want. Anyone know anyone who makes shoes, though?

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[JoB]

singlularname..

i don’t know anyone who makes shoes..

and i would like to

these feet aren’t made much for walking any more

and the fashion industry doesn’t equate sensible with style :(

i also don’t know where to find an artisan jeweler.

my hands swell too much now to wear my wedding ring

and even though i bought an everyday replacement

i would love to have the ring i thee wedded with reworked

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[hooper1961]

I used Baked and the adjacent flower shop at California/Admiral provide a cake and flowers for a wedding. Both shops did a fine job

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[Author]

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