Well before the “shop local and shop small” movement sprang up, I’ve fully known and have seen the benefits of supporting a local business. My parents have made a living most of my life out of a small “Mom and Pop” clothing store, a store so small that it’s extremely possible to miss on the way to Kohl’s or Walmart. Yet local people, and one friend telling another friend, have caused their business to both survive and thrive.
The inside and outside of the store aren’t fancy or trendy. There are stores not far from us that are, but that’s just not us or our selling point. We buy inexpensive, sell our items inexpensive, and keep our overhead low. This has allowed us not to raise our prices much when everyone else has had to. After decades in business, we are still the store where you can find a Christmas gift for ten dollars.
We live a few miles from where we have our business. We understand the community we sell to, its concerns, needs, and changing demographics. My siblings and I played sports on the same teams as many of our customers. We often spend time reminiscing with our customers about those times while we help them find their size. We buy our neighbors kids chocolate bars, raffle tickets, and coupon books, all because we love our community and its people. To us it’s not only about making a living, it’s about being a vital part of the place we live.
A few miles down the road, you can find several big chain stores. You can run in and quickly grab the items you need. You don’t have to have any human contact or conversation while you ring up your own items at the self-checkout. Easy, fast, convenient, and making an unknown CEO richer by the moment, someone you’ll most likely never meet and will never know your name.
We have one small, older model register in the corner of our small store. We know most of our customers by first name and if we don’t, we’ll at least offer you a kind greeting and some casual small talk. It’s not rare to hear, “Charlie, that extra-large charcoal colored hoodie just came in.”
During the height of the COVID-19 Pandemic, we nearly shut our doors for good. People weren’t coming out to shop, especially in small places like ours. They were nervous to be in such a small room with a non-family member, even with both having a mask on. In the midst of that long customer drought, we had a pickup truck pull up to our storage unit in the middle of the night. A man exited the truck, carved a hole in our storage and loaded up thousands of dollars’ worth of merchandise. He drove away and was never caught.
Discouraged, overwhelmed, and seriously considering having one last sale just to get rid of whatever merchandise wasn’t stolen before closing down, we reluctantly decided to take our most recent woes to social media. We put up a post about the recent robbery in the midst of the COVID struggles of a small business. In what we would consider a modern-day miracle, that one post totally revived and helped revamp our business.
What happened next always reminds me of the final and heartwarming scene in the timeless Christmas classic “It’s a Wonderful Life.” People came from up and down the island to support us and help us keep our doors open. People and families we haven’t seen in years visited our business to do purposeful, intentional early Christmas shopping. That social media post not only kept our business alive during some dark days, it also reconnected us with a lot of old friends from Floral Park all the way to Montauk. We once more came to understand why small businesses are the very heartbeat of a community.
As the holiday season is rapidly approaching, don’t forget to get out there and “Park Right on Main Street.” There are small store fronts right in your community and mine that are counting on us walking through their doors in the next few months. Some are even praying for a miracle. In some cases, it may cost a few dollars extra to support them, but you are supporting a family that may sit next to you at your child’s sports event or chorus concert.
In my opinion and personal experience, that is money so well spent.
