July is Independent Retailer Month: Why You Should Support Independent Stores

This July we celebrate ‘Independent Retailer Month,’ a yearly occasion to support, strengthen, and promote our local social and microeconomy, in other words our neighbor’s small store.

So why should we care?

Contrary to what most of us may think, small business make up most of a country’s GDP. Small businesses provide local jobs. These small stores pay taxes and fees accordingly, thus making the government function, i.e. building infrastructures and giving a multitude of other services.

What about big businesses?

If you haven’t heard of Panama Papers yet, please read up on that. Big businesses enjoy tax cuts, thanks to all their lobbyists and political benefactors. If that is not enough, they can export jobs or even import people to do jobs for cheap. And if that is still not enough, they can avoid taxes altogether by hiding their taxable money in tax havens. Small businesses most likely do not do these sorts of things because they can’t. They do not have enough money to lobby for advantageous tax legislation, or export jobs, or even open up offshore accounts.

What is really killing small businesses?

Big businesses (period).

Tax is undoubtedly very important for a functioning government, but loopholes for big businesses must be closed to lessen the poor man’s burden. Enterprise is a privilege, so big businesses must also pay taxes accordingly just as small businesses do.

Big chains.

Chains of stores in their own niches, i.e. grocery stores, department stores, drug stores, bookstores, restaurants, malls, wherever their put up the surrounding local stores are eventually put out of business.

Here are five reasons why you should support independent retailers:

1. We do not want our country’s biggest pool of talent, hardwork, and manpower wasted and unemployed. The Small Business Administration states that 65% of all new jobs are created by small businesses. Small businesses create full-time jobs. We can hope to meet our nation’s target employment rate with considerable rise in the number of small businesses. This is probably unattainable with big businesses with the way they have to maintain their profit margin.
2. Good jobs and GDP growth come from startups and shootups, which are unfortunately waning. Majority of the businesses in the US are SMEs with at least four employees and are family owned and run. These SMEs are the major contributor to the GDP, not big businesses.
3. A country needs businessmen more than it needs innovators. Innovation usually comes at a high cost that only mostly big business and venture capitalists could afford. Just imagine how many new entrepreneurs would be empowered if they are endowed with as much funding as pharmaceutical R&D’s.
4. Governments should support and encourage small and medium enterprises through favorable rules and regulations and not overwhelm them with such. From 2008 to 2011, an average of 450,000 businesses closes down annually but only about 420,000 new businesses startup per year. Unfair advantage of big business and overwhelming rules and regulations are killing small business.
5. Great life requires a great job or a great business.

Love thy neighbor.

So this July, as we celebrate ‘Independent Retailer Month,’ go to your neighbor’s store, check out their products, and buy. Not only will you be helping out your neighbor, your local economy, the government, but you will also be helping out yourself because the tax goes back to you. Nobody wants taxes to go to the filthy rich guy’s offshore pockets.

Let’s patronize our neighbor’s local shop.

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