The concept of helping to support small businesses is not a new ideology for me. In my old neighborhood, I made a point of going to the independent corner stores instead of the corporate convenience stores. (Currently I am missing having a neighborhood with such things.) In my old neighborhood, sometimes I would ask about why they didn’t have a certain product & they would start stocking it (and then I would make sure to buy it there, showing my appreciation, even if it was a little higher priced). I would much rather buy from local clothing store featuring more individualized couture choices than to buy off-the-rack styles that more women across the nation will also be wearing. (I actually prefer if I can just get behind a sewing machine and design my own clothes, but who always has the time for that?) I prefer local restaurants that prepare fresh food to the corporate cookie-cutters that sometimes seem to dominate. In my humble opinion, restaurants that are corporate entities don’t put enough care into what they are serving. Small businesses take better care of their customers. In many cases, people at small businesses seem to care more about their customers, sometimes going out of their way to please, especially for their regular customers.
I am not totally against corporations. There are some things that corporate stores and restaurants better provide. Often corporations can get us better pricing on items we need and that’s great, so we don’t want large corporations to go away, but small businesses are equally important to our economic balance.
Since I did not major in Economics, I will not pretend to get into that subject too deeply, however one doesn’t need to have that much knowledge in order to recognize the importance of thriving small businesses and local economy. Seeing too many abandoned storefronts and empty buildings in a neighborhood is never a good thing. The 3/50 Project recognizes how easily we can all help support our local economy by making sure that each month spend at least a total of $50.00 divided between at least three local businesses that we would hate to see disappear. If more people do this, the better it will be for local economy and small business.
I truly appreciate when someone I know points me in the direction of a small-business owner that specializes in things I might be interested in buying. I have found myself often doing that, even for some products I don’t want to see disappear. I joke about the fact that I advertise things for free sometimes. Really if something is great, how are you going to keep it to yourself?
In comparison to other companies that specialize in spa supplies, I guess you could say The Spa Exchange is a small business. We do our best to please all of our customers. The business that only orders every once in awhile is just as important as the business that orders weekly. We welcome new customers, whether their spa, salon or massage business is large or small, and we will embrace growing as our business grows. We will probably never be as big as the large corporate suppliers, but our sincere interest in providing customer service and being the best supplier to our customers will always remain our goal.
The Spa Exchange
Cheylenna Salter – Regional Sales Manager
