Ten good reasons to shop at locally owned businesses:
- Significantly more money re-circulates in the Las Vegas community when you buy from locally owned companies and websites. More money stays in the community because locally owned companies purchase from other local companies, service providers, and websites.
- Locals provide most new jobs in the Las Vegas community: Small local businesses are the largest employer nationally, and in Las Vegas they provide the most new jobs to residents.
- One-of-a-kind businesses are an integral part of a Las Vegas's distinctive character: The unique character of any town or region is what people love about it, and what tourists come to visit. Richard Moe, president of the National Historic Preservation Trust, says, “When people go on vacation they generally seek out destinations that offer them the sense of being someplace, not just anyplace.”
- Las Vegas business owners invest in the community: People who own local companies live in the community, are less likely to leave, and are more invested in the future of the city.
- Customer service is better: Local businesses often hire people with more specific product expertise for better customer service.
- Competition and diversity lead to more choices: On the web there are tens of thousands of small businesses that are looking for the best way to ensure innovation and low prices over the long term. A multitude of small businesses, each selecting products based not on a national sales plan but on their own interests and the needs of their local customers, guarantees a much broader range of product choices both in store and on their website.
- Local businesses have a less environmental impact: Locally owned businesses can make more local purchases, requiring less transportation, and generally set up shop in town or city centers as opposed to developing on the fringe of Las Vegas. This generally means contributing less to sprawl, congestion, habitat loss, and pollution.
- Local businesses’ public benefits far outweigh their public costs: Local businesses in town centers require comparatively little infrastructure investment and make more efficient use of public services as compared to nationally owned stores entering the community.
- Local businesses encourage investment in the community: A growing body of economic research shows that in an increasingly homogenized world, entrepreneurs and skilled workers are more likely to invest in and settle in communities that preserve their one-of-a-kind businesses and distinctive character.
- Local businesses give more support to nonprofits: Nonprofit organizations receive an average 350 percent greater support from local business owners than they do from non-locally owned businesses.