Shopping local has positive effect on wider community

The push for South West residents to support local businesses in the lead up to Christmas is gaining momentum.

Community and business leaders in the region have thrown their support behind local retailers and businesses.

Forrest MHR Nola Marino said it was important to support the local retail industry.

“The holiday season is when many small businesses work their hardest and employ more locals to meet the demands of the Christmas retail trade period,” she said.

“It is important we back our small businesses which are the engine room of our economy and we can do this by shopping local.

“You can find something special and truly unique locally for family, friends and loved ones to enjoy and the South West has wonderful small businesses offering an abundance of choice.”

Bunbury Geographe Chamber of Commerce and Industry president David Kerr said the realised value to the community of shopping locally was significant.

“For a dollar spent locally the impact of that can be three or four times that of the impact of dollars spent online,” he said. “It is a very good way for people to build their own community and it is an investment choice they can make themselves that allows them to choose to do something positive for their community.”

The Retail Co Bunbury president and founder Cheryl Kozisek said shopping at local retailers gave customers a better idea of what they were buying.

“When I go shopping I have to touch it and I have got to feel it,” Ms Kozisek said.

“I want to see and know what I am buying and that is why shopping local is the perfect thing.

“If you are buying clothes you can try them on, you can see that it fits, you can see the quality of the outfit.”

She said people buying from her organisation’s members had the opportunity to win $5000 worth of vouchers as an incentive to shop local. “We have 91 members and out of those, 61 businesses have contributed vouchers of varying value to our prize pool,” she said.

“We have $5680 worth of prizes in the draw and on the 23rd of December Don Punch is actually going to draw that for us at 5.30pm at Lost Bills.”