Are you supporting locally owned business?

[nikonfan]

For me this is a very interesting topic. I try to support local as much as I can and if the store is not gouging. Peachland is a prime example of those issues. We had a bank of Montreal and it left so we all had to go elsewhere and then 20 years later we get credit Union. I have now built a relationship with my new credit union and some of us were givin the gears for not coming back to PEachland. The new credit union split after a few years.
I do not support big box stores. I don't think buying a toaster or pots and pans at a tire and auto parts store makes a lot of sense. Buying fertilizer, bags of manure, garden plants and shrubs at a grocery store to me is strange as well.
I just love going to my local businesses in Peachland and talking to the owners at the pharmacy, hardware store, dentist, doctor, IGA and with our gas still bieng 40 cents higher than the majority of the country driving to WestBank doesn't pay. If I need building material off to Kelowna I go and drive by the Orange Box.
I however do not blame the folks living on ever decreasing paycheques, rising costs and taxes that find it necessary to shop where the money stretches the most. That is the free market!

[Steve-O]

It's very hard for local merchants to even come close to online pricing. Most of the time if you buy something online it's from the same place they'd be buying it too, so in reality you're just cutting out the middle man by dealing directly with the online source.

Going off topic here a bit but I have to disagree with you CA. If you are comparing apples to apples, it is now much more difficult to find deals on line. My example earlier was in regards to mtn bike parts. I don't want cheap Chinese knock offs I want the name brand stuff - you pointed out that cheap chinese stuff is cheap chinese stuff. Sovereign Cycle can get their pricing to with in reason if you add the cost of the online item plus shipping and brokerage charges. Plus I get the item today not 3 weeks from today and if I have an issue, they are there to help. And because I buy from them, I can swing by for tons of free advice and occasionally, service.

I'm looking for a point and shoot camera and can't find one on line for much cheaper than what I could source at London Drugs or Costco (Ya, not exactly Ma and Pa shops but they employ local people). On line retailers have realized they can sell for more and are doing so. I believe you can still find some deals on line for quality goods but those deals are becoming much harder to find.

[blondewithbrains]

If you are looking for a camera & local business to support, you could always go to Lens & Shutter in Kelowna. Not as far as Costco (which uses American based products so you need to check if the warranties will apply) and again you can get more personal service and get questions answered if you have an issue or free advice, like you mentioned in your post.

Going off topic here a bit but I have to disagree with you CA. If you are comparing apples to apples, it is now much more difficult to find deals on line. My example earlier was in regards to mtn bike parts. I don't want cheap Chinese knock offs I want the name brand stuff - you pointed out that cheap chinese stuff is cheap chinese stuff. Sovereign Cycle can get their pricing to with in reason if you add the cost of the online item plus shipping and brokerage charges. Plus I get the item today not 3 weeks from today and if I have an issue, they are there to help. And because I buy from them, I can swing by for tons of free advice and occasionally, service.

I'm looking for a point and shoot camera and can't find one on line for much cheaper than what I could source at London Drugs or Costco (Ya, not exactly Ma and Pa shops but they employ local people). On line retailers have realized they can sell for more and are doing so. I believe you can still find some deals on line for quality goods but those deals are becoming much harder to find.

[Daspoot]

Buying local only works when both ends of the transaction hold up their ends of the deal.

One of the only reasons to buy local rather than online is the instant gratification aspect of leaving the store with the product in your hands rather than waiting days or weeks for it to be shipped/delivered. This means the local shop has to have suitable selection and stock on hand, this is where big boxes excel, along with generally competitive pricing.

Small business has to take a page out of the Big Box book of tricks to survive because those tricks are why big boxes have become so successful.

Consumers are not blindly going to big boxes and shopping online and skipping the same product at the same price locally.

The trick of the matter is to find a niche not filled by big-boxes and fill it, and then to continue to change as the market does.

One other point touched on in this thread is people buying online getting wholesale pricing because they are getting stuff from where the shops get it. This is generally untrue. True wholesale isn't like buying at Costco. If a business is buying from somewhere the general public can also buy at the same discounted price, then their business plan is flawed and they have not made the right wholesale supply connections. True wholesale suppliers rarely show up in a Google search. Generally wholesale costs need to be 10-50% of what a products sells for on-the-shelf depending on if they are value-added or just sold in the same state as purchased.

2 hours at a table with pen and paper will generally prove a business plan viable or not. It never ceases to amaze me how many people fail to do this and end up opening a business that has no chance at success.

[Captain Awesome]

I'm looking for a point and shoot camera and can't find one on line for much cheaper than what I could source at London Drugs or Costco (Ya, not exactly Ma and Pa shops but they employ local people). On line retailers have realized they can sell for more and are doing so. I believe you can still find some deals on line for quality goods but those deals are becoming much harder to find.

I've been buying photo/video gear from http://www.bhphotovideo.com/ for years. Way better prices than local, especially on professional gear.

[Bsuds]

Research to determine which camera will work for you and if you can wait for a sale.

[TreeGuy]

I'm looking for a point and shoot camera and can't find one on line for much cheaper than what I could source at London Drugs or Costco (Ya, not exactly Ma and Pa shops but they employ local people).

Actually London Drugs is pretty close to being a locally owned ma & pa store comparatively speaking to buying out of province/out of country or online. And they do employ our local population and apparently are very good to work for too.

http://www.londondrugs.com/The-Story-of-London-Drugs/LDStoryP1,default,pg.html