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A grass roots effort has taken shape to put Austin’s locally owned, independent businesses on a more competitive playing field with the national chains. What started as a promotional idea for one business has already gained the interest of several local Austin business owners while many more are expected to “join the movement”.
Think Local Austin is a campaign created by Amber Chisholm (a local entrepreneur) to encourage residents to help strengthen their local economy by Thinking local when they are considering where to make purchases, to Buy Local whenever possible, and to Be local by supporting businesses that keep the community local.
What makes Think Local Austin unique is the coordinated effort amongst local businesses owners to spread the local message to residents. With sluggish sales being seen for many industries like retail and restaurants—many independent business owners are facing the same dilemma. In addition, rising expenses, disappearing advertising budgets and greater competition from national businesses make it even more difficult to grow a successful small business in today’s economy.
Think Local Austin encourages local residents and organizations to shift at least 10% of their shopping to local businesses in the effort to build the local economy and create local jobs.
Businesses owners in cities with active “shop local” campaigns have reported several positive impacts on their business including stronger sales compared to those businesses without a collaborative effort like Think Local Austin.
More than half of survey respondents reported a local campaign increased sales for their business with an average of 9.3% sales growth in 2014 alone. (www.amiba.net/buy-local-campaigns).
“Think Local Austin” is a truly collaborative effort to help raise awareness in the community on the many benefits of shopping locally and to help ther community stand up for their freedom of choice. By supporting giant corporations that dominate both production and sales- people’s options, determined by a powerful few-will be drastically reduced.
Think Local Austin’s founder, Amber Chisholm, says “It’s important for us to maintain our sense of community here in Austin and keep it unique. There are lots of people moving to Austin because it’s such a wonderful place to live, but if we stop spending our money at local businesses than Austin is going to look like a clone town of what most cities look like today–with the same retailers and fast food restaurants all over the place. Not only that, but keeping our dollars in our local communities will help to enrich the entire community.”
www.ThinkLocalAustin.org goes live on Tuesday, June 23rd. The campaign is open to all of Austin’s independent, local businesses and is free to join.
Please direct all press inquiries to Amber Chisholm @ amber@thinklocalaustin.org.
Release ID: 84940