JanetLovesSewing

I also live in Southern California. We have several quilt shops in several counties. I shop in stores where people are friendly and do not insist that I buy the latest widget. I also purchase online. Gas and the economy sometimes dictate whether I go shopping locally or buy online.

QKO

Well, not to be too pedantic here, but your stats would be more correct if, instead of making the broad statement implying that a huge percentage of what you spend - "your dollar" - stays in the community -- you had more accurately stated that a large percentage of the net profits gained locally stay local.

"Your dollar" spent locally implies total sales, i.e. gross revenue. Out of that number, at least in fabric sales, a huge percentage of the money is sent elsewhere, as I stated originally.

Of the remaining few percent of gross sales that remain as net profit, I agree with you -- spent locally that profit mostly stays local, and depending on how large you define the "community," the larger you make the "community" the more the profit stays in the "community."

But if you're talking about gross revenue, most of it goes to other parts of the worldwide "community," whether you shop in your local town or shop online.

It really depends on what you're buying - for instance, if you're buying milk, and that milk comes out of a cow down the lane from you and it's purified in a local dairy and goes to a local store, then a very high percentage of gross sales for that milk stay local.

If, however, you're buying fabric, start off with the fact that most fabric is imported from Asia then distributed by distributors not in the local community. By the time it gets to my store, the fabric cost, which, with shipping costs (not paid locally) add up to over 60% of the price you pay for the fabric (or 90% or more if deeply discounted.) Then add in all the myriad other expenses in operating a store, that are paid to non-local entities, and you're left with very little profit to spread around locally.

If you're lucky enough to even make a profit, yes, you're likely to spend those profits locally. And if you pay people to work for you and those people live locally, they they'll most likely spend their paychecks locally.

I don't think we have a disagreement on the fact that if you spend locally, more money stays local. We're just having a misunderstanding on what money we're talking about.

Favorite Fabrics

Good clarification! I also was thinking that there was a problem with definitions of what exactly was meant by "community" and just which "dollar" was being discussed.

IrishNY

I buy online some but am careful to mostly patronize my local stores and local stores when I travel. I want to make sure that I have LQS to shop at and I know they will be gone if I don't spend money with them. They are more expensive - it costs more to have a bricks and mortar location than an online presence. I am willing to pay more to keep the LQS in business. I would not want to have online become my only option for fabric.