EDITOR’S NOTE

The Local Option

Bypassing neighborhood merchants in favor of online providers leaves a community poorer.

Like many of us over the past two years, I ended up buying a lot of products from online providers. Doing so was fast and convenient, and it allowed my household to function during the first phases of the pandemic when I didn’t want to venture out much. I must say, it was nice to have products come to me rather than me go to them.

But over the past couple of months, as I began to re-engage with the world, I saw what a toll the pandemic had taken on local businesses in my town. So, I resolved to buy local as much as possible. That led me to a Stihl dealer when I needed to buy a battery-operated chain saw. When I went through the door, and heard the faded and worn floorboards creak loudly underfoot, I felt like I had walked back in time to the hardware stores of my youth.

Best of all, behind the counter were a husband-and-wife team who knew their stuff. They helped me quickly identify and select precisely what I needed to get the job done. I also noticed a host of local tree-service professionals in line, always a good sign of a retailer’s expertise. Yes, I paid a premium for giving this store my business, but I came away richer for the experience.

That all came to mind when I recently saw a Linked In post on buying local from Kenyon Gleason, president of NASGW. (Here, a tip of the hat to Chris Dolnack of the NSSF, who alerted me to the post.)

Gleason touched on a number of salient points regarding buying online versus buying local. After acknowledging the convenience of conducting online purchases, he noted the downside—that such purchases can hurt a local gun shop. “...folks in our industry please just consider as much as possible the broader implications of ignoring our small family owned and main street gun shops, along with local businesses outside of our industry. When we choose to buy things online, which are available close to home, we are putting at risk a lot more than we might realize. If a local gun shop is relegated to just the ‘gun transfer hub’ because folks are buying all their ancillary products online, what incentive does that business have to remain open at all? I’d prefer not to have them even consider closing the doors. Government regulation makes staying in business hard enough. We don’t need to make it harder for them by doing all our shopping online.”

He also noted that all that money going to online entities does not trickle back into our communities. “Those giant online behemoths are not supporting the local baseball and soccer teams or donating money to keep the fields and facilities looking good. They certainly aren’t paying taxes or employees locally. Those companies are probably not assisting the local American Legion with its programs or the local gun range with new targets or upgraded benchrests.”

But local merchants do just that. Let’s all help keep them in business.