Black Friday beget Small Business Saturday, which, at some point, ultimately led to Cyber Monday.
You won’t find those “holidays” trailing behind Thanksgiving on your wall calendar, but a cursory look at your email (or your TV, or your social media feeds) gives you a loud and clear indication of their purpose: beating you over the head with an urgent message to buy, buy, buy.
That’s how marketing works, but with the Christmas shopping season upon us, the urgency has a decidedly different feel this year. COVID-19 has pushed all of us to become more isolated and more digital. Logically, that has applied to the world of commerce, too. (After all, you don’t need a face covering to pop onto a website and order your significant other that cool gift that’ll make their season bright, and last we checked, none of the dot-coms were requiring social distancing.)
The traditional kickoff to the holiday buying season was Black Friday. Estimates early this week say that Americans spent some $9 billion online that day. That number not only smashed the previous record of $7.4 billion, but it underscores the reality of business in a pandemic: only about half as many Americans visited stores on Black Friday as they did last year.
And while more spending records are great news for Amazon and other retail behemoths with smoothly-navigable websites and easy-in, easy-out e-commerce, it puts more traditional retailers — the independents, the mom-and-pops, the small-town storefronts and the local entrepreneurs trying to make a mark (and a living) — in a prickly spot.
This all serves to send a very rough signal to retailers in Chatham County relying on your dollars to “make” their year.
COVID-19 has devastated many businesses and created a serious health risk in one fell swoop. So sure, it’s a tough call. Go online or go to downtown? Log on, or stand in line at Southern Supreme Fruitcake in Bear Creek? Browse and buy from your recliner or drive to JR Moore & Son in Gulf? Choose from a gazillion toys on Amazon, or find something handcrafted at Pittsboro Toys? Get something run-of-the-mill in response to a mass-targeted email message, or check out creations on display at Fragments (or Fragments Too) in Siler City?
Here’s a suggestion: call that store you used to go to in Chatham, or that place you’ve been meaning to check out, and ask them: can I order from you online? Can I buy gift certificates? What do you carry that I might consider buying for this person on my list who’s difficult to shop for? Do you ship? Can I order on the phone and have you bring my purchases to me in my car as I park outside?
In the world of economics, the pandemic has, unfairly, it seems, been a boon to some and a disaster for others. Winners and losers have been, and are being, sorted out. Along the way jobs and livelihoods have been lost, which means we’re all more careful with our spending and how we’re approaching our holiday gift-buying.
But we also need to be more cognizant and aware of how shopping local, of how spending money locally, benefits us all. Nearly $68 out of every $100 spent in a community stays there when spent at a local business, compared to only $43 for a national chain. Dollars spent locally churn — get re-invested — within the local economy, nurturing and preserving additional commerce.
For some of the “still standing” retailers in Chatham County who are eying the calendar and their account balances with apprehension, it’s make-or-break time. One person ordering this or that odd gift online or outside Chatham won’t be the end of them, but each one of us giving “shop local” a second thought and making an earnest attempt to prop up our local economy — our neighbors — will definitely make a positive difference.
Make Chatham your first stop this shopping season. Keep it local. You won’t regret it.