Steve Mensing, Editor
♦It’s not even Christmas yet in Salisbury, and we’re hearing the desperate bleating of the area’s “shop local” movement. Coming from an actual city (Philadelphia) with real shopping, a virtual cornucopia of worthwhile merchants, back in 2008, the idea of shopping local was entirely alien to me. I don’t recall seeing signs for this movement in large and thriving metropolitan areas. Maybe once on a produce stand at the farmer’s market in University City (a Philly neighborhood).
Recently I visited our nation’s capital Washington, DC, a bustling mega-city with real history and monumental structures. Not once did I see a sign in any of independent shopkeeper’s windows admonishing folks to ”shop local”. Likely most of us we ignore “shop local” signs like empty advertising slogans that flit across the TV landscape. Most thoughtful persons adhere to a natural shopping law, either inbuilt in their DNA and taught them by their caring parents. “Shop for what you need and want at the cheapest prices.” A wise natural law the overwhelming majority of Rowan County citizens adhere to as they avoid Salisbury and shop either on the internet or motor down I-85 to Afton Ridge, Concord Mills, or Huntersville for their important purchases. Some shopping leakage (flooding would be a better term) even goes to Winston-Salem and Charlotte.
What retail shopping remains in Salisbury goes to Wal-Mart, the relatively new Wallace Commons brimming with chain retail, and of course the Tinseltown area. In the not too distant future our Rowan County citizenry will get their deepest desires met when a chain biggie suddenly sprouts up at Summit on Julian Road beyond the taxing and regulating tentacles of Salisbury and its lack of economic vision and forethought. Another stake will driven into Salisbury’s heart when a new retail and industrial mecca likely springs up in long neglected Southern Rowan. This is the result of a new I-85 interchange guaranteed to be constructed somewhere South from Old Beatys Ford Road. Traffic will either flow toward China Grove or to Rowan’s Kannapolis area. Rowan county citizens will be able to save on gas and watch their retail economy grow outside of Salisbury’s reach.
Let’s review natural shopping law to which most human beings adhere. Merchants, who survive and thrive, wisely pay attention to what people actually need and want. Retailers sell those goods at competitive prices. If they don’t, they soon belly up like most bric-a-brac, trick-novelty, and junktique shops that monopolize Main Street in Salisbury. These shops frequently go out of business and now demand to be kept on life supports by building a Central Office on South Main. Their support for the Downtown Central Office has further alienated potential county shoppers who avoid Main Street. Some folks in the county have approached me about spearheading a boycott of Main Street merchants, but I told them: “Why bother–nobody is going down there anyway. They worked hard over the years in keeping the corporate chain stores out and in doing so blocked the one thing that might attract shoppers downtown. Natural shopping law rules just like free market values. Those who disobey natural shopping law die on the vine. Case-in-point: Main Street in Salisbury, the “vibrant” vacancy capital of Rowan County.
Now let’s start disabusing ourselves of the shop local movement’s favorite myths:
• Shopping local is best for the consumer. Not a chance. Shopping local is only advantageous to the independent shop owner and not the consumer who pays higher prices and often above list price to independent retailers. Large chain stores buy enormous volumes of product at cheap prices and resell them to cheaply to consumer. The large chain retailer also operates from the profit motive which makes them look closely at the needs and wants of the consumer so these stores supply more of what the consumer desires. There’s a reason why we go to Wal-Mart, Target, Sam’s Club, Staple’s, Best Buy, Lowe’s, and Dollar Tree–they give us more bang for our buck and exactly what we want. If they happen to be local stores–super they enrich our area’s tax base. Or we do a bee line to Amazon or Half.com on the Internet. Again far more consumer choice and more savings.
• Local independent merchants pump money into the local tax base. Yes, but very little compared to the chain retail giants. Be aware it’s the large chain retailers that lift up Salisbury’s tax base and not these mom n’ pops that add little to the tax base before many flame out. Without the Wal-Marts and other large chain retailers in Salisbury, our city’s tax base would shrivel.
• Corporate chain stores import goods from other countries. Yes and if you examine just about all the local independent shops you’ll notice they sell imported goods or recycled goods from overseas. Where do you think the cloth and many of the raw materials come from to make the goods sold at high prices in the junktique, bric-a-brac, and trick-novelty stores on Main Street? Hint: China, Japan, Korea, Bangladesh, India, and Mexico. Many so-called American Made products are manufactured from materials imported from overseas.
Here’s another wrong-way street the shop locals speed down: If we stopped importing goods and raw materials from overseas, wouldn’t it follow that overseas would stop trading with us? Think of what would happen to our faltering American economy if we couldn’t trade our goods overseas? If you are globally-minded and humane would you enjoy seeing more starving people in China, Mexico, and third world countries? Wouldn’t you rather keep them trading rather than receiving Care packages?
• Locally grown food is better than what you buy at chain supermarkets. Wait a fat second. Wal-Mart and most chain supermarkets buy produce in season from local farms. Just check the bins during the local growing seasons. And most local chain supermarkets also carry locally grown organic fruits and veggies in season. Know too that rapid shipping and quick freezing, at the point of origin preserves much of the produce’s nutritional value. And guess what? Supermarket chains sell food cheaper because they buy large quantities of it. Go to Aldi’s, Wal-Marts, Harris Teeter, and Food Lion. I buy at farmer’s markets too when they are open.
•The big corporate meanie chain stores create monopolies. Okay–where? They are involved in free market enterprise. They compete against each other with joyful abandon and their competitive prices are passed along to us consumers. Right here in Salisbury we see the downtown “shop local” merchants hurting us and our city big time by their monopolistic stranglehold on Main Street. These NIMBYs and their historic preservation allies do everything within their power to keep out competition from chain stores. They are the reason why we are not seeing any worthwhile shopping there and why most people avoid going down there for anything but the eateries and the bars. Love to see a fleet of bulldozers go through there and create a super block or two of suitable for a Trader Joes, a Best Buy boutique store, a Joseph A. Banks, a Mega Books-a-Million or any of the hundreds of other chain stores that make for worthwhile shopping. These stores would attract consumers to our flat-lining main street and might actually help some of the more worthwhile downtown niche stores survive. Instead of confabulating fantasies about our “vibrant” downtown shopping which is looked on with derision by most people, why not coax in some of the big boys and have something that will attract consumers?
•Only the unsophisticated and tasteless shop at big box stores like Wal-Mart and K-Mart. Often the shop local movement puts forth in their propaganda that their pricey shops are somehow elite and sophisticated and they preserve some lofty culture above the rabble who find little interest in high-end marketing. In truth most folks prefer to be guided by natural shopping law–buy what they need and want at competitive prices. This was one of the many reasons why Fibrant’s early ”fine wine” snob appeal marketing failed to make any inroads in Salisbury against Time Warner Cable, U-Verse, DirecTV, and DISH. Consumers don’t want to pay more for badly performing services.
• Locally owned businesses provide better service. Patent nonsense. I’ve witnessed extremely lax service from family members in downtown shops as I have from chain stores. Some of the best service I’ve ever encountered was at Walgreens, Best Buys and Books-a-Million and they are chains. Some of the worst service imaginable has been credited to Fibrant (promotes itself as a locally owned business) and several locally owned pharmacies.
• If you don’t buy local you don’t support your town. More drivel. The big boxers lift the local economy with jobs, pump up the tax base, and provide much required goods and services. The shop local movement preys on the consumer guilt and most resent it, shopping elsewhere. Why should we enrich someone who sells over-priced goods, keeps our favorite retail stores out, and then tries to parasite off our school system for the imagined economic benefit of a downtown Central Office. The county taxpayers might have to pay for this white elephant because of Salisbury’s downtown merchants push to save their own hides.
• A study done by “the Institute of Local Self-Reliance” promotes the idea that revenue spent on locally owned businesses stays in the local economy. Is there a conflict of interest in a study being done by the Institute of Local Self-reliance? Hang on! Employees of chain stores spend into the local economy. Chain stores use area services like HVAC and painters. Who hasn’t seen local owners and their families shopping in Kannapolis and Concord?
• Claims that local merchants create more jobs and better pay locally than chain stores. How many of these shop local stores have family members working in them? Pay decent wages or even supply health benefits? Chain stores possess larger staffs and on the whole have far better labor practices owing to their being corporations and are more liable to be targeted for suits because of their big pockets.
• Large corporate stores don’t donate to local charities. The record of large chain stores in philanthropy is outstanding. Wal-Mart and other mega-giant retailers give many millions away every year in philanthropy.
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