Multiply those dollars by shopping locally

December 7, 2012

Want to help your neighbours and improve your town’s economy? Shop close to home.
Hundreds of studies have looked at how shopping locally effects a community’s economy. Most deal with the Multiplier Effect.
The concept focuses on the number of times money circulates in a community, and the effect that money has as it goes from hand to hand.
When customers spend money in a local store – whether it’s locally owned or part of a larger chain – some of that money leaves the community. It’s used for provincial and federal taxes,  to pay for heat, to buy the goods themselves.
But some of that money also stays in the community. It’s used to hire staff, to pay municipal taxes, and to buy supplies ranging from lightbulbs to coffee whitener.
Once it’s spent, that money continues to circulate in the community. The guy who plows the parking lot, or the clerk working at the front counter spend some of their money on local goods and services, which help keep someone else employed. The Multiplier Effect refers to the number of times it goes around the community.
Studies have found that anywhere from 40 to 70 per cent of the money spent in locally-owned stores stays in the community, and each dollar can be spent ten or more times before it leaves.
The longer the money stays in the community, the more jobs it creates and the more everyone benefits.
Shopping where you live helps everyone. And with the savings to be found in this year’s Muskoka Shops guide, shopping locally is even better than ever.
Look here for the full online version of Muskoka Shops.